CM Storm Recon Gaming Mouse & Skorpion Mouse Bungee Review

We love our gaming mice at eTeknix, so we always make sure we put them through the performance tests over a reasonable time, to see if any issues crop up that could only be detected through a longer session. We’ve had the Recon and Skorpion for a week now and have been using it every day for a minimum of 6 hours. Not only has this allowed us to get to grips with the ambi design, but it has also allowed us to discover any flaws. We’ve been using the Skorpion alongside the mouse and have also tested it with numerous other mice. For this section, we’ll test the Recon first and follow it up with the Skorpion.

Getting our hands on the Recon, we felt is was a fairly decent mid to small size, although this could be an issue if you have larger hands – especially as it uses the palm grip. The top part of the mouse is covered with a rubber coating, which feels nice in the hand although is quick to mark and attract dust. The sides, or the thumb rests, are plastic with a metallic look and feel to them and the buttons are large enough to press with ease. We did mention that the Recon is meant for use with a palm grip and being ambidextrous this is the only grip you can use. We tend to use the claw grip, so for this particular review it took us a while getting used to the new grip, so when we did, we found it to be comfortable after many hours of gaming.

FPS

First up we thought we’d give Borderlands 2 a bash, as it’s fairly new and we want to level our character some more. Normally we like a medium level for sensitivity so we set the DPI to 3200. During play, the Recon glided across any mouse pads we tested it on and was a very good match for the CM Storm Speed-RX. The additional buttons helped, albeit only the ones on the left side (as we’re right-handed), so the other buttons were a bit useless. These thumb buttons allowed us to bind some commands to them, making it much simpler to play the game.

We also decided to play several games of Battlefield 3, as the different vehicles make a good test of the different DPI levels. When in-game it was very easy to switch between the sensitivity levels with the on-the-fly DPI switching buttons. It allowed us to whack the DPI up full when in a tank, and lower it back down for when on foot. The LMB and RMB were both easy to press, with relatively low resistance. As the Recon makes use of an optical sensor, it means the accuracy and precision were top-notch and allowed us to snipe our enemies with ease.

RTS

For the real time strategy genre, we decided to play our old favourite – Supreme Commander as the huge maps really help testing out the sensitivity. The max DPI level did not quite alleviate the scrolling issues we had, as generally, the more sensitive, the better, whereas the lower DPI meant we couldn’t scroll as fast. Other than that, the performance was more than adequate and it remained comfortable throughout the long battles.

RPG

For this genre we played the usual Diablo 3 and SW:TOR as they both have similarities and differences. With Diablo 3 and SW:TOR we were able to assign some spells to the additional thumb buttons – but only two, so we had to choose very wisely. The sensitivity of the Recon was perfect for these type of games, we even test out the lowest – 800 DPI, which was still very smooth and precise.

General

For general use the mouse was more than ideal. The ability to glide across any surface with ease whilst maintaining accuracy made it a pleasure to use. The thumb buttons are always a good addition as we do a lot of work on the internet so the forward/backward default commands were perfect. The ability to change the DPI on the fly was also a great feature for when we switched between browsing the web to photo editing and being as accurate and precise across the whole DPI range, meant we had barely any issues with the smaller, finer details.

Skorpion

Whilst there isn’t a great deal to talk about in terms of performance with the mouse bungee, we’d like to mention something about it. It had one job to do and it did it perfectly. The mouse cable settled in snugly and remained there out of reach of all the vicious surround objects all wanting to snag the cable. The arm being made of a rubbery material also gave it some leeway – particularly if it was a stiff cable. The feet remained fixed throughout use and the cable caught not once.