There are quite a few obscure manufacturers that like to play around with mouse designs, forgetting everything about ergonomics and comfort. Weird-shaped mice take the form of funny animals, tools and cars, and just anything you could imagine. While playing with such mice could be fun, the actual usage might not prove to be that entertaining. Anyhow, I think that one should have one good mouse and the rest could go into his/her collectibles stash.

One of the latest less ergonomic, but funny mice comes in the form of a slightly flattened golf ball complete with a specially designed mouse pad that resembles a golf course. The mouse pad features a flag, a putter and a tiny ball, so now you have to slalom your way on the pad.

Goofing around with such mouse and pad won’t serve in any way if you intend to play FPS and other games requiring precision and lightning-fast response times, though the mouse is optical. This set looks like it would be more appropriate as an ornamental gadget lying around the office desk of a golf veteran. In addition to its special shape, the mouse can also light up in several colors, making for a stroboscope and keeping you awake in those lazy summer office days.

No info on price and availability. The guys over at Gizmag might know something about these aspects.

There are quite a few obscure mouse makers out there and I tried to find them all and present their products for you here. But I never thought AOpen would come up with their own gaming mouse.

The newly designed AOpen MMO-310 mouse is a comfortable digital rodent with an excellent ergonomics design. It appears that the AOpen MMO-310 mouse is suitable only for right-handed users. In order to improve ergonomics, AOpen added a rubber coating to the thumb area of the mouse, further improving the mouse control, as well. This is specifically targeted at gamers, especially when the palm is sweating due to an intense firefight in a FPS game or an MMORPG.

Although it is designed for gamers, the optical technology included with the mouse doesn’t seem too fit for a gaming-grade mouse. Nonetheless, it should be good enough for the majority of people who use computers in office environments.

The AOpen MMO-310 mouse also comes with blue LED lights on its top, adding for an overall fashionable design. AOpen’s new mouse is available in three different colors. Details on pricing and availability are practically non-existent for the moment, but the mouse is expected to hit the Asian market this summer.

Although it’s not as big as Logitech, Kensington manufactures some of the best trackball mice on the market, and it’s known for ingenious mice designs, as well. Clearly, the trackball mice aren’t intended for gamers, but there are many laptop users that would find Kensington’s Expert Optical Mouse useful, especially in those places where you can’t really find enough room to operate a classic optical mouse.

Of course, Kensington is boasting a bit saying that this is the best trackball around, but that seems to be the truth if we take a closer look at the Expert Mouse. Designed for PCs and Macs, the new Expert Mouse integrates Kensington’s Diamond Eye optical technology for smooth, precise cursor movement.

Surrounding the ball, there’s a brand new implementation of Kensington’s award winning Scroll Ring technology that puts scrolling right at your fingertips, literally. Plus you get 4 customizable buttons around the ring, too. The guys over at Kensington even provide extended ergonomics, including a soft new wrist rest-right. The Expert also provides full USB support.

Here are some more highlights for the Expert Mouse:

• Largest ball of any of the mainstream, consumer devices
• Great momentum and virtually frictionless rotation
• Detachable wrist rest cradles your hand in comfort

Amazon has this one for about $66.24.

Gamers tend to exploit their mice to the maximum, using them for more then 3-4 hours continuously. While this won’t present a real challenge to your digital rodent, your palm and hand could be experiencing some discomforting situations. Frisby has an interesting solution for these situations – the Cool Fan Mouse.

This mouse is specifically designed to help alleviate the curse of SPS (Sweaty Palm Syndrome) for gamers and Internet surfers via an ingenious ventilation system. The Cool Fan mouse isn’t quite gamer-oriented as it only sports a 800dpi optical sensor. Firsby provides an ergonomic designed that suites right and left handed users alike. Frisby claims that the operation of the fan is fairly silent and can’t really be heard above the ambient noise of a PC system.

You get the usual three buttons and the vertical scroll wheel, a 5 ft long cable and a black/silber color finish. Moreover, the mouse is plu&play so you won’t be needing any drivers as long as you have a free USB port. After inserting the USB plug, the mouse begins to glow with a blue light due to a special LED installed inside.

Frisby’s Cool Fan Mouse can be found on Amazon for about $30.

Not sure what mouse to choose for your laptop? You might have seen something interesting from what I have already presented, but what you really want is portability at a low cost. OK, here’s something that could work for you.

This palm-fit adjustable optical USB mouse is fairly small at first sight. However, the puny rodent knows a neat treat: it integrates a practical “lengthening” component that allows the mouse to become up to 16 mm (0.63 inches) longer. This ability is supposed to lure the travelers who have previously shied away from travel mice because of their lack of options and diminutive size. Your palm is quite large? No problem, this mouse pimps itself up as to fit any palm size.

Here are some more features:

• Retractable Ratcheting cable, you can adjust the length of cable to fit for specific applications. (max. length: 58cm)
• Precise, Using Optical technology
• Double-Click Button
• Compact and light weight

Wait a second, it’s an USB device! Why make a USB corded mouse when everybody has wireless devices? The retractable USB cord is fine, but going wireless is the current trend. Oh, maybe this is some sort of retro-looking mouse. Hmmm, makes more sense now, and it’s only $22.99 over at USBfever.