The Best mice of the moment (gaming, wireless, November 2017)
December 05, 2017
The mice’s have evolved enough in the last decade, from those who used
mostly a ball to track the movement, to the current mice with laser and optical
sensors that work, according to their quality, quite well on almost any
surface.
This guide aims to show several
possibilities that I consider very good in the field of mice. I try to cover various sectors of the
market, from those who want to spend little but receive a good product, to
those who do not care about the price of the mouse in order to obtain the best
characteristics, which will generally be mice oriented to play.
Note: if you see something
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article.
Comparative
table of the best gaming mice
Weight
|
Buttons
|
Sensor
|
Hand
|
Extras
|
Price
|
|
Katar
|
85g
|
4
|
800 PPP optic
|
Left handed right-handed
|
illumination
|
39.99€
|
Rival 100
|
120g
|
6
|
4000 PPP optic
|
right-handed |
illumination
|
29.96€
|
M6900
|
106g
|
7
|
3200 PPP optic
|
right-handed |
20.90€
|
|
M330 Silent Plus
|
91g
|
3
|
1000 PPP optic
|
right-handed |
Inalambric
|
28.69€
|
Orochi
|
--
|
7
|
8200 PPP optic
|
Left handed right-handed
|
Illumination, bluetooth
|
69.55€
|
Harpoon RGB
|
85g
|
6
|
6000 PPP optic
|
right-handed |
illumination
|
29.92€
|
Koban
|
141g
|
7
|
4000 PPP optic
|
illumination
|
24.90€
|
|
Mars Gaming MM4
|
180g
|
19
|
16400
PPP LASER
|
Illumination
|
39.95€
|
|
G203 Prodigy
|
85g
|
6
|
8000 PPP optic
|
right-handed |
Illumination
|
34.95€
|
Mars Gammin mm116
|
134g
|
5
|
3200 PPP optic
|
Left handed right-handed
|
Illumination
|
9.75€
|
Skiller SGM1
|
130g
|
12
|
10800 PPP optic
|
right-handed |
Extra weight, illumination
|
50.91€
|
Mamba Tournament Edition
|
133g
|
9
|
16000 PPP LASER
|
right-handed |
Illumination
|
85.99€
|
G502 Proteus Spectrum
|
121g
|
11
|
12000 PPP optic
|
right-handed |
Extra weight, illumination
|
54.95€
|
M65 Pro RGB
|
115g
|
8
|
12000 PPP optic
|
right-handed |
Extra weight, illumination
|
69.95€
|
Naga Hex V2
|
135g
|
15
|
16000 PPP LASER 5G
|
right-handed |
Illumination
|
86.22€
|
Scimitar Pro RGB
|
147g
|
17
|
16000 PPP optic
|
right-handed |
Illumination
|
87.37€
|
Lancehead
|
111g
|
9
|
16000 PPP LASER
|
Left handed right-handed
|
Illumination, inalambric
|
138.01€
|
G402 Hyperion Fury
|
144g
|
8
|
4000 PPP optic
|
right-handed |
35.99€
|
|
G900 Chaos Spectrum
|
107g
|
11
|
12000 PPP optic
|
Left handed right-handed
|
Illumination, inalambric
|
139.48 €
|
Types
of mice
Currently mice use only two types
of sensors: laser and optical. In the inside both types are the same (optical)
but each has its own advantages and disadvantages, but you can’t say that one
is better than another. The optical sensors use a red LED usually to illuminate
the area on which they have to record the movement. Laser sensors, which are
also optical sensors, use infrared laser illumination to detect where the mouse
moves.
The movement of the mouse on the
screen is based on the capture of images from the surface (they are CMOS type
sensors, like those of the cameras), comparing them to count the number of
pixels that the mouse has moved. It is reflected by the characteristic of
pixels per inch -PPP, in English, DPI, and more precisely it is called CPI,
counts per inch or count per inch, CPP- of the sensor, which is the resolution
of the images taken. In practice, PPPs indicate the number of pixels on a
screen that will move the cursor when moving the mouse an inch on a surface.
Increasing the PPP of a mouse means
that by moving it one inch you can travel much more distance on the screen, if
the conversion were 1: 1. A mouse with a 2000 PPP sensor is enough to run a
1920 x 1080 pixel screen side by side in one inch (2.5 cm). Therefore, more PPP
does not imply higher quality or better. It could be useful in arrangements
with two or three 4K monitors in which the mouse had to move 6,000 or 10,000
pixels to go from one end of the desk to the other moving only lightly the
hand, but in a 1080p desk it serves as little a sensor of 16,000 PPP
Nor can it be said that an optical
sensor is better than a laser, or vice versa. In addition to the sensor PPPs,
quality depends on the specific implementation that the manufacturer makes on
your mouse. The analogy in this case is the cameras of a telephone, in which
two can use the same sensor of high quality, but one uses color filters of
different type and firmware, which in practice can yield disparate results in
terms of quality of the photos taken.
The laser sensors capture with
greater precision the roughness of the surface, and that when processing it
implies noise that is added to the processing of the image, being able to have
an erratic behavior in soft surfaces or fabric. In contrast, optical sensors
with LED lighting capture less surface information and when counting the
movement are better for those soft surfaces, but bad for other types of
surfaces such as glass.
Acceleration
The acceleration referred to in
many mice is intended to vary the speed of movement of the cursor. Positive
acceleration allows the mouse to move more accurately when moving slowly, and
the sensor interprets a greater number of pixels traveled when moving quickly. If
you set a mouse to a high PPP value, you would have to modify the acceleration
downward accordingly or it would be difficult to perform precision clicks.
In some operating systems, and
specifically OS X, acceleration is done at the software level to provide
greater accuracy with slow mouse movements. In Windows it is left in the hands
of the programs of the mice and the games to make this type of decisions (and
to the users), according to the needs that are had.
Increasing or decreasing the speed
of a mouse in operating systems involves making a linear relationship of
increasing or decreasing the number of pixels the mouse reads when moving. In
general it is better to leave the task of deciding the acceleration to the
software and operating system. Some peripheral programs also allow to modify
the sensitivity (movement of the mouse depending on the PPP, acceleration and
surface) on the axes x and y separately, or create speed markers with different
PPP values to adapt them better to each user.
Other
factors
The sensors of the mice can see
modified their acceleration and precision in the pixel count depending on the
surface by which it moves. The mouse's own electronics make unintentional
corrections in its movement, which allows to draw straight lines in the
movement of the mouse.
Sampling speed or simply sampling
(polling) is the speed at which samples of the location of the mouse are taken
to send them to the PC, expressed in frequency (hertz). Since the frequency is
the inverse of the time it takes for something to repeat itself (period), a
sampling of 1000 Hz results in sampling every 1 ms. The higher the sampling
rate, the more reliable the calculation of the mouse position, while the lower
the reliability.
It is usual to change the sampling
to 125, 250, 500 and 1000 Hz, and each mouse and program will interpret these
changes in different ways. Some will make more predictions about the movement
of the mouse, and others will be limited to providing information as it is to
the operating system. In general, it is standard to use a sampling of 1000 Hz
in the mice that are for sale.
Mechanisms
of buttons or keys
Like the keys on keyboards, mouse
buttons also use various mechanisms to perform clicks. Depending on whether it
is better or worse, its quality will have a longer or shorter life. There are
several companies like Razer that also provide in some
models some mechanisms that are practically pressed without force -like the red
Cherry MX mechanics of the keyboards-, which can be an advantage in certain
types of games, and a disadvantage in others.
Generalist
mice
Generalist mice are usually
oriented to an audience that does not necessarily want a mouse to play, so they
may be more interested simply in having good movement detection, be it
wireless, or connect via Bluetooth. You can also look at its design, but in
general these mice, with some exceptions, are not specifically designed to
play.
Economic
As in any other technology product,
the best products can be those that provide the best features at whatever
price, those that provide the best value for money, or simply those that are
more economical and fulfill their function without problems.
In this last section are the
following mice, often sold for specific use as games because they may include a
few colors LEDs, but in general what prevails in these is that they are cheap.
Not everyone has 150 euros to spend on the best mice regardless of the price.
The G203 Prodigy has configurable RGB lighting in the logo of the palm
rest and the sides. What makes a mouse for games according to Logitech is that the finishes of the
buttons and wheel are durable, the lighting, and the sliding of the mouse is
precise.
It has an adjustable sensor between
200 and 8000 PPP - it may require a
firmware update to go up to 6000 PPP-, and with an acceleration of 25 G. It is
designed for right-handers, with the usual left and right buttons plus the
center wheel with click, and adds two buttons for the thumb and a secondary
button under the wheel, all with a customizable function.
Bluetooth
Good mice that connect by Bluetooth
and that can be used without problems with laptops and other devices that have
this type of connection. They are oriented to portability, so they are usually
smaller than normal so they can be easily stored.
Atheris
is a
Bluetooth mouse that uses adaptive frequency technology on the 2.4 GHz channel,
with which according to Razer,
greater signal stability is achieved, avoiding interference from other
Bluetooth devices even in crowded places such as an office or cafeteria.
It uses two AA batteries that can
last for months. The sensor is of the optical type of 7200 CPP -control per
inch, also known as dots per inch-, 220 PPS (inches per second) and
acceleration 30 G. It has an upper button to control the sensitivity of the
sensor, and another two in the left side to move forward and backward, although
they are customizable.
The upper surface of the Magic
Mouse 2 is tactile, with a right click zone and a left click zone. It can be
used to, according to the application, make movement gestures with one or two
fingers that can be recognized as going back and forth, changing desktop in OS
X or sliding within the sale, so it does not have a typical wheel of mouse for
it.
Mice
for gamers (gaming)
Sorting the mice according to the
type of game they are going to use is complicated at times. For that reason
although in this classification I have tried to separate them into three
categories (off-road, FPS / RTS and MMO / MOBA), there will be no big differences
of use in one or other games. Take it as a classification without restrictions,
but certainly a mouse with a 12-key numeric keypad is clearly oriented to the MMORPG.
Sometimes they claim that a type of
mouse grip is better for certain styles of play, and that is why the design of
them is designed for that group of players in the corresponding sector. In part
they are right, but that does not imply that they are bad for the rest of the
games, or that they can’t be equally good.
Many of these mice also include
weights to adjust the mouse to the tastes of the user, and others can modify
their length or the height of the palm rest. Everything aimed at making the
buyer feel completely comfortable with the product he has purchased, and in
elite eSports tournaments is very
important.
Economic
A selection of mice below 30 euros
that can be interesting to gamers.
The Rival 110 is made of plastic
and has rubber side bands to improve grip. What changes between the Rival 100
and the 110 is above all the sensor, which is a TrueMove1 developed by PixArt,
which is 7200 PPP, with an acceleration of 30 G and 240 PPS. It is designed for
the three types of grip usual with the yolks, palm or claw type. Includes a 2m
cable.
The RGB lighting is configurable
through the SteelSeries Engine
application. It has two additional buttons on the left side and one more on the
top, reconfigurable and can be saved in the mouse itself. The buttons have an
estimated duration of 30 million clicks.
All
terrain
They are mice that adapt well to
all kinds of games, either by number of configurable buttons or precision of
the mouse - which as I said does not depend on the PPP-.
The
Kone EMP Roccat
has a sensor 12 000 PPP, with the usual sampling rate of 1000 Hz. The sensor is
based on the 3361 of PixArt, and can
be set in steps of 100 dpi, and has an acceleration of 50 G the positioning of
the mouse is towards the players of the MOBA and FPS.
It has a design with six additional
buttons, to which you can assign your secondary function from the Swarm
application of the company. It includes a 1.8 m cable, and has RGB lighting customizable around the sides of the device.
FPS
and RTS
Mice
for shooting games (FPS) and real-time strategy (RTS) usually require that the mouse
is accurate and fast, perfectly accompanying the movement and actions within
the game. That's why these mice tend to emphasize the accuracy of the mouse
sensor, have some additional button configurable as well as its acceleration, and
the increasingly common color LEDs, either a static color or covering the RGB
range.
The G603 mouse uses the sensor
called HERO, which is of optical type configurable between 200 and 12 000 PPP,
with 400 PPS and an acceleration of 40 G. It uses two batteries for power, and
has two modes of use of high and low consumption, depending on whether you
prefer to obtain the best performance or the greatest possible autonomy. It has Bluetooth connectivity, in addition to
the company's Lightspeed.
It is designed for right-handers,
and has two additional buttons on the left side. It has an internal memory to
save the configuration of the buttons and can use them without installing
anything on any PC. It has a size of 124 × 68 × 43 mm and a weight of 88.9 g,
although with a stack it is 112.3 g, and with two batteries it becomes 135.7 g.
Razer promises with the Lancehead
to
have included a receiver in the 2.4 GHz frequency that has adaptive frequency
technology to keep the connection stable one hundred percent, thanks to
watching the channels continuously in millisecond spaces in search of
interference. It also has a 2.1 m cable that can be connected when the
batteries run out.
It includes a laser sensor of 16,000 PPP and an acceleration of 50 G.
The external design is for right-handed and left-handed alike with two buttons
on each side, and those areas are covered in rubber to improve grip. It also
has two additional on the top, beyond the usual right button, left and the
wheel. Use Razer mechanical switches co-designed with Omron.
The
Basilisk
includes a wheel of the mouse to which its resistance can be configured, to
make easier or difficult to turn it, and it is done by means of a screw in the
inferior part of the mouse. The other special feature of this mouse is that you
can remove and put a lever / button in the thumb area - you can switch between
three possible models - so that, with one click, you temporarily change the
sensitivity of the mouse, to make move faster or slower depending on the game
and the situation.
Having a mouse with a normal
movement and with squeezing the lever and making a quick sharp turn or squeeze
and be the most accurate sniper will be possible with the Basilisk. For the
rest, the mouse is a normal model. It has an optical sensor 5G Razer,
which has 16 000 PPP, acceleration 50 G and 450 PPS, and is among the best
sensors on the market. Includes configurable RGB lighting on the palm rest and
mouse wheel.
The
Pugio mouse is accompanied by several OMRON replacement switches for the main buttons with
varying degrees of resistance, and can be easily changed by opening the lid of
the mouse. It has a design that can be used by left and right handed, with two
extra buttons on each side, plus another below the mouse wheel.
The RGB lighting, configurable
through Aura Sync, is located in three different areas of the mouse: the base,
the palm rest, and the wheel. The sensor is of the optical type of 7200 PPP,
with an acceleration of 30 G.
Ventus X Plus is an evolution of Ventus X. It is a mouse with a design
that says the company has patented, is more oriented to a grip with the palm or
with the buds. In the lower part there are three weights of 4.5 g each of
removes and pon.
It has two buttons on the left side
and one on the top, which by default will be used to move forward and backward,
and to adjust the sensitivity of the 10,000 PPP laser sensor included in the
flight - compared to the 5700 PPP of Ventus
X -. In the palm rest and in the wheel, it includes RGB lighting - another novelty with respect to its
predecessor -, adjustable, like the mouse buttons, through a specific
application of Thermaltake.
The
ROG Gladius II has RGB lighting in the palm rest, wheel and lower part of
it. It is adjustable by the Aura Sync software, and synchronized with the
illuminations of other components and peripherals of the PC. It has a size of
126 x 67 x 45 mm and has a weight of 110 g, and includes a detachable 2 m
braided cable, as well as a standard rubber one meter cable.
A transport bag is included with
the mouse. It includes a closure in the form of a switch to prevent the cable
from being accidentally unhooked while playing. Both cables are USB to
micro-USB type. It is suitable especially for shooting games, and users with
grip with the palm, claw type or with the yolks.
The sensor is of optical type of 12,000 PPP, with an acceleration of 50
G. It has four additional buttons, three on the left side - it is a mouse for
right-handers - and another on the top, all customizable. The third button on
the side, in the rubber grip area, by default serves to change the setting of
the PPP.
The
Glaive RGB
has two models, one in black plastic and one with the front of the structure in
aluminum. It has RGB lighting in three independently configurable zones. The
left grip area is interchangeable, and the mouse is provided with three
different grips: one of rubber, another smooth and a rests thumb. They stay
magnetically adjusted, so they are easily interchangeable.
The optical sensor used is 16,000 PPP, with a non-slip contact
surface. It has three additional buttons - two on the left side and one more on
the top - configurable through CUE, the configuration application of Corsair
peripherals. The OMRON buttons are of high durability, of more than 50 million
clicks.
The
Leadr mouse has the optical sensor called Owl-Eye, which is developed to the needs
of the company by the Japanese PixArt. It has an accuracy of up to 12,000 PPP, configurable through the
company's software in sections of 100 PPP, and with an acceleration of 50 G.
The mouse measures 129 x 81 x 46 mm
and weighs 134 g, and includes a 1.8 m cable, requiring only a free USB 2.0
port on the computer. It has RGB lighting in the palm rest and wheel, and also
has multiple additional buttons, but highlights the lever for the thumb, and a
curious upper fin with side clicks.
The battery is 1000 mAh for a range
of up to 20 h with the lighting activated, and sold with a wireless charging
base.
The
SteelSeries Rival 700 mouse includes an OLED screen on its side that can be
configured with various effects, logos and information, as well as customizable
touch alerts on the palm rest. The cover is interchangeable, as well as the
design of the mouse sensor, which could be changed by others.
MMO
and MOBA
Mice for online multiplayer games
-Massive Online Battle Arena or MOBA, and Massive Multiplayer Online, MMO-
often have a need to have a good number of keys mapped. Much better if they are
within reach of the thumb, taking full advantage of the side of the mouse.
In the case of MMORPGs like World of Warcraft,
between actions of the character and macros, dozens of shortcuts may be needed
on the keyboard. In the case of the MOBA, it is usually limited to five or six
basic skills, and for them there is also a specific mouse like the
Razer Hex 2. The following mice are highly configurable, and good
companions of the MMO.
The mouse MM4 of Mars Gaming,
the sub-game of Tacens, is oriented
to the MMO by its left-side keyboard with 12 buttons, which together with the
rest that it has in its body, reaches the total of 19 buttons. It is a cheap
mouse for these purposes, with an acceptable design and that has a great
response. It is rather heavy, with its 180 g, but of good size and manageable.
The
Scimitar Pro RGB
improves the position of the keys to make it less likely to make an error when
you press them, and has added a texture to several of them. The keyboard can be
moved up to 8 mm to adjust it even more to the user's hand.
It has several lighting zones with
configurable RGB LEDs. It also has a pair of additional buttons on the top, as
well as an adjustable optical sensor between 1 and 16 000 PPP, adjustable in increments of 1 PPP. The braided cable has a length of 1.8 m, and the mouse
weighs 147 g.
The
Razer Naga Epic Chroma is the best mouse for MMO on the market. It has some
features that make it more expensive, for example it is wireless and comes with
a recharging base that acts as a receiver, or RGB lighting LEDs that do not
improve its performance but its appearance. Therefore it is not a mouse for
those who only look for something that works well or with better value for
money, or simply do not look for the best at any price.
It is a mouse with a great touch,
which can also be used with cable. Its panel of twelve lateral keys is
perfectly located, with the keys counting with irregularities in its position
so that nobody can be confused of keys, and that in some games can have
disastrous results.
Eccentricities
The MX
Ergo is a trackball or trackball mouse, in which you do not have to move
the mouse but the ball that is on top of it with your thumb. The inclination of
the MX Ergo can be adjusted up to 20º to adapt it even more to the needs of the
user. Use an advanced optical sensor to track movement, and you can adjust its
accuracy using the button on the top.
It has two additional buttons next
to the main left button, and the wheel has side clicks. It can be connected via
Bluetooth or a wireless adapter in the 2.4 GHz band. It includes an internal
battery whose duration is estimated at about four months, and is recharged by a
micro-USB port.
It can also be used with the Logitech FLOW system, which by
installing a program on several PCs can be controlled with the same mouse
simply by bringing it to the edge of the screen, which will make it appear on
the next computer.
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