SideWinder Gaming Mouse review
Microsoft received much praise when it released the SideWinder Gaming mouse. Not surprising with t feature set like this:
- 2000 DPI maximum sensitivity,
- on-the-fly DPI switching
- extensive macro recording.
The SideWinder also raised some eyebrows with its odd button arrangements, vertically aligned thumb controls and its ‘unique’ look. So lets look at some of these other issues that make the SideWinder less of a success than it could have been…
It should be born in mind that we all hold a mouse in different ways and, for that matter, we all have different sized hands so your millage may vary from the opinions expressed here.
The sideWinder is a large mouse and necessitates resting the weight of the arm on the bottom part of the arm itself and the part of the hand where it meets the wrist and moving the mouse by swiveling the hand at the wrist. The whole of the surface of the hand will be in contact with the mouse because of its size and it’s bulbous shape so finger-tip control is not on the cards.
The buttons have a mushy vague feel. The thumb buttons are not compromised by their vertical alignment no-matter how odd it makes them seem but they lack precision and responsiveness.
The mouse glides across the mouse mat surface on five runners which are interchangeable with plastic, half Teflon and full Teflon alternatives. You can also utilize a set of different weights including a 5g weight and three 10g weights. You can place up to three of these weights in the mouse at a time in the side drawer mechanism bringing the weight of the device from 126g to 131g, 136g, 141g, 146g, 151g or 156g.
Below the scroll wheel are three DPI switches allowing the user to change the sensitivity of the mouse on the fly. The default resolution settings are 800, 1,000 and 1600 DPI but each of these is re-definable to values from 200 to 2,000 DPI using the Intellipoint software. This means that you can change sensitivity very quickly which is helpful in first person shooter games.
The SideWinder has many useful features but is let down by some very annoying design faults and oversights. The size and shape of the device make it a suitable control device for people of hands of a specific size and mouse handling tendencies for which the many technological features fail to compensate.
