SteelSeries RGB Sensei 310 Ambidextrous eSports Gaming Mouse.
Hexus asked if forum members would like the chance to review the Sensi 310 mouse, having never thought about the point in buying an ambidextrous mouse with being right handed I opted for the right-handed version. Skip forward a week and the ambidextrous version arrived (doh)
Unboxing the mouse was straight forward unlike needing a degree in breaking and entering as you find with some High-end products where 10% of the price went on packaging so this is a refreshing change (my last mouse came in huge packaging with a clear Perspex top showing off said mouse on a display stand)
Having come from a long line of Logitech and finally splashing out on a Razer Mamba 2012 6 years ago I jumped at the chance to get my hands on something new.
Immediate thoughts taking it out the box is the weight, it doesn’t feel like it has nothing much inside, instead it is well balanced and neither too light or too heavy. Being ambidextrous it has the same buttons on either side, I thought this would be an issue and unfortunately it is, so I will need to disable the buttons for left handed thumbs, I am not sure if this is just due to me having big hands or it being a compromise to make it ambidextrous but randomly going page down when I caught it soon got annoying, a week in with the buttons disabled and I am still catching them but now at least it doesn’t cause an unwanted page down!
The scroll wheel is hinged on the left making it harder to press if you use it left handed, my 2012 Mamba is the same but that is right handed, this makes it easier to press if you are a righty but unless you are pushing from the top it is harder to press from the left, obviously being a righty this isn’t a problem but for review purposes I had a fiddle left handed and picked up on this straight away as my left finger normally pushes the middle button so reversing the way I use a mouse showed this as an issue. It may sound daft, but this should be hinged from behind if it an ambidextrous mouse to account for people who push a little from the side due to the index finger being on the left button.
Left and right buttons feel very solid and press easily with no accidental clicks, they should last many years to come being Omron switches, this is the 1st mouse I have had with these switches and the feel is great.
The mouse does sit well in my hand and moves very well on my old fabric mouse mat, it also tracks well with a slight lift and doesn’t care about the odd ripple in my mouse mat, my Mamba falls flat on it’s face quite a bit with an uneven surface. It is almost as good as a wireless mouse due to the flexible cable, it is on par with my retired G9 that I dug out to test against.
After installing the software I was going to set the colour to white to match my G19 but it is still set on auto and I don’t find this offensive at all, not bad coming from someone in his 40’s who is offended by anything RGB and wonders what all the fuss is about when the last thing you do when using your PC is look in the case!
The software is easy to use, I set the speed to 2200 and a slight curve on the acceleration option and it was right where I wanted to be, yes you can set profiles but in all my years I have always found a sweet spot that serves me well surfing the net and having a go in Battlefield (insert number) I would prefer the option to double click the taskbar icon and go straight to the mouse settings rather than having to go via the engine 3 software, it seems a little pointless if you only have a single Steelseries device.
In game the mouse acts as well as my last one did when it used to behave on the mouse mat, tracking is perfect and no perceivable lag was noted, the only thing wrong is the users age and eyesight as I am well aware a bad workman blames his tools, the same can be said about my gameplay, no amount of money makes me a better player but having the best helps
I decided against mapping the right buttons to anything as I didn’t want to accidentally drop a nade at my feet, it would probably come in handy for other functions, but I am trying to avoid them after several page down incidents.
Would I buy this mouse, we’ll no as I am not ambidextrous and found having buttons on the right annoying, my family are all right handed as well.
I will give this a few more weeks of use before deciding if I will go back to my old one, If I can get used to avoiding the extra buttons then I will stick with it but I feel this will only appeal to left handed people as any sane right handed person would buy the right handed version, users who share a PC with a lefty and a righty will love it and have to accept the obvious compromises and lefties will be stuck having to press directly from above to use the middle button, I do think this is a design flaw unless I am the only person in the world to press down with a slight sideways action.
My 8-year-old thinks it’s great, when asked why it was only due to it changing colour but tbh I expected no less from an 8-year-old playing Harry Potter Lego
Thank you to Hexus and SteelSeries for the opportunity to give this a go.