iRocks Spirit Cocoon Illuminated Mouse Review

Peter Donnell / 11 years ago

Final Thoughts

Price

The i-rocks is affordable at just £25, sure it’s not the cheapest mouse given its specifications, but the overall build quality and design goes a long way to justifying the price tag. It’s obviously aimed at a none gaming market, but if you want something a little different with some unique features such as the lighting effects then it’s really good value for money overall.

Overview

I really didn’t know what to expect with this mouse, I thought it was just some cheap bit of junk that had little or no features, a standard budget mouse with a cheap chrome look to it, and I’ve never been so wrong about a product. The old saying of never judge a book by its cover applies rather well here, what seemed like an uninteresting product has literally been the talk of the office. The most obviously talking point is the lighting effects, they really are hypnotic to watch and I must admit that I spent more time than I needed to playing around with them. I’m not overly fond of having a neon lit mouse on my desk as I guess it could be a little distracting overall, but you can turn the lights off when you need to watch a movie and don’t want a disco happening on your mouse mat. Even with the lighting off, the mouse is still a great bit of eye candy and it seems like magic that it’s so reflective and shiny when the lights are off, only to light up like a neon sign when you flick the switch.

I’m told that the mouse is incredibly hard to produce, the tooling and work needed to create the effect has to be done in a dust free environment as one little thing can ruin the whole effect of the fluid lighting and chrome finish. The plastic has to be cut precisely right or the light simple doesn’t show through, cut it too thin and the mouse becomes too transparent when the lighting is off, ruining the chrome effect. This means that there is a high fail rate during production, but i-rock dedicate themselves to creating a perfect one before it goes to retail and the end result is that you can see a lot of time has gone into creating a premium quality finish.

The market may be swamped with gaming mice from the likes of Razer, Roccat and Corsair to name but a few, so it’s nice to see there are some brands out there that are still pushing up the quality of relatively standard mice. The sensor is smooth as silk to use, and having all the DPI and polling rate settings on the mouse means it’s really simple to set up and use; something that will no doubt prove popular with casual users who don’t want the extra fuss of installing drivers and tweaking settings.

It’s simple to set up, easy to use, performs much better than we expected and it’s got a party trick that sets it apart from the competition, so overall we think this is great value for money. I’m not normally one to dish out the Innovation Award for some LED lighting, but the i-rocks really does glow like no other and we hope this isn’t the last time i-rocks put this lighting effect into one of their products.

Pros

Impressive lighting effects
Flawless build quality
Good quality sensor
Braided cable
Affordable price

Cons

High lift off height
No side buttons can be a little limiting

eTeknix says: “The i-rocks Spirit Cocoon has to be seen to be believed, it’s one of those products where pictures and videos simply don’t do it justice. If you’re looking for something a little different or just need a straight forward mouse for casual day-to-day use, then you’ll find the i-rocks to be a solid investment.”