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Microsoft SideWinder
Microsoft's history with gaming peripherals is a long but not entirely successful one. Microsoft released numerous gamepads, joysticks, and other devices for PC gaming, under its SideWinder brand, in the late 1990s and the early years of the 21st century but ceased production on them in 2003, reportedly due to poor sales. Now, however, Microsoft has decided to relaunch its SideWinder brand and has started with the eponymous SideWinder gaming mouse.
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Click here to read our review of the Microsoft SideWinder.
- 2,000 maximum dpi
- 500Hz maximum polling
- 45 inches per second
- RRP: AU$129.95
Features/Ergonomics
The SideWinder has an interesting design that was reportedly inspired by the character of Master Chief in the Halo games. Its body is pretty friendly in ergonomic terms, with a nice length and a fairly high hump for you to rest your palm on. Unlike most mice, gaming or otherwise, the side buttons here are stacked on top of each other, which will likely result in easier access to them in gaming sessions without the need to shift your grip or your thumb backward and forward to reach both of them. They are placed fairly far forward on the mouse, though, which can make it difficult to hover your thumb over the side buttons while also putting your middle finger in a position where it's easy to use the scroll wheel. Speaking of the scroll wheel, luckily the SideWinder doesn't have a tilt wheel, which made the Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer almost unusable for gaming applications; the scroll wheel here is nicely textured to prevent slippage and is nice and wide to boot.
Like the Logitech G9, the Sidewinder comes with a weighting system that can be used to adjust the feel of the mouse. Anywhere from five to 30 grams of weight can be added to the mouse to customise the movement; these weights are stored in a small, heavy box that comes with the mouse, which you can slip your mouse cord through to anchor it if you don't already use mouse clips of some sort.
One of the oddest features of the SideWinder is the interchangeable feet that come in the same box as the weights. There are three sets of mouse feet that can be popped off the mouse and switched around according to your preference: a set of Teflon feet, a plain plastic set, and a set that's a mixture of Teflon and non-Teflon materials. The three feet sets will offer marginally different feels based on which one you have applied, but which one you're most comfortable with will probably depend on your mouse surface. We generally prefer to use a hard, plastic, high-friction mousing surface, and we noticed that all of the various mouse feet produced an unpleasant grinding sensation when the mouse was moved around on it. The various mouse feet worked better on lower-friction surfaces, however.
Another somewhat annoying aspect of the mouse is that it has a surfeit of LEDs on it. There's an LCD screen that glows red when you're switching dpi settings or recording macros, the dpi buttons have a permanent red glow to them, and there are also two red LEDs that glow on the bottom of the mouse. None of these appear to be capable of being toggled on and off in software.
Software
The SideWinder uses a customised version of the Microsoft Intellipoint software, and unfortunately it's somewhat bare-bones compared to the Logitech or Razer control panels. You can set button bindings and associate different bindings with specific programs, but you can't change your dpi settings in this fashion. You can use the macro recording button to add macros to your mouse in software, if you don't like to use the built-in macro record button. The software will also let you bind the mostly pointless quick-turn feature, however, which will let your character in an FPS make a 180-degree turn with the push of a button. That's obviously a huge step forward for people who can't be bothered to flick their mouse to the left or the right, but most gamers will probably prefer to keep their mice buttons free for more useful bindings.
Unfortunately, the technical features of the SideWinder don't match up with the rest of the mice here: The mouse maxes out at 2,000 dpi, compared with ratings of 4,000 for the Lachesis, and the polling rate is also half that of the competing mice. Many normal gamers will probably find the SideWinder to be fine for normal gaming sessions, but if you require a high degree of precision in games (or if you have a very large monitor and use high dpi settings in Windows), you may not find the SideWinder to be quite what you're looking for. Another sticking point is that the dpi settings are not completely customisable, in that there are large gaps between the individual settings. There are six settings available, including 200, 400, 800, 1,000, 1,600, and 2,000 dpi, which leaves some large gaps that you may find annoying if you like to have finer control over your dpi settings.
Pros
- Large body is fairly comfortable if you like to rest your palm on your mouse
- Side buttons are designed to be easy to click but difficult to click accidentally
Cons
- Low polling and dpi compared to other high-end mice, and large gaps in dpi customisation
- Removable feet may not work as well on some surfaces as regular mouse feet do
- Bright LED lights cannot be disabled
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Bernard1222
16/06/2008 10:22 AM
A great mouse i bought u have to get it Great gaming mouse , No service needed after a year! Highly recommendable
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