Mouses; Laser Versus Optical

I've been looking around and it's quite hard to find anyone who seems to know this for sure.

We all know I'm sure that the laser mouse is capable of a much higher dpi. However I've also heard of some drawbacks.

I've heard that an optical mouse is compatible with more surfaces.

Also that when you change the 'mouse sensitivity' it alters the speed by lowering the dpi of the mouse. I thought this could be true as the razer copper head can be more sensitive than the diamondback. This was mentioned by someone claiming to know the 'old school' gaming days when people wouldn't have the drivers at the lan so would have to use max sensitivity all the time.

Now I don't know one way or the other but I've read too much now that I don't know what's what.


My reason for caring so much is that in the event that the above two are correct this means that:

A - Gamers buying the latest and greatest mice will lose money as they may never set thier sensitivity that high (never fully utilizing the product).

B - There is no genuine increase of accuracy, as the dpi is lowered when the sensitivity is.


Can someone please bring us all down to earth on the subject?

Thank you!

Sorry if I can be more specific.

I've been looking at the razer mouses for some time, in particular the razer diamondback 3g which is meant to solve previous issues between the compromise of low sens' verus dpi.

I like the mice because they fit better in my hand - diamondback, lachesis, copperhead.

So with regards to mouses such as these is this genuinely an issue? Or is it all a big rumour?