Gaming Mouse

Here is an introduction to few of the most famous gaming mouse...

MX 518: This is the most popular & perhaps the oldest Gaming mouse. Great for Counterstrike players on a budget. It has On-the-fly DPI adjustment settings (400, 800 & 1600) which let you adjust DPI of the mouse while Gaming. It is easily available in the market & is preferred mainly by Counterstrike 1.6 players. 1600 DPI, & Palm Design. Although there are some issues like Slippery surface (when your palms are sweating), Lack of on-board memory for storing Profile which is crucial in competitions as you don't carry the Driver CD everywhere. It's price is much lower now & it still offers a Gaming Grade performance.
A Must-Buy for Emerging Gamers on a Budget.

There is a newer version of MX518 recently noticed in the market which is 1800 DPI and revamped looks. Its a good buy for MX518 lovers.

And updated Firmware (Vista support) can be downloaded from logitech website.

Bottomline: Its one of the most popular Gaming-grade mouse which oozes Performance. one of the top 3 rankers in the Mouse Benchmarking 2007. For Competitive & Professional Gamers. Casual Gamers might find the Grip slippery after 45mins to 1hr. One of the best Performance-to-price Ratios.

MX518 (comes in 2 versions: 1600 DPI & 1800 DPI):

Microsoft Intelli 3.0: This is an optical mouse and has a palm grip design. This is an update to the MS intelli 1.1 which as Microsoft's first attempt at Gaming-grade mice, it is a performance mouse with an improved ergonomic design & offers a 9000 frames per second of tracking, but has a low Perfect control. The top speed is 1.92 m/s which is easily reached by low sensitivity gamers but if you play at home mostly, you wont find reaching such speeds easily, especially if you usually move hand at moderate speeds. It's been priced lower than other rivals such as Razer so if you want a mouse for non-competitive online gaming or single -player gaming, it ll perform much better than other standard optical mice out there.

Bottomline: Microsoft's most popular gaming mouse, used by many Counterstrike gamers on a budget. Great for most First-person games like Crysis, Bioshock, Fallout 3 and RPG's such as GTA series.
Low top speed unsuitable for Professional gaming, can cause skipping
also, built quality is inferior when compared to other brands like Razer and Logitech.

Microsoft SideWinder: This is the Microsoft's flagship gaming Mouse, very popular among Gaming enthusiasts and was once the top gaming mouse in the consumer level gaming, after competition from Razer it kinda subsided in the background, you wont find it popular among Professional and Competitive gamers these days. The design is very sophisticated instead of ergonomic, the edges are kinda rigid. The buttons for several on-the-fly DPI & sensitivty adjustment are big & strategically placed. There's also a small screen to display the DPI.
Overall, this mouse is kinda expensive for the performance it offers. Even after severe competition from Razer they havent launched any update to it. Otherwise it is has great features, looks very flamboyant. If you game at home or in the office it will serve your needs more than enough.

Bottomline: For Casual Gamers with good budget who do lots of Late night Gaming but aren't into Professional or competitive gaming, a luxury product and not really a performer. It will also make a great showpiece on the Desk.
Lamborghini Gallardo of the Gaming mice.

Logitech G5: It is a premium 2000 DPI Laser Gaming mouse by Logitech which is in the flagship series consisting of other less popular G-series models. Since launched, it's price has fallen has fallen now & u can buy it for much lower price, Overall, it has been designed along the lines of MX518 which also has a Palm grip design, but G5 uses a Laser sensor and has several more features to justify the price tag. Its a laser mouse (Yes, Laser mice Skip much easily compared to Optical mice), but Laser sensors have a much better range of surface compatibility i.e they work on non-ideal surfaces much better and that is one of advantages if you are a Laptop gamer who can do gaming anywhere in the cafes, airports, college campuses. They have also included a Adjustable weight cartridge, (sounds cool right?) to enable better handling which uses different sets of weights which you can add or remove as needed. Overall its performance is much better than most budget level Optical mice but still isnt used by Low-sensitivity gamers mainly due to presence of a Laser sensor which still doesn't perform better than top of the line optical mice. I would recommend this mouse if you are a serious gamer who does most of the gaming on his/her laptop while on-the-go.

Bottomline: Great Built quality, Suitable for most of the gamers: Casual, Serious, addictive gamers. Performance is moderate for first-person games, Adjustable weight gives you better control of handling.

Razer DeathAdder: This is currently the Top Ranked gaming mouse in the world in terms of Performance, Design and Built quality. It has been technically benchmarked above all Others. See This. It has a phenomenal Tracking speed of of 2.92 m/s which even a low-sensitivity gamer might never reach. It has a 3G IR sensor which offers surface compatibility of laser and tracking speeds of Optical (as claimed by razer and observed by users) , although be careful, looking at IR sensor can damage your eyes., but it works on all surfaces hence it is 'nearly' similar to laser sensor. It has 1800DPI which is more than enough for 19" - 21" or resolutions of 1280X1024 to widescreen of 1280X768. But since its the top performer & latest its also very expensive. So go for this if you got the cash & passion for competitive gaming. I wouldn't recommend this for casual gamers as such a high Perfect Control is never needed. You would rather go for G5 if you don't play CS .

This mouse is best for CS Mods, CS Source, Call of Duty 4 modern warfare etc. It has a sweat dissipating rubberized skin. So you can play long hours comfortably. I am using this currently.

It DOES have one important feature missing and that is.... It has no On-the-fly DPI adjustment which even the old MX518 has.

Bottomline: For Professional or Competitive gamers who demand the Best performance, For Right handed-gamers only, design is ergonomic, the grip has a rubberised feel which dissipates sweat unlike Logitech MX518 and G5..which become slippery. ALSO has a MAC OSX edition now.
Ferrari F1 of Gaming mice.

Razer Lachesis : This is the latest mouse from Razer.This has an ultra high 4000 DPI. This has been marketed as a Gaming mouse but its more for Professional designers & It has a very good design. Infact the best design since its a hybrid of Claw + Palm Grip. Its also expensive as its the latest. One of my friend is using it & is very happy with it. He also attracts Attention due to this mouse.

Bottomline: For Enthusiasts who love buying the latest & with best features. It is also a Great performer for Competitive Gamers.

Razer Mamba (Possibly the Worlds Fastest 'Wireless' Gaming Mouse by Razer):
For long time all gamers had become skeptic that there isnt going to be a Wireless mouse with response time as good as Wired mouse and zero lag issues.
finally razer claims they have released a mouse which can prove all skeptics wrong.

Announced at CES 2009, it is a wireless mouse which uses 2.4GHz RF and an integrated battery that offers an impressive 14 hours of non-stop gaming, or 72 hours of 'normal' gaming. It also features DPI and battery life indicators, (feature also found in MS Sidewinder) and a 3.5G Laser sensor which offers an unbelievable 5,600 DPI. This target wouldn't have been possible with Optical sensors which generally have a lower DPI.

All this with a 1000 hz polling rate giving you a 1 ms response time and on-board memory so you can carry your profile settings anywhere without needing to re-install the Driver application.
Now for those who love every feature of mouse except miss the wire they have an option to plug in a 7 foot cable provided. Seems like Razer hasnt left any stone unturned is it?
well, not until you see the price tag of $129, making it the most expensive Gaming mouse out there.

Also, there aint any technical reviews comparing its performance to a wired mouse like Deathadder.