Pre-text
========
Let me just start off by saying that I've only had this mouse for about two days now, and I absolutely love it! In my opinion, it is well worth the high price tag as you will most likely never need another mouse. I've been reading the reviews on it, and most of the complaints are from the software missing certain features that users find valuable. However, with some advanced modifications and tweaks, you can do just about anything you want.
One thing to note about this mouse overall - To get the full effectiveness of this mouse, you will need to use 3 fingers (index, middle, and ring) at all times. If this is your first time purchasing a nice gaming mouse, this may seem a bit inconvenient. However, I assure you that it will take no time at all to adjust to this change. In fact, it only took me about an hour the first time. After doing so, you will easily see the benefit of how well this mouse is designed to fit your hand.
In this review, I will be detailing each part of the hardware and software individually. Feel free to read it all, or simply scroll to the section that addresses your concerns.
Hardware
========
Batteries/Battery Life
----------------------
As stated in the specifications, this device shipped with two Lithium Ion batteries that each get AT LEAST 9 hours of battery life and take only about 2 hours to fully charge. This makes for an excellent solution to making sure you always have a charged mouse that will always remain cordless. Now, when I say it gets 9 hours of battery life; that is being quite modest. Each battery will last the typical user about 2-3 days on a single charge, unless you are literally using the mouse for a constant 9 hours. In any case, so long as you swap the dead battery out with a fully charged one and place the dead one into the charger; you will never need to worry about battery life.
In addition to it's moderate battery life, this mouse has 4 power states that help to increase the overall time you get with each charge. There is obviously the 'on' state which uses the most battery power, followed by an 'idle' state that kicks in after about 5 minutes of inactivity. This state is a low-powered mode that ensures that the battery drain is reduced quite significantly. To exit the state, you simply need to move the mouse or click a button. The 3rd power state mentioned here is a 'sleep' state. Think of this as the same as if you were to put your computer to sleep. After about 10-15 minutes of inactivity, the mouse completely shuts off to conserve battery power. To wake the mouse, you will need to press [any] button as simply moving it around will not work. We then have the 4th power state, which is 'off'. This occurs when you've flipped the switch on the bottom of the mouse to the off position.
I only have one concern in regards to the batteries, and that would be the ability to purchase additional ones. Since I've only had this mouse for a few days now, it's hard to say what the battery life depreciation rate would be. As with all rechargeable batteries, I'm sure these will begin to lose their charge. From a quick review of the Mad Catz website, it does not appear as though you can order additional batteries should you be faced with this problem.
Battery Charger/Wireless Receiver
---------------------------------
I'm not sure if this is actually stated in the specs; however, the receiver for this mouse is also the charging station and as such, is run through a USB cable. The USB cable is plenty long enough for most desktop configurations and the receiver is small enough to fit under most LCD/LED monitors with no problem. In addition, the cable itself appears to be well designed and semi-what heavy duty with a braided cloth surrounding the interior of the cord. Though a little bulky from the extra space needed to hold the extra weights that ship with the mouse, this receiver will fit well aesthetically with most modern desktops.
Mouse - Right/Left Buttons
--------------------------
The standard right and left click buttons for this mouse are fantastic. They feature a rapid-fire design which allows you to click each button with little effort compared to traditional mice. A word of caution; however, is that a heavy hand may cause you to accidentally click the mouse when you did not intend to. When you are first getting used to this mouse, this may seem to often quite a lot. Give it a day or two and your hand should adjust to compensate for this light touch.
Mouse - Extra Buttons (DPI Switch, Mode Selector)
-------------------------------------------------
There is nothing worse than having to pick up a mouse, slide it over, and place it back down again just to ensure that you can move your cursor from one side of the screen to another. In my case, it gets even worse when you have more than one monitor installed for your system. While it may take some time to adjust to, this makes the DPI Switch perfect (among other things). If you need to move your cursor far across the screen, you can increase the DPI and then decrease it once you get there by simply pressing the button - located just below the mouse wheel. This 'switch' is more or less two buttons in one that tilts. Simply tilt the button forward to increase the DPI and tilt it back to decrease. With an indicator on the side to show you what DPI you are at, you'll be sure to master this switch in no time!
As for the mode selector button - well, I'll be honest with you, this one is on the border-line of convenience for me. While it's nice to have 3 different modes to switch to (essentially presets for what you want all of the buttons on the mouse to do), it can be a tad difficult to press or even to tell which mode you're on. With this button being just to the left of the left-mouse button, it can be difficult to click without making an actual left-click. It seems as though the engineers found a slight hotfix for this as the top of the button has a nice ridge for which to press, as opposed to the expectation of clicking the entire button. The real problem comes in when you try to figure out which mode you're on. The button itself lights up a different color for each mode (red, blue, and violet); however, this color is hidden by the fact that the button itself is on an angled portion of the mouse facing away from you. So far as I can tell, the best way to tell which mode you are on is to look at which color is reflected onto your finger when either hovering above it, or resting your finger on the left mouse button.
Mouse - Wheels
--------------
This mouse comes equipped with 2 wheels, a vertical and a horizontal wheel. Both are fairly rugged in their own right, and seem to be designed to last. The vertical wheel features the 'middle click' button, while the horizontal wheel does not. Something worth mentioning here - As an MMO gamer, I often like to switch my hot-bars in-game using the vertical mouse wheel. In the past, I've experienced many mice that have a problem with the vertical wheel "bouncing" back to the closest digit often causing the hot-bar to switch when I did not want it to. Simply put, this mouse does not have that problem as both wheels are given free movement throughout with digit locking that ensures that there is no bounce-back effect.
While this mouse does feature a horizontal wheel, a word of caution is that the software/drivers for it are not automatically programmed to treat this wheel as a side-scrolling function. In fact, the default layout seems to ignore this wheel completely. You will need to enter the profile editor to program what this wheel does. Note: Simply using the left and right arrows as the output for this wheel seems to work perfect for side-scrolling most web pages and applications.
Mouse - Thumb Side
------------------
If you're anything like me, you would like to have a few extra buttons you can press with your thumb; but not 12 of them as other gaming mice feature. That's what makes this mouse perfect! It has a simple design of 2 buttons (namely, back and forward) on the side as well as the famed precision button. You can program any of these buttons (including the precision button) to do anything you would like. Perfect for web-navigation or just that slight advantage edge in your computer games. The thumb rest itself is a well design that will allow you to comfortably sit your thumb down without worry of sliding it around on the surface. Not to mention all of the adjustments to angle and depth of the thumb rest to ensure that there is no strain on your hand from holding the mouse.
Mouse - Pinkie Side
-------------------
As you've probably already heard from the video review, this mouse features a fantastic pinkie rest on the ride side with an angled platform to ensure that your pinkie remains curved while being protected from sliding across the surface; very ergonomic! You may not have a problem with 'pinkie drag' and in fact, you might even think this feature is useless. But let me assure you, after using it for the first time, you will come to appreciate the engineering that went into this simple add-on.
Mouse - Adjustments
-------------------
Well, at this point you should already know about how this mouse is [almost] fully adjustable. You can slide the palm rest up or down, as well as the thumb rest. You can even angle the thumb rest inward/outward as well as adding/subtracting weights to the mouse to adjust the overall movement. The ultimate ergonomic mouse (in my opinion) is not one that is designed, but one that lets you design it. All of these adjustments are easy to make with the small hex key tool that comes attached to the mouse for your convenience. While you may not re-adjust the mouse after it is to your liking, they made sure you won't lose your tool by allowing you to attach it to the device.
Software
========
Unfortunately, as a software developer myself, this section of the review may become biased at some point. This is because; while the software is good in it's own right, it can be made better with some tweaking and modifications to give you the ability to do just about anything you would want.
Driver Installation
-------------------
As is becoming the trend with more users having a home internet connection, Mad Catz does not ship a driver installation disc with this mouse. Instead, they request that their customers visit their website to download the drivers and software. This really is not a large issue, as the mouse itself will work with the default drivers already on most systems. However, you will not be able to program what the buttons do or use the mode selector button without their Smart Technology Profile Editor.
As a software developer, I can not confirm the following issue as my system is most likely different from the typical users'. However, I have noticed that once you install the drivers for this mouse and switch the USB port that is being used, you will need to manually install the drivers again. While this is an issue that most users should not face, it can be rather time-consuming and inconvenient as you will need to reboot your PC each time you install the drivers.
Profile Editor
--------------
Mad Catz has developed a software called 'Smart Technology Profile Editor' that will allow you program what each button on the mouse will do as well as set the slow down speed of the precision button and set the sensitivity of each of the 4 modes for the DPI Switch. The profile editor itself can seem a little overwhelming to the average user; but as I always always tell my clients, you can best learn the software just by changing the settings to see what each does - it's not going to hurt your computer.
The profile editor has 2 important sections - The chosen/active profile, and the 3 modes for each. Essentially, what you are doing here is setting what you want each of the buttons on the mouse to do. You will need to set these for each of the 3 modes displayed at the bottom and indicated by their respective colors (Red, Blue, Violet). The actual profile you choose is one that you have created. For example, I might create a profile for gaming that changes what each of the buttons do. Then those actions might change based on which mode under that profile I switch the mouse to. Then I might have a different profile that I created specifically for browsing my computer and the internet. Again, this profile has a completely different set of modes that can change. I know this all seems confusing, but to put it in simple terms - Each profile has 3 modes, and you can have as many profiles as you want.
The nice thing about this editor, is that you can set each button to do just about anything! You can insert a single key press, multiple key presses (i.e. CTRL+ALT+DELETE), media keys (i.e. Play/Pause, Reward, Fast Forward, etc.), or even set the buttons to a macro (a series of key presses in a certain order, even with a delay between them!) The only thing I've found that you cannot do is set a button that changes your current/active profile. However, Mad Catz made sure to make this easy for their users by including an icon that sits in your system tray which you can right-click on to choose your profile on the fly.
I did read one user's comment about how they wish that the profile would change based on the active program/window. Again, being a software developer, I have created a simple little tool that hooks into the Windows shell to read this information and can then change the profile based on this selection. So it is not impossible, it just simply hasn't been implemented.
Battery Indicator - Separate Downloadable App
---------------------------------------------
Be sure to check this out when you go to download your software and drivers. This little tool creates a nice floating widget (much like the Windows Sidebar) that will hover on your desktop and display your mouse's battery level in percentage. While the profile editor software already does this, it can be rather time-consuming to open the software each time you want to know what the battery level is. In addition, the DPI Switch's mode indicator on the side of the mouse will begin flashing when the battery is low.
Summary
=======
Again, as I stated, this is a complete, comprehensive review. While it may be a lot to read, it should address most of the issues that I feel users may be concerned about. I encourage anybody who has any questions about the product to comment on this review after reading it as it may cover issues that are not addressed in the video review. I apologize for the length of this review; however, seeing as how this is a mouse that cost over $100 (at the time of writing), I wanted to make sure to answer as many questions as possible.
In closing, I will state this - This is, by far, the best mouse I have ever used. It has a solid, slick design that was meant to hold up and provide exceptional performance at a still fair price. As far as mice go, this is a top-of-the-line product. As far as WIRELESS mice go...Well, I honestly don't know if there's a better one out there, or even one that comes close!
| Brand | Mad Catz |
|---|---|
| Item model number | MCB4370900C2/02/1 |
| Hardware Platform | PC |
| Operating System | Windows 8 |
| Item Weight | 1.4 pounds |
| Product Dimensions | 5.35 x 3.46 x 8.9 inches |
| Item Dimensions LxWxH | 5.35 x 3.46 x 8.9 inches |
| Color | Gloss Black |
| Power Source | Battery Powered |
| Batteries | 2 Lithium Ion batteries required. (included) |
| Manufacturer | Made Simple |
| Language | German |
| ASIN | B00A72ZS4Y |
| Is Discontinued By Manufacturer | No |
| Date First Available | November 13, 2012 |
