How a lot would you usually spend on a mouse? £10? $20? Maybe even £30 if I’d been significantly stung (or ought to that be bitten?) by a dodgy mouse prior to now, nevertheless it must be a actually good one for me to think about spending extra. Indeed, if you happen to thought shelling out £70 for the Asus ROG Gladius II was a bit steep, then the £80 / $75 Steelseries Rival 600 has a fair higher mountain to climb earlier than it begins wanting even vaguely palatable.
Fortunately, there’s technique to its barely mad pricing. If you’ve ever felt like your mouse was too heavy (just like the monstrous Corsair Scimitar Pro), too mild (a la Steelseries’ own Rival 110), or simply not fairly proper on your liking, the Steelseries Rival 600 has a treatment – and that’s eight little 4g weights you may slot into all sides of the mouse, providing you with as many as 256 completely different weight and steadiness configurations.
The weights are available a helpful little rubber case for straightforward transportation, and attaching them is as straightforward as pulling off the Rival 600’s magnetic sides and urgent them into the little moulds beneath. No screwdriver required.
Personally, I typically choose lighter mice due to my tiny woman fingers, and I really bought on completely properly with the Rival 600 in its default, weight-less state of 96g. In this sense, the Rival 600 feels barely wasted on somebody like me, as I simply don’t really feel the necessity to make use of its foremost function.
Indeed, including half of its weights (two both facet) actually gave it a bit extra heft, however at 112g, this was simply on the verge of it feeling too heavy for my tastes, and utilizing all of them collectively to take it as much as 128g solely made it really feel worse. It’s not prefer it immediately turned a lead weight in my hand or something, however I may see my hand getting fairly drained if I saved utilizing it like that for extended durations of time. Still, no less than the Rival 600 provides you that flexibility and freedom to get your mouse weight excellent, in addition to the prospect to make it extra top-heavy, one-sided or put all the additional weight on the rear to fit your weirdly particular mouse necessities.
Its twin optical sensors additionally felt pretty and responsive throughout day-to-day use, and its silicon compound facet grips felt good and cozy below my fingers. I additionally appreciated it had a detachable USB cable, however you’ll have to purchase a braided one if that kind of factor’s your bag because it solely comes with an everyday 2m rubber one within the field.
Likewise, the flexibility to vary its lift-off distance (how far you may transfer your mouse off your mouse mat earlier than it loses observe of the place it’s) meant it was in a position to hold tempo with any frantic or sudden actions. This is the place that second, devoted optical depth sensor is available in, lending the Rival 600 the next diploma of accuracy than every other mouse I’ve used to date. It does imply you’ll must both reconnect the mouse or maintain down its central DPI button each time you apply it to a special floor (it solely calibrates itself for one floor at a time), however total it’s a minor irritation that solely lasts a few seconds whereas it kinds itself out and then you definately’re off once more and every little thing’s dandy.
In addition to its many weights, the Rival 600 comes with 4 additional buttons – three on the facet on your thumb and that aforementioned DPI button just under the scroll wheel. For me, three facet buttons is only one too many for somebody with fingers as small as mine, as I used to be solely ever in a position to comfortably attain two of them at any given time. In my common slumped again grip, the farthest one was utterly out of attain, however transferring ahead right into a extra claw-like grip meant I may now not attain the closest one with out dislocating my thumb.
Indeed, it will seem Steelseries have been solely banking on folks utilizing two at a time, because the farthest is definitely disabled by default once you plug it in. You can at all times assign it a perform utilizing Steelseries Engine software program, after all, or certainly deactivate a special facet button if you happen to’re a life-long claw gripper, however I believe you’d be hard-pushed to make use of all three except you’re double-jointed or have the supple, elastic fingers of a small youngster.
The two nearest facet buttons, then, function as ahead and again buttons for once you’re looking the net, however you may change them to virtually something you want by opening up Engine. This consists of keyboard buttons, macros, media keys and OS shortcuts, or you may even use them to launch Windows purposes or different Engine apps, corresponding to an audio visualizer, Discord, its PrismSync RGB software program, or particular sport apps for CS:GO, Dota 2 and Minecraft.
The DPI button, in the meantime, enables you to cycle between two completely different sensitivity settings spanning from a crawling 100 DPI proper as much as a blink and also you’ll actually lose your cursor forever 12000 DPI. No one of their proper thoughts would ever want or need to use a mouse at that velocity, and most will most likely be proud of its default setup of 800 and 1600 DPI choices, however no less than you may’t accuse it of not having sufficient vary.
You can even use Engine to customize the Rival 600’s eight RGB zones if you happen to so want, turning it right into a Frankenstein’s monster of LED insanity (as seen above, kind of), or simply accept one among its commonplace regular, respiration or reactive key color profiles if you happen to’d quite hold issues easy.
There’s no denying the Steelseries Rival 600 is a pleasant little bit of equipment. Price apart, it actually takes the worry out of shopping for a mouse that is perhaps too mild or too heavy when you get it out the field and begin utilizing it, and its slim, streamlined form and clean end actually does really feel very good below your palm. I’m nonetheless unsure I’m utterly okay with paying £80 for a mouse, even one as pretty because the Rival 600, however if you happen to’re the kind of one who’d quite pay additional for a bit extra peace of thoughts, then the Rival 600 is a tremendous selection.
