some time ago I assembled a listing of eight gaming mice worth shopping for. They ran the gamut interms of layout, customization and, of direction, charge. though all of those mice are nonethelessavailable and i might gladly advise any of them, quite some contenders for the crown have made their debut on the grounds that I posted my roundup. For the past few months i’ve been using the Cougar M550 and the SteelSeries Rival 100 and, while both have loads to offer hardcore game enthusiasts, a “filthy informal” like me additionally observed masses to love.
right out of the box the Cougar 550M is a real behemoth, effortlessly filling my palm and lengthening pastmy fingertips. The first-class element is that my hand doesn’t want to reach across the whole lot to set off the buttons, as the clickable surface extends approximately 2 inches again. This absolutely helpedhold any hand pressure at bay, as I barely needed to circulate my hands to do some thing. Of course, this labored excellent during extra lackadaisical sports like net surfing and point-and-click on video games.
similarly to its size, the 550M is also pretty competitive in look. Its curves evoke extra speed than grace, and the prongs at the front job my memory of a predator’s claws, as befitting the Cougar call. The scroll wheel is treaded like a tire, and inside the center of the mouse is a massive button for converting the DPIon the fly. not like the proper and left buttons, this requires a piece of a forceful push, which is rightbecause you do not need to hit it by chance within the center of a healthy. the one component Idefinitely loved became the thick braided USB twine. sure, it adds to the overall bulk of the mouse,however I appreciated its sturdiness. Plus, it just feels proper to the touch.
The SteelSeries Rival one hundred seems almost dainty in evaluation, with a softer form that fitsconveniently in my hand. however it’s no sensitive flower, either. it’s a solid little p.c., with a clean matte black surface damaged simplest via the sparkling SteelSeries emblem. The Rival a hundred stocks thesame general button association as the 550M: the standard collection of left and right buttons break upby a clickable scroll wheel, plus buttons on the left side of the mouse and a crucial button for adjusting DPI. The Rival one hundred‘s DPI button is a ways greater modest than that of the 550M: The latter is the dimensions of my index finger, while the former is just a sliver.
each mice paintings simply great out of the field, but to get the most out of both you’ll need to down load their respective drivers from Cougar and SteelSeries’ web sites. In a few instances, this could even be essential: An older Toshiba pc jogging home windows 10 determined it failed to need to play qualitywith the 550M, putting the pointer everywhere but where I wished it to be. as soon as I downloaded the driver and restarted the computer, the whole lot turned into peachy.
The Cougar UIX and SteelSeries Engine three software basically offer the equal customizationcapabilities. you may pick the function of each button on the mouse, select multiple DPI settings andpick the color of the lighting. I admittedly spent a touch too much time playing with the lighting fixturessettings on both, partly as it‘s smooth however primarily due to the fact the LEDs are pretty. The 550Madditionally lets in you to set the the front– and lower back–lighting fixtures factors in a different way.however, at the same time as I selected a pleasant turquoise for the Rival one hundred, i ended up goingagain to the default orange-red for the 550M; the swoop of shiny tangerine-colored plastic in the back ofthe mouse greater warmer shades however made cooler sunglasses of blue and purple experienceincidental, weak.
The default settings for the DPI on both mice are adequate, however if you‘re feeling crazy you mayalways crank up the 550M as excessive as 6,000 and the Rival to 4,000. however that’s only if you do notthoughts your pointer skittering all the manner throughout the display screen because you breathed a bittoo difficult on the mouse. excessive DPI sounds marvelous however it is a lot like a digital camera‘s megapixel matter: After a positive factor, matters don’t especially enhance and may even worsen. In my case, the DPI turned into jacked high enough that I had trouble even getting the pointer back at the slider to change it to something greater workable. I eventually stuck with round 1,000 for browsing and 1,six hundred for gaming, because a mouse is like a race vehicle: I need to move speedy, however Inevertheless want so that you can slow down enough to make turns.
Button undertaking is in which the Cougar and SteelSeries UI differ the maximum, and there may be noclear winner. In terms of ease-of-use and visual panache, I desired Cougar’s solution, which gives you a diagram of the mouse and helps you to drop and drag capabilities onto each button. The hassle is that you‘re restricted to the capabilities that Cougar gives you in the menu, which include simple mousefeatures like proper–click on and left-click on, media buttons like play and pause, and some gamer-uniquecapabilities like a sniper DPI button. What isn’t covered is a way to map buttons to specific keys at thekeyboard — which is all I truely desired! alternatively, you need to inn to programming macros, which isn’tprecisely intuitive inside the Cougar UIX. The distinction in accessibility right here is like going from an introductory university course directly to graduate faculty. it’s now not completely indecipherable,however come on.
SteelSeries Engine 3 is a touch more opaque in its button-challenge manner. You get a diagram of the mouse and may click on every button to trade its project, choosing from a chain of drop-down menus. it’snow not precisely the perfect to navigate, however there’s appropriate purpose for that: It consists ofeach key at the keyboard. It took a touch looking to discover the “space” key however I reassigned the press wheel for Papers, Please so I could toggle inspect mode just a little bit faster. The matters I do to make my bureaucratic responsibilities just a little bit simpler.
I used both mice on and off for each gaming and each day use. The SteelSeries has been a satisfactionfor surfing: I like the manner it feels in my hand, and the aspect buttons feel fine underneath my thumb in addition to being useful for going to and fro on the internet. The Cougar is a exclusive be counted.while I to begin with liked the texture of it, it finally felt just a little too massive for lengthy–time perioduse. Even switching to it for a couple of minutes causes some thing in my mind to wig out; it’s too large,it’s the incorrect form, it just doesn’t feel right. Even now, i am using it at the same time as I write thispublish and that i sense a widespread sense of unease whenever I need to transport the mouse.
it is a specific be counted while i used to be gaming with the 550M. I attempted some rounds of Dungeon Defenders 2 with it and the entirety went as a substitute swimmingly. With the mouse, besides. i wascapable of to goal my wizard’s staff and region weaponry simply exceptional, with my largest troublebeing that i’m not brilliant at the sport. but the Cougar turned into easy and responsive and the size justdidn’t trouble me as a good deal due to the fact i was continuously transferring my proper hand roundwhile my left become busy hammering away on the keyboard. If most effective it changed into simpler to reassign some of those keys to the mouse!
I switched to the Rival 100 for Papers, Please. It might not be an motion game, however it may still getquite severe, and there is lots of mouse work in it. In a way it is sort of just like my normal workflow — bouncing among windows, constantly having to appearance stuff up — there may be just far lessfingerprinting and invasive searches at Engadget. The keyboard movement is restricted to 2 togglecapabilities, so it changed into best to be able to simply unload the ones features on the mouse andno longer need to software a macro to do it.
For most game enthusiasts, programming macros isn’t always a massive deal. And they are form of vitalwhen you‘re juggling all sorts of melee weapon assaults and spells and recovery potions and also youwant to get these things executed fast in the heat of struggle. but all lots of humans may need to do ischange a button or two. And whilst the Cougar UIX wins on simplicity, it is SteelSeries that gave me the power I needed, in addition to creating a mouse it is simply extra cozy in my dainty informal-gamerarms.