Cougar Revenger S Gaming Mouse Evaluation

In a crowded, intensely aggressive box of shopper merchandise—let’s assume gaming mice, for instance—status out from the remaining is essential. Craftsmanship and style can take your emblem thus far, however to battle off your many opponents, it’s important to discuss loudly and declare boldly. Prior to lengthy, everyone within the identified universe is shouting, “The easiest solution! Essentially the most correct sensor reaction! The most productive form/buttons/format/lights!” There may be an inherent risk in doing this—that the hype might turn out to be so overwhelming that it sparks purchaser cynicism. Name it the Condo Naming Regulation: if an condo complicated is known as Oak Grove, folks suppose there is no exact grove there. And the corollary is that an Oak Grove complicated inside of a real oak grove does not get any credit score for it. That is why the most efficient advertising walks a high-quality line between undersell and overkill. Which brings us to the $49.99 Cougar Revenger S.

A Mouse Best possible Served Chilly: The Design

The place there may be no doubt overkill within the advertising message (and sorry fellas, the simply foolish title), you additionally get a in reality forged FPS mouse to your 50 greenbacks. That is what you’ll be able to see out of the field…

It sports activities a changed wasp waist, pulling in against the middle on all sides, and bulging quite at the backside correct for a tighter are compatible within the palm. Regardless that black, it is not relatively as matte as many mice we now have noticed, which supplies it a gunmetal grey sheen beneath a mild. Sizewise, it runs with reference to moderate: 5.1 inches lengthy by way of 2.6 inches extensive by way of 1.7 inches excessive. That is just a bit higher than the in a similar way formed Cooler Grasp MasterMouse MM530 ($91.06 at Amazon)(Opens in a brand new window) , and a excellent are compatible basically for a medium or massive hand. At 3.2 oz., additionally it is gentle sufficient to accomplish hastily in real-time action-based titles, some degree we will speak about in our Efficiency segment.

To the ergonomics: the Revenger S has each a horizontal arch and a pronounced vertical one, which can be robust issues. However, the pair of talons up entrance have flat surfaces quite than quite concave ones, as within the Thermaltake Tt eSports Ventus X…

We quite want the latter as a result of they sculpt the buttons to suit the balls of the hands higher, easing pressure. It is admittedly a minuscule distinction, on the other hand.

You’ll be able to’t see it in that symbol, however the Revenger S’s scroll wheel in reality has no ground. Underneath the wheel is the touring floor. It has a rather excellent tread, albeit with an incredibly loud click on. South of this is a unmarried button, set by way of default to DPI Cycle. For our tastes, we want a couple of DPI Up and Down buttons or a two-way DPI toggle transfer. One-way biking makes use of time you would possibly not have to transport from a better DPI surroundings to a decrease one. (We additionally like Sniper Mode for that very same reason why: leaping swiftly between two DPI settings on the press of a button, which the Cougar UIX Machine instrument helps.)

There may be now not a lot to look at the correct aspect, this being a right-handed mouse…

The one characteristic of observe is a rubberized aspect grip. You can be happy to have it when a Royal Guard Charger does his factor in A ways Cry 4, and your fingers begin to sweat.

The left aspect furnishes two buttons…

They are flat, shallow, and with reference to the mouse floor. It is tricky to discriminate between the 2 (or perhaps a button and the skin itself) with out the usage of your thumb tip, and that’s the reason awkward. Normally, we want sharp edges and buttons with extra intensity. The opposite aspect is solely the grippy pad discussed…

The one different focal point at the Revenger S is the mouse’s rubber-coated, 71.5-inch twine. We want braided cable coverings as a result of they offer protection to the wiring higher. Nonetheless, in case you are pushing the velocity perspective with a low-weight mouse, as is the case right here, a rubber coat method much less pull at the unit. You can simply have to give protection to that twine from cuts and critical bending over the years.

Setup and Options

Setup is quite painless with the Revenger S. You obtain the UIX Machine instrument from the product webpage and set up it. We had been in brief thrown when a pop-up seemed on our display mentioning, “The instrument and the firmware don’t seem to be suitable with every different in the intervening time. Sure/No.” This took us by way of marvel, as we were not mindful that mouse setup now integrated multiple-choice exams. Thankfully, “Sure” seemed to be the proper solution, as a result of some other pop-up seemed to display set up growth on a firmware replace.

That is Efficiency, the primary display you’ll be able to see…

It is simple to learn, which is greater than can also be mentioned for lots of different peripheral-configuration utilities, the place darkish grey on black is regarded as a suitable way of life desire. 4 DPI settings can also be saved. Additionally observe the checkbox keeping apart the X and Y axes. It is extremely useful you probably have a widescreen observe, or play some video games the place your enemies come at you handiest from the perimeters, quite than above or under.

The DPI vary for settings within the UIX Machine is 100dpi to twelve,000dpi, even though it is not as though any individual can play a sport successfully above a 4,000-to-5,000dpi surroundings. Alternatively, Cougar’s promoting for the Revenger S justifies its excessive DPI finish by way of mentioning, “Over-marketed as it can be, DPI are nonetheless related in terms of defining a gaming mouse’s accuracy.” Best, they actually are not. That is a type of claims that does not relatively undergo up beneath investigation.

An optical sensor is not like a digital camera’s CMOS sensor. Answer on a digital camera turns into extra correct in excellent section by way of studying a bigger selection of pixels concurrently in a given house, so a better surroundings method higher accuracy. With mice, you are looking at a unmarried pixel’s dimension, and the solution will increase by way of studying what are in impact a better selection of slices of that pixel. The extra slices of it you will have, the extra of them you’ll position in one inch, and the upper the DPI—but it surely handiest impacts pace, now not accuracy. What is extra, because the DPI building up, the slices get ever smaller, like dividing a pie into extra items. You in flip weaken the energy of the sign that the sensor information—till in the end, the sign turns into increasingly more influenced by way of what is known as the noise ground. The sensor starts reporting a mixture of sign and an increasing number of spurious content material, which in reality compromises accuracy. This clarification is very generalized, to make certain, and there are lots of further components to imagine, however base line: extraordinarily excessive DPI is not a easy, 1:1 issue in attaining larger accuracy on a mouse.

The UIX Machine’s Polling Price is attention-grabbing, too, as a result of as an alternative of topping out on the anticipated 1,000Hz, the Revenger S provides 2,000Hz as effectively…

There may be some other inaccuracy: MSI’s Grab GM60 and GM70(Opens in a brand new window) each be offering a polling price of three,000Hz, so 2,000Hz is not the easiest to be had. That mentioned, this all makes us marvel: If a polling price of two,000Hz or upper is such a lot higher than 1,000Hz, why hasn’t it been provided to nice fanfare within the configuration instrument supplied by way of the opposite giant weapons within the gaming peripherals trade, reminiscent of Corsair, Razer, Roccat, or Logitech? The solution: Whilst it could make cursor commute marginally smoother, it additionally will increase the CPU load and may make the mouse stutter. What is extra, any development is trivial at that degree of polling because of diminishing returns.

Perspective snapping could also be presented at the Revenger S, even though as an on/off transfer quite than Mionix’s extra nuanced presentation in its angle-snapping-enabled mice, a linear slider with 15 gradients. It is nonetheless excellent to have, regardless. Higher nonetheless is Floor Calibration, a lift-distance wizard that now not handiest provides 5 pre-configured possible choices, however saves as many new calibrations as you wish to have. This can also be particularly helpful when you transfer incessantly between two or 3 other surfaces and do not need to recalibrate each and every time you turn.

Sniper DPI could be very great to have, as effectively, even though by way of default it is not assigned to any button. We call to mind it as some way of short-circuiting the standard DPI cycle, leaping from, for instance, your fourth saved DPI surroundings for your first. That may come in useful in a sport like Crusader Kings II, the place one 2nd you might be capturing throughout huge distances between the Mongolian steppe and England’s inexperienced and delightful land, whilst the following you might be delving into deeply nested, tightly introduced development menus. Admittedly, the Revenger S handiest comes with six buttons, and simply two you’ll be able to most certainly need to configure—the ones at the left aspect—however it is a nice method to have to be had.

Raise Peak, even though to be had within the 3 flavors of low, medium and excessive, did not do the rest for us. It is meant to forestall cursor motion when you elevate the mouse off a floor, however the mouse hardly ever moved when lifted at any of the settings.

The elemental design of the Key Task display is one we now have favored for a number of years…

It comes to dragging and shedding massive, simply known icons over photographs of the mouse’s more than a few buttons. The number of complicated choices is beautiful excellent: DPIs, Sniper DPI, Mode/Profile Switching, Release Program, and Media.

Macro choices are first rate, too…

The icons around the most sensible of the display are a bit of opaque, however now not inconceivable to determine. The primary instructs the UIX Machine to run the macro as soon as; the second one executes it a user-determined selection of occasions; the 3rd repeats the macro so long as the button is pressed; and the fourth repeats the macro till that button is pressed a 2nd time. You’ll be able to trade prolong occasions, and come to a decision whether or not to document the mouse’s actions, its absolute coordinates, or its coordinates relative to its remaining place. This is likely one of the higher macro editors in the market, despite the fact that it lacks one of the crucial complexities of the Corsair Application Engine or the Swiftpoint Z Mouse.

Here is the Lights display…

We admittedly in finding lights on a mouse nugatory, since your hand will quilt the Revenger S when it is in use—and when you attempt to sneak a peek whilst gaming to recognize all of the beautiful colours, your avatar will die in comical style. Regardless, you’ll make a selection from some of the anticipated 16.8 million sun shades, make a choice pace and brightness, and practice one in all 3 results. Be aware that the UIX Machine lets you practice other lights on its zones for every DPI surroundings you could have saved.

With that famous, we discovered the lights very buggy: Switching between DPI settings whilst at the Lights display ceaselessly left us with white or black squares that had been meant to turn our present coloured zone settings. As well as, once we selected results—reminiscent of Respiring—the lights would now and again revert to Swift (the UIX Machine’s model of Biking), and vice versa. Once in a while a request to modify results on each zones handiest happened on one zone, as effectively. We checked round, and located that relatively a couple of different house owners of the Revenger S had been experiencing equivalent issues.

After all, the controls at the higher left aspect of the display is usually a bit complicated. You upload profiles from the Sport Profile Control button, which additionally allows you to hyperlink any profile to as much as 3 other video games. Each and every of those can, in flip, be accessed beneath the enormous cat emblem, the place it says Present Sport Profile. The ones 3 Mode buttons, above that very same cat? Recall to mind them as sub-profiles, which you’ll change amongst when you set some of the buttons to Insert Mode Transfer from the Key Reassignment display. That is nice for if you find yourself enjoying a sport with mini-games that experience other key and rule units.

Two issues stay to be discussed. First, Cougar has given its new mouse Omron switches rated for a life-time of fifty million makes use of, and a PixArt 3360 optical sensor. We in reality just like the switches, however view the numbers with skepticism, since customers in discussion board discussions incessantly price their high quality by way of the producing country and lot quite than by way of the lifetime declare. In contrast, the 3360 is one in all only a few optical sensors that will get nearly common approval. It is the present one to overcome, and no one’s doing that simply but.

Efficiency Trying out and Conclusion

Very good optical sensor and switches, low weight and wire drag: the Revenger S obviously objectives avid gamers of fast moving, real-time video games, and we would know that despite the fact that wasn’t marketed as such. (Extra about that, in a bit of.) We examined it on 3 titles: A ways Cry 4, DOTA 2, and Skyrim. The mouse proved fast, with little or no drag; and it went the place we would have liked it to head, without reference to the velocity of our actions. It principally changed into an easy extension of our hand, which is precisely what those video games name for.

We did in finding its pair of aspect buttons too flat, on the other hand. It was once tricky to distinguish between them, and even between some of the buttons and the encompassing floor, the usage of the thumb ball. The solution is to make use of the thumb tip, however that stresses the encompassing tendons and its metacarpophalangeal joint—that is the giant one on the base of the thumb. Repeated stressing of this house over the years is not a good suggestion, until you wish to have to individually take a look at the marvels of contemporary hand surgical treatment. (We have now, so we all know whereof we discuss.)

The Revenger S’s ergonomics had been differently sound. It possesses excellent horizontal and vertical arches to supply superb enhance for the hand. We do not like rubber-coated cords on account of the benefit with which they and their cord contents are broken, however at the certain aspect right here, they pull much less at the mouse.

Now we have already regarded as a few claims about this mouse’s DPI and polling charges. A 3rd, that it is “without equal FPS mouse,” is largely unprovable. What makes a super FPS mouse? A topnotch optical sensor, smart ergonomics, or light-on-its-toes motion? Is it that the mouse does no matter you wish to have it to do in FPS titles and different motion video games at each and every second when you play? No longer handiest does this cling true similarly for the Cougar and plenty of competition, however a number of boast the similar components that distinguish the Revenger S: a PixArt 3360 optical sensor, for example, and well-rated Omron switches. If the rest, we will be able to gripe that the so-called final FPS mouse wishes extra obviously distinguishable aspect buttons—now not that we rely this a big factor.

But when we forget about the hype and pay attention to the details, the Revenger S is a major FPS mouse. In fact, the similar may well be mentioned of the Razer Deathadder Elite ($46.99 at Amazon)(Opens in a brand new window) , the Logitech G303 Daedalus Apex, and no less than a couple of different gaming mice touted for his or her FPS credentials. Each and every has its drawbacks that supporters imagine minor, and every jumps all of the necessary hurdles. After all, personal tastes right here come right down to an issue of private style. Take a look at our opinions, cross to a shop, or discuss with some pals who’ve those mice and notice how every feels—and performs. You’ll be able to’t cross a long way incorrect with any of the lot, and that without a doubt holds true for the Revenger S.