We recently reviewed the Microsoft Touch Mouse, and this is the question I had in mind after using it for a few days: Is it advisable to run the Touch Mouse on a single AA battery?

Just like any other wireless mouse, the Touch Mouse also runs on batteries. But they add to the weight of the mouse, and if you aren't used to heavy mice, you might find it difficult in the initial days of usage.

I faced the same problem as I had graduated from a wired mouse to a wireless one. I felt the mouse was quite heavy to move around and decided to remove one of its batteries, and to my surprise, it worked perfectly. Still, I had some doubts about it.

Adam Leader, who worked as a Product Manager for Microsoft, answered my question on Quora. He says:

"I used to be the Microsoft mouse product manager in early 2000s. Not sure about details of the current product line, but here is my $0.02.

At the time, for certain wireless mice the team made it possible to optionally run on one battery so that when batteries ran out an inconvenient time, you could restart work ASAP even if you had only a single replacement battery available.

We recommended using both batteries so that you would have a sufficiently long time between battery replacement that you likely wouldn't remember how long it had been (depended on mouse & usage, but was often 4-6+ months based on the state of the art at the time).

Ability to run with one battery to adjust to personal weight preference is a happy side effect of the design. Shouldn't cause any harm (by the way the things that cause the most harm are drops and spills :)"

I would suggest readers give it some more time and eventually most of you will get used to it.