I currently have a Razer DeathAdder that I’ve been using since 2013 or 2014, but holding the right mouse button has been flaky lately and also literally five minutes ago something in the mousewheel broke and now it spins differently and fails to register any movement. My previous mouse was also a Razer DeathAdder.
Even though Razer is kind of a trash company and always has been, I really appreciate the ergonomics (especially the size) of the DeathAdder and find the prospect of switching to a different mouse – almost all of which are noticeably smaller or at least look smaller on a store shelf – a little daunting. So I figured I would throw it out there for discussion: what gaming mice are we using these days, especially for the larger-handed among us?
The Steel Series Rival 500 is the only one I’ve ever found where I can comfortably press most of the buttons. There’s only two that are a bit of a stretch and I can still use them if I map them to something that doesn’t need to be done with split second reaction or even better something that I need to be sure I don’t do by accident.
I particularly like the largest thumb button being a downward press toward the desk rather than in toward the mouse body and the fact that it has additional small buttons to press with the first and second finger where I already have most of my mouse dexterity instead of putting all the extra buttons on the thumb.
The profile manager and customization software is pretty decent too.
I’ll be very disappointed if I ever can’t get a new one and have to switch back to something else.
That does look pretty slick. The “pinch” motion on traditional thumb buttons does seem to cramp my hand in games where I spam those a lot (like Warframe, where my thumb buttons are crouch and melee, respectively). It seems to actually be slightly bigger than the DeathAdder, too. I might have to check out that Steel Series, even though I probably won’t bind most of those spare buttons.
BTW, how do people feel about wireless mice these days? I’ve seen some suggestions that they’re on par with wired mice now, although I’ve seen a few people claiming that only applies to Logitech’s wireless mice.
My otherwise fantastic tiny mechanical keyboard puts out an ungodly amount of radio frequency interference in the area directly around it so wireless mouse is off the table (hahaha) for me, but I hear they’re pretty good these days especially if you get one with a dedicated receiver rather than just bluetooth.
I use a wireless (the Logitech G603) and it works well. Of course, I’m not an expert and couldn’t say whether its better than a wired. Supposedly, the USB adapter that you connect to is good enough to keep latency very low. I haven’t had any issues with it, even with the adapter being 1.5m away from the mouse.
They have some other models using the same tech (they call it “Lightspeed”), in various sizes and LED drab.
It seems like Steelseries and Logitech are both popular choices, so I did some additional research and ended up ordering a Steelseries Rival 600, since it was closest in width to the DeathAdder. I’ll come back with my impressions when it arrives.
I used to have one of these mice when I played more arpg’s and RTS games and such, it was perfect.
I’ve since paired down to a mouse with the standard buttons, but if I were ever to play another ARPG or RTS, I’d probably have to go looking for it again. There’s a big difference between having functions on the mouse verses a keyboard
The Rival 600 is what I ended up with. I’ve been extremely happy with it. Button 5 is a little smaller than I’d strictly speaking like, I haven’t found a good use for Button 6 yet, and I don’t love the ridges… But other than that, the size and weight are exactly what I wanted, and the weight is even customizable.
I always felt that the build quality of my Logitech G700s–particularly of the programmable buttons–has always been it’s biggest flaw. Thankfully Logitech freely replaced it twice over the 7ish years. Despite that, it has served me very well. One of the programmable buttons has (inexplicably) broken het again, but I think I am too far removed from warranty for another swap. And so I would be leaning towards the G502 Hero as a replacement. It checks all the boxes I’m looking for, tho I still have concerned re build quality. And am I willing to pay an extra $100 Canadian for the LIGHTSPEED MOTHERFUCKER with the same plug-unplug wireless functionality my G700s had.
I can’t stand the way these things are cynically advertised to wow naive gamers (like me, a decade ago). Who the heck needs 26k DPI and why is it even a thing
