There isn't much to think about when buying a mouse, but one of the most important aspects is one you can't tell by glancing at the box—how it sounds.
Most Mice Are Good Enough
Mice have gotten better over the past decade or two, but these aren't the kind of tech innovations that inspire headlines and excited YouTube thumbnails.
Unlike most types of technology, many of us can use a mouse for nearly a decade without realizing it. The last major changes to shake things up were the transition from wired to wireless, followed by ditching 2.4GHz USB dongles for Bluetooth connections. Also, many mice are now USB-C rechargeable instead of needing a AA battery. But the numbers we see on a spec sheet, such as DPI and polling rate, largely don't matter to most people shopping for a mouse. This is part of the reason companies are trying to sell us on metal mice instead .
As long as the cursor moves when we expect it to, and the mouse holds a charge, then everything's fine. And quite frankly, these are two things that virtually any modern mouse does well. But there's one aspect of a mouse that you might not think to inquire about—and if you haven't experienced it for yourself, then it may just change how you think about mice.
The Peaceful Bliss of a Quiet Click
Mice have two primary buttons, the left-click and the right-click. Unlike virtually all other computer keys, we refer to them not by their name, but by their sound. When you press down on a mouse, there's a loud click.
While you'll be hard-pressed to find a mouse that's truly silent, some mice are substantially less noisy than others. Using such a quiet mouse adds a touch of peace and tranquility to your workspace. You might not be actively annoyed by the sound of your own mouse-click, but that's liable to change once you experience it mostly going away.
Quiet mice are even more important, and more appreciated, in a shared office space. There, it's not just your own click you need to tune out, but the clicks of a dozen colleagues. This is nothing a pair of Bluetooth earbuds can't solve, but there are always times when our ears need to go unplugged.
I work from home largely alone, but a quiet click is still the kind of thing that helps me determine which mouse I'm actually going to leave on my desk. I have a mouse whose DPI goes all the way up to 30,000 and another one that tops out at 2400 but whose clicks make substantially less noise. I'll pick the quiet one just about every time. Its minimal DPI of 800 is comfortable enough for most of us , anyway.
Bertel King / How-To Geek
Unfortunately, sound isn't a spec you can read on a box. Unless a mouse is advertised as quiet, you often have to place your hand on a mouse to get a feel for how it clicks (or maybe pull up some ASMR videos).
Just as an example, the Satechi OntheGo Bluetooth Mouse is my current go-to, and its marketing materials don't highlight how quiet it is, either. And it's understandable why. In isolation, the mouse has a very audible click, but when placed next a louder mouse like the Keychron M7 (a mouse that is, otherwise, quite excellent), the difference is night and day.
Don't Scroll by the Scroll Wheel
It's not all about clicks. One of the biggest perks of using a dedicated mouse over a touchpad lies in between the two primary buttons: the scroll wheel. Sadly, on many mice, this wheel introduces its own clicking sound whenever you scroll between pages. But scroll wheels can be nearly silent, too! There's something satisfying about rolling your finger down a silent but tangible input that moves what you're seeing on screen. In some ways it's the best of all worlds—the textile feel of a mouse blended with the silence of a touchpad.
Like with the primary mouse buttons, you're not going to know how quiet a scroll wheel is ahead of time. Chances are, a mouse with quiet buttons will also have a quiet wheel, but it's something to keep an ear out for.
Get a Mousepad to Dampen the Sounds of a Desk
You don't technically need a mousepad anymore, since most mice will operate with precision even when placed directly on the surface of your desk or table. But I still personally use one. Not only does a mousepad protect your surface from scratches, but it reduces the amount of noise your mouse makes as it glides back and forth.
That said, I'm not using a generic mousepad with a company logo at the bottom. I've opted for a large, tempered glass pad instead. Not only is it, to my eyes, much more pleasing to look at it, but it is a substantially larger surface area to work with.
Bertel King / How-To Geek
These days you can buy mousepads that cover the entire top of your desk. Either way, you do away with the concern of your mouse running off the side whenever you make a large movement. Though a larger mouse pad does mean more mousepad to keep clean .
In many ways, this is a continuation of a trend. A silent SSD is preferable to a squeaky HDD. Typing on a membrane keyboard is less distracting to others than clanking away on a mechanical one. And clicking on a quiet mouse reduces some of the most persistent sounds that come from using a PC. Make sure to keep that detail in mind when choosing your next mouse.
