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Review: SteelSeries Sensei Raw Gaming Laser Mouse

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What is it?

A laser mouse designed for the gamer, this simple mouse provides you 2 buttons on each side, a scroll wheel, and a glowing logo. A button on top allows you to change your CPI, and the provided software allows you to change what the side buttons do as well as how the lighting of the logo appears.

Setup

Like most regular mice, this mouse is good to go once you plug it in. However, if you’d like to adjust the behaviour of the lighting, or the side buttons, you’ll have to install the software from their website.

http://steelseries.com/products/mice/steelseries-sensei-raw-heat-orange

Look and feel

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The mouse comes in two factors, rubberised and glossy. While glossy may attract most customers, I think rubberised works better for ‘desktop’ and ‘work’ use. Either way, they both work, though your personal preference and usage will help you determine what you want.

The SteelSeries Logo on the bottom glows orange (for our ‘Heat Orange’ model), and in other colours for other models. While this can be adjusted, or completely turned off, this does not present as much of a distraction as you may imagine.

The mouse is very light, weighing only 90 grams, and that is definitely a plus for a multifunctional mouse. It also means that your wrist and hands have to deal with less weight while playing games, or doing CAD work, hence less strain.

Both sides of the mouse present you with two buttons, and that is a great feature as not only do you get 4 customizable buttons, the very nature of the form factor means that both left handers and right handers can use this mouse for gaming and CAD work. It cannot be stressed enough that a lot of left handers suffer at the hand of (pun intended) mouse creators, so they will definitely appreciate this. The buttons are well placed, and can be pressed once you’re in the zone. I did find myself pressing the buttons near the thumb every now and then by mistake, but that is probably because I use a different mouse at work and this affects how I play with this one.

There is a scroll wheel on top, which disappointingly does not offer horizontal movement. However, it works as well as you’d want. By the way, it also glows, and the glow can be adjusted.

Below the wheel is a button that allows you to adjust CPI on the fly.

Other than that, a double braided cable ensures that your cable remains secure and does not get tangled among others, and also provides it some strength.

Software

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To configure the mouse, you can set up the Steel Series Engine software that can be used to create different profiles for different games (and software). Fairly simple and intuitive, this gives you the kind of control you want. You can create unlimited profiles, macros, and adjust button as well as light behaviour.

Mouse usage

Having used this mouse for a couple of weeks, I can happily report that it has definitely been an improvement over my last mouse. The mouse feels comfortable and light, and that has made a big difference. While not a big fan of the glow, I have left it on, just because it gives you a nice feeling. Adjusting CPIs on the fly is obviously handy. Speedwise the mouse reacts very well, and I have not had any issues. Using the mouse over and over again has given me no sorrow, and the extra buttons can be used as I like.

As I mentioned earlier, the buttons placement also aids those who are left handed.

Buying information

The mouse retails at £47.99, and is available from various suppliers. It can also be bought direct from SteelSeries using the following link:

http://shop.steelseries.com/uk/mice/steelseries-sensei-raw-heat-orange.html

Verdict

A reasonable gaming mouse that falls on the cheaper side of gaming mice. While it isn’t as flashy as Logitech or Razer, it does the job fairly well. The price may raise a few eye brows, but once you get used to this, you’ll see that it isn’t money wasted.

 

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