needs optical sensor

isnt laser optical?

no
laser uses a similar laser found in laser pointers
optical uses a simple led
for whatever reason, the sensors in laser and optical mice are incredibly similar
thus, laser mice can't take full advantage of what laser can provide
moral of the story?
my intellimouse 1.1 is still more able to track than my logitech g5 second edition

so what comrade should be saying is 'get rid of optical sensor in laser mouse'?

pretty much
laser mice need sensors optimised for the laser light they use

ok you seem to know quite abit about this stuff.
i have a question:
why is it assumed that laser technology is superiour to optical technology?
from what i know, for example if you want to detect surface roughness (or in this sense the change of surface) you use white light (white light interferometers to be exact).
why do we assume using a basically single moded laser would be more accurate then scanning multiple different wave lengths(as the whitelight interferometer does)?

from what i gather, laser SHOULD bring out more detail in a surface, but the sensors cannot pick it up
LED's do a great job of illuminating a surface, but for the most part, overflow light tends to lighten
up otherwise darker areas, and can leave them washed out with little-to-no color information for the sensor to pick up
lasers, being simply concentrated beams with very little spill over, should bring out more detailed, more contrasty images
since the optical mouse inception, very little has changed in the ways of sensors
all marketing hype aside, the only mice really living up to any kind of forward movement involving accuracy
would be the Razer infrared mice(like the deathadder) using the 3G sensor.
--
i just re-read what i posted, and i guess there are points i missed/afterthoughts
i wouldn't know whether or not a differently colored light would make a difference, i think that would really depend on whether or not the sensors of mice are able to capture color information
i read a long time ago on some site where you could get drivers, wire up your own usb to serial connector, and use your mouse as a scanner, i found it fascinating but never did it
like i was saying before, in that very little in sensors has changed
i think the main problem here is that companies like logitech or microsoft are pushing for customer buys, not really fulfilling their products descriptions and offering real performance
what i was hoping to see last year were mice that could take advantage of laser, not mice that do use laser and just crank up the dpi
what laser mice need are sensors developed specifically for that purpose(and can actually take up the job), but i think to do this they would need to increase the data path, and increase the bit-depth of the sensors, so they can fully capture what images/color information is available to them
afaik, mice sensors are on 8-bit colordepth, right?
i can't say i know too much about all this stuff, this is mostly coming from my background as a photographer and image retoucher/restorer

The pictures the sensor takes are black and white (and only 30*30 pixels or less).
The coherent light of Laser should result in higher contrast and MS said that the (incohernet) blue light of the BlueTrack Technology gives them higher contrast pics and better signal quality than laser (violet would be even better).

That's at least for classic image correlation sensors, Cypress (Ikari Laser) uses a different image capture tech and Philips twin-eye (Lachesis) works totally different.

Imho they could make much better sensors but it would be hard for the companies to make money with it. The sensor package (Sensor, Lense, Clip, VCSEL) which is i.e. used by the G9 or Kone costs abaout 5$. If you make a kick-ass sensor which costs 30$ or more it would be really hard to sell the sensor to Logitech, MS, Razer etc. and to be honest the performance of a G9 is good enough for most people.

while all of this is true, i think more should be done than just increasing the area captured(dpi count)
and instead, make use of sensors that provide better detail, not just larger images still lacking in detail
like you said, price does prohibit this, at least for now
dpi increasing aside, i still stand by my stance that mouse sensors(be it on optical or laser mice), has stagnated

5$, plastic around is like 1$ in a chinese factory and transport is like 1$. Thats' only like 900% profit. not bad. btw, hello razer forums :)

laser tech allows for a higher possible dpi. then mouse companies market it as a superior mouse. then hardware nuts are wowed by big numbers rather than actual performance.

both aren't answers.
looked something up myself and apparently laser mice use speckle interferometry, and for some reason (haven't figured it out yet), the laser allows for a higher contrast in the sensor end of the mouse.

times like this, i wish the CMOS sensors in most digital slr cameras were fit for mouse sensor usage
of course, price makes this impossible
i think the main problem with high dpi mice is exactly that, high dpi
these extremely small sensors are being packed with more and more photo-sensors
of course, the images they capture are much larger, but with that the signal-to-noise ratio goes through the roof
higher signal-to-noise ratio = less usable color information
i'd say lots of mousepads are to blame as well, but i don't know too much on that subject to really touch on it

I doubt these CMOS are fit for several thousand fps ;)

and with the high resolution pics you would most likely need a much better DSP

this is true
i used to use a Canon 1D, it did 9fps in sequence shots
but...i think it used a ccd

still looks like one of those NOD command centre mice

hate the look of the G9, but it feels pretty nice to use. havn't been gaming with it at home tho, so idnno.