SteelSeries XAI Laser Mouse
My vintage Logitech G5 gaming mouse is pretty much as worn out as an optical mouse can be. The pads have worn down, so it’s like mousing through molasses even on a nice mouse pad. I’d just glue new feet on, but the wheel has always skipped, and I long ago uninstalled the Logitech software–their hardware is good but their software is pants. New mouse time.
And behold! After a long wait, SteelSeries is again shipping several lines of gaming mice! So I brought home their XAI gaming mouse. I’d post pictures but honestly their web site does a good job of that, so just go there, OK?
Executive summary: it looks simple and spartan, and does everything a hardcore gamer could want from a mouse (unless he requires a mouse with 15 buttons–they have a different product for that). It leaves me absolutely nothing to complain about and I am completely delighted.
Without any drivers, you can adjust the DPI, polling rate, acceleration, and some other features that I don’t understand[*], and save the settings in one of 5 different profiles. This is on the mouse–you don’t even need software to customize the settings, just pick the mouse up and use the display on the bottom. No more fighting with crappy vendor-supplied drivers–it just works.
The glides on the bottom feel great. The mouse is light weight and has a good shape and texture. (My old Logitech G5 mouse feels deformed and clunky now.) The scroll wheel turns easily without fear of accidentally pushing the button, and conversely you can push button 3 without fear of accidentally turning the wheel. (The exact opposite of my old G5 mouse.) And no, the wheel doesn’t skip.
The motion sensing is excellent. At 5000 DPI it may not be entirely useful for all games, but this is of course adjustable, and you can toggle between two DPI settings at any time. Even in windows I feel more precise than before. It’s tight.
It’s high-performing without BS. A perfect match for the SteelSeries G7 keyboard.
In case you haven’t noticed, I’m really happy right now!
* — Well, OK, I do understand them, they’re the “smoothing” and “jitter + prediction” adjustments, which for gaming on a good mouse pad should be left at 0. What confuses me is that they’re called… uh… ExactAim and FreeMove, ExactSense, and other fun things like that…so… which of these is the smoothing, which is the path correction, and which is the jitter correction? Beats me. Maybe I’ll write a glossary onto the mouse itself.
