With laser mice all the rage at the moment SteelSeries add to their own gaming range a very capable optical mouse. Will it be enough to rival the competition?
Product on Review: SteelSeries Rival
Manufacturer: SteelSeries
Street Price: £51.95 inc VAT
The differences between laser mice and optical have blurred over the past couple of years. While many will opt for a laser mouse because a laser mouse is much more precise, in theory at least, and is much better at tracking on a wide range of surfaces while the optical mouse are generally cheaper while retaining much of the laser mice qualities. Both technologies are ‘optical’ in nature with the difference being the illumination type; laser mouse use a laser to illuminate the surface while optical mice use an LED. Enhancements in both technologies are such that the differences are very difficult to measure in real world use. After all, can anyone really make use of a DPI (or CPI as SteelSeries prefer to call it) higher than 3 or 4k? We doubt it. With DPI’s on high end devices now going well beyond 6k, the battle is fought not with manual articulation but merely with numbers.
The SteelSeries Rival is an optical mouse but could quite easily be mistaken for a laser device for the figures match up to many laser devices. Couple this with SteelSeries know how when making a gaming device and the Rival presents us with, on paper at least, a very well specced peripheral suitable for any gamer from any level.
About SteelSeries
Put simply, SteelSeries does not claim to invent or reinvent the gaming industry. Nor do we focus on one specific product, copy other companies or follow the crowd.
Instead we leave it to you, the gamer, our customer/partner/inspiration, to decide if we are deserving of such declarations and accolades. What we do promise, however, is to remain committed to you. We will continue to work with you and the gaming community to make the best products possible and give you that competitive edge. We will continue to do our best to support the growth of the professional gaming industry and give back to the gaming communities. By doing so, we don’t just talk a good game, we win!
Instead we leave it to you, the gamer, our customer/partner/inspiration, to decide if we are deserving of such declarations and accolades. What we do promise, however, is to remain committed to you. We will continue to work with you and the gaming community to make the best products possible and give you that competitive edge. We will continue to do our best to support the growth of the professional gaming industry and give back to the gaming communities. By doing so, we don’t just talk a good game, we win!
Specification
OPTICAL SENSOR
– 50 to 6500 Adjustable CPI
– 1ms Response Rate / 1000Hz Polling Rate
– 200 Inches Per Second (IPS)
– 50Gs of Acceleration
PROPERTIES
– 6 Programmable Buttons
– 16.8M Color Illumination w. 2 Zones
– Soft-touch coating
– Injected rubber side grips
– Cable Texture: Soft Rubber Cable
STEELSERIES SWITCHES
– > 30 Million Click Durability
SIZE & WEIGHT
– Weight: 128 grams (0.28 lbs)
– Height: 45 mm (1.8 in)
– Width: 70 mm (2.76 in)
– Length: 133 mm (5.23 in)
– Cable Length: 2m (6.5 ft.)
– 50 to 6500 Adjustable CPI
– 1ms Response Rate / 1000Hz Polling Rate
– 200 Inches Per Second (IPS)
– 50Gs of Acceleration
PROPERTIES
– 6 Programmable Buttons
– 16.8M Color Illumination w. 2 Zones
– Soft-touch coating
– Injected rubber side grips
– Cable Texture: Soft Rubber Cable
STEELSERIES SWITCHES
– > 30 Million Click Durability
SIZE & WEIGHT
– Weight: 128 grams (0.28 lbs)
– Height: 45 mm (1.8 in)
– Width: 70 mm (2.76 in)
– Length: 133 mm (5.23 in)
– Cable Length: 2m (6.5 ft.)
Packaging & First Look
The packaging of the drive is typical of SteelSeries. Minimalist yet sturdy and attractive, the cardboard box has a matt finish upon which there is a glossy picture of the mouse itself.
Flipping the box over we find SteelSeries have left no stone unturned with all of the major features explained in full.
I nice addition to the packaging is the moulded window which allows the user to get a feel for the shape of the mouse.
The accessories, or rather lack of them, include just a single insert. SteelSeries tell us that these inserts can be made via a 3D printer to personalise the mouse. Sadly, we do not have a 3D printer to hand to show you this but should you have such a luxury, developing such an item would not likely make you stand out from the crowd given that your likely to have your palm covering the backend of the mouse where the insert neatly slots into place.
The mouse itself will be very familiar to those who have held a SteelSeries gaming mouse before as it carries the same low profile shape. I have big hands and this mouse still felt comfortable to use. The mouse is however omni-dextrous with bias towards right handers.
Closer Look
The Rival is coated with a rubberised finish which feels very nice and during testing our hands didn’t slip which we have found happen with mice that have glossy finishes. As you can see from this top down view, the mouse has a bulge to the right which offers great support to the palm. The design however is very much biased towards right handed gamers.
The base of the mouse features four Teflon feet to allow the mouse to glide on most any surface. Sadly, there are no spare feet included with the package which was a shame however the Rival’s laser equipped brother, the Sensei has been used for the past year on a daily basis with no signs of requiring replacement feet so we can forgive SteelSeries for this omission.
The left hand side of the mouse has a large slab of textured rubber to give a non-slip surface. Two large buttons are recessed into the contoured shape of the mouse. The rubber grips are not a sticker, but direct injected moulded rubber for better control and grip. The buttons are a little too large for our liking in that while they are easily accessible and therefore ergonomically sound; we found that during intense gaming session, these buttons were inadvertently pressed on occasions.
Moving to the right hand side of the mouse, again we see the injection moulded and textured rubber making this mouse a very grippy rodent indeed.
The mouse wheel sits in a slight recess which shouldn’t work as well as it does. The wheel itself is unobtrusive and out of the way when not required but responsive and tactile when needed. Thanks to the grooved, rubber finish there is no fear of the wheel slipping and just in case you didn’t know where the mouse wheel sits, it glows any one of 16.4 million colours!
The giveaway for optical mice is the led that sits adjacent to the sensor. This is no cheap ‘burns your retina’ type sensor though because the Pixart PMW3310 optical sensor is one of the best available. It is capable of 6500 DPI which is enough to rival all but the highest spec laser sensors and with true 1:1 tracking, unbelievable precision and accuracy are simply par for the course with this mouse.
The mouse cable is 2 metres long with a thin soft rubber coated cable rather than the fashionable braid. We must confess we do like a braided cable and felt that omitting such luxuries on this device cheapened the appearance a little. The USB plug was not ‘Gold Plated’ either which doesn’t concern us with regard to durability (as we have never had a USB port fail because of a lack of coating) but again, the plain silver plug didn’t look as expensive.
Software
Upon installing the SteelSeries Software we were asked to ‘add items’. The single piece of software will pick up all compatible SteelSeries peripherals such as mice, keyboards and headsets and allow them to be configured through one control panel which we thought was pretty neat. After adding our Rival mouse we were greeted with the above window asking us to update the firmware which after agreeing, the firmware was installed and flashed within seconds.
The main screen is well laid out and very easy to follow. To the left is the list of mouse buttons available which can be configured for any function along with assigning macros. To the right we see two dials allowing both CPI (DPI) settings to be adjusted to our preference.
Perhaps the most fun aspect of the configuration was playing around with the massive amount of colour schemes. Both the logo and mouse wheel can be configured independently to any colour you can think of. If that were not enough, you can set the intensity, ‘breath’ function (pulsing) and speed of pulse too.
Adding to the above there is a set of predefined colour changers which the mouse wheel and/or logo will cycle through if you want a little randomness in your life. The SteelSeries Rival has to be up there with one of the most colour configurable mice there is!
While it was fun messing with the variety of colour schemes, it is important to note that SteelSeries have not overlooked the more serious aspect of mouse control configuration. Sensitivity can be adjusting from 50CPI up to 6500 CPI! Mouse acceleration/deceleration, angle snapping and polling rate are also highly configurable to ensure that your new mouse feels exactly right.
If your keyboard doesn’t have a macro facility, fear not because with the Rival your favourite macro setting is right at your fingertips. Once created (which is very easy), the macro can be assigned to any configurable mouse button.
As well as saving your own profiles, the mouse can be set to load a profile whenever a game or executable is loaded. Fancy a red colour scheme with Crysis or perhaps a dash of orange for BF4? Need to slow down the sensitivity for some RTS? Whatever your preference the Rival allows you to do it and then some!
Overall, the SteelSeries Engine 3 is an excellent piece of software which is limited only by your imagination.
Performance
We test all of our mice over a variety of surfaces: glass, Perspex, wood, metal and a variety of foam weave mouse mats. The Rival didn’t present any issues with any of the surfaces we tested on with the same accuracy and precision found on all of them.
General Use
For everyday testing we completed, well, everyday tasks. We didn’t have any complaints about the Rival as it was comfortable yet precise during whatever task it was asked to perform. To test for precision we used Photoshop as editing pictures on a pixel by pixel basis can be tedious at best and downright frustrating if you have a mouse that cannot perform as expected. Again, the Rival impressed us, not least thanks to loading our pre-configured profile set for low sensitivity automatically when Photoshop loaded. Of course we could have simply switched DPI using the applicable mouse button but this additional feature is still a very neat addition to the package.
Overall, for everyday tasks the Rival performed admirably. If we had a complaint it would be that the side buttons can be depressed a little too easily, often resulting accidental presses which, if there is a macro assigned to said button, could lead to frustration. Other than that though, the mouse was a pleasure to use.
Gaming
FPS gaming was sublime with the Rival. We all have our own little trick macros and configuring the mouse before use was a cinch. Within minutes we were up and running on our favourite games fragging away like we had been using the mouse for months, if not years which, in our opinion is the sign of a great mouse. IF it feels ‘right’ you will not notice it and your gameplay will inevitably improve as everything will be instinctive rather than forced. The Rival simply felt natural; perhaps it could even be described as ergonomically perfect. Obviously this will depend greatly on whether you like a mouse that is controlled by the fingers or the palm. We tried both ways and found the Rival to be equally use full regardless of your posture.
RTS gaming was equally good. While there are certainly better mice on the market for RTS gaming, The Rival performed as well as any other FPS orientated mouse on the market. Our criticism is perhaps due to the lack of buttons on the Rival but to make up for this shortfall, the Macro facility would certainly prove useful for assigning groups, calling up reinforcements or casting that all important spell.
Overall, we found the Rival to be a very well equipped mouse but most importantly, a very comfortable mouse to use whether it’s for general use or gaming.
Conclusion
We labelled the SteelSeries Sensei the best mouse on the planet bar none. We should amend that title to the best laser mouse on the planet because with the Rival the Sensei is not quite the master it once was. Now, we are not for one moment saying the Rival is a better mouse, it isn’t but it does offer a very capable alternative to SteelSeries flagship offering. Replacing the ultra high end laser senser found on the Sensei with an optical sensor will likely be scoffed by the elitist among the gaming fraternity but should you wish to save a few quid, the Rival offers not just a cheaper option but an option that is best in its own class and dare we say it, even outperform many laser mice on the market. You see, there is so much emphasis placed on the sensor that so much about the mouse is lost. Think of it like putting a V10 engine in a Kia. It just doesn’t work as it should. Not a fault of the engine you understand but because the end product has to be balanced and he Rival not only has balance but also poise and performance by the bucket load.Perhaps the most striking feature of the Rival though is not its high spec optical sensor not the multitude of configurable options which by the way will keep you busy for hours. No, it’s the anonymity of the mouse which we think is the Rival’s most valuable feature. While all the trimmings make the overall package a more attractive proposition it is the fact that the mouse just feels right in use. It’s grippy, precise and it feels natural in your hand. It’s fairly priced, lightweight and stunning to look at from every angle.
Yes there are higher specced mice out there but these cost considerably more and tend to lean towards one genre of gaming over another. The SteelSeries Rival does not pretend to be something it is not. It is the people’s champion, the kind of mouse that would not have any qualms about turning up to a posh dinner in jeans and t-shirt, knowing it has nothing to prove. Not that it doesn’t have it where it counts you understand, it just doesn’t shout from the roof tops about it. Instead everything about the Rival is kept in reserve. In short, the SteelSeries Rival is everything we want to see in a mouse and for this reason we are awarding it our Gold & Performance Awards.
To summarise:
If you are on the lookout for an optical mouse that is as discreet or in your face as you want it to be then the SteelSeries Rival comes with our highest recommendation.
Pros
+ Very comfortable in prolonged use (right handers)
+ Highly Customisable
+ Textured, rubber non-slip surfaces
+ Fairly priced
Cons
– Lack of accessories
– non-braided cable
+ Very comfortable in prolonged use (right handers)
+ Highly Customisable
+ Textured, rubber non-slip surfaces
+ Fairly priced
Cons
– Lack of accessories
– non-braided cable
Click here for an explanation of our awards at Vortez.net.
