The WOW-PEN Joy joins the alternative mouse market

If you spend long hours slaving over a hot keyboard, the latest vertically orientated mouse from WOW Technology might be worth a look. Mice designed to keep the wrist in the more natural handshake position are being pitched as ergonomically superior to lie-flat mouse and we were surprised to find so many variations on the theme – others worthwhile checking out include the 3M Renaissance (formerly Animax), the Evoluent VerticalMouse, the E-Quill-AirO2bic mouse, and the Zero Tension Mouse.

The WOW-PEN Joy fits amongst the aforementioned group, but if you’re looking for a more efficient and comfortable method of controlling your cursor, there’s a growing group of products where cursor control mechanisms are integrated into wrist-rests such as the Bar Mouse, Roller Mouse Pro and Trackbar Emotion and foot-controlled mice such as Footime and No Hands.

Logically, the more natural handshake position is less stressful on the arm, and even Microsoft, better known for its software but also the largest producer of cursor control devices in the world, has slowly but surely raised the angles of its mice to more vertical over the last few years.

The WOW-PEN Joy’ recently won the computer accessories category of the prestigious ‘red dot design award 2008’.

The WOW-PEN Joy launched in the Korean market this month, and is expected to be available globally by the end of July, with ballpark pricing being USD$30 in the U.S. and USD$45 for Europe. It connects via USB, has product dimension of 72(W) x 102(D) x 85mm(H), and weighs 130g. It provides full function with 5 default buttons, resolution of 800 dpi, and operates on all OS including Windows 98/Me/2000, XP, Vista, Mac OS X+, and Linux.

Brian H Joe, CEO of WOW Technology, said: “Beginning with our new product, we will be launching other variety of products such as wireless type, children’s mouse, and left-handed mouse.”