MadCatz are top of their game right now, with many products across the Tritton, MadCatz, Seitek and Cyborg ranges that are proving popular with gamers all around the world. Their range of products seem to have a selection of the best across multiple price points and that is something you rarely see with most peripheral manufacturers.
We’ve been fortunate and lucky enough to review many MadCatz products in the past, with the R.A.T.7 Gaming Mouse, R.A.T.7 Albino Edition and the R.A.T.9 Wireless Gaming Mouse, all of which won eTeknix awards for their exceptional style and performance, but all of which were priced around £70-100, which isn’t exactly loose change. The R.A.T.3 Red however is priced at a much more wallet friendly £35.
The R.A.T.3 features many (but not all) of the design, features and functionality of its bigger brothers at a fraction of the cost, so I’m really looking forward to seeing how well it performs in our tests.
Due to the success of the R.A.T. range, MadCatz have released them back into the wild with a shiny new paint job, sure its only a minor revision but experience has taught me that people love shiny new colours on their products and I expect this new range is going to go down well with PC gamers. Its not just this one either as MadCatz unleash the R.A.T.3, R.A.T.5, R.A.T.7, R.A.T.9 and M.M.O.7 in gloss red, gloss white, and gloss black colors.
“Gamers continue to respond enthusiastically to our range of professional PC products, and we believe that the new range of colors will prove popular with passionate gamers,” says Darren Richardson, the President and Chief Executive Officer of Mad Catz Interactive, Inc.
So lets get started and take a closer look at what the R.A.T.3 has to effort before putting it the test in our performance section.
It looks like a really cool mouse with a nice colour to boot. It’s the mouse I would buy if I had to pay for my parts. IMO the best mice on the planet come from Mad Catz & Roccat.
I’ve owned a R.A.T. 9 and it was a lot of fun at first, however within the year it had gone back twice for replacement for the same problem (mousing dropping connectivity, losing the x or y axis intermittently). It’s been ready to go back for a third time but I just went and got a Logitech G700 which has been completely stable with no problems. I’m not recommending you buy Logitech but I am recommending you don’t by anything in the R.A.T. series.
Google “cyborg rat freeze” or something like that and receive a crapton of results.
I wish I had before I bought. Love the mouse form and function… *when* it functions 🙁
So yeah – the RAT series are GREAT mice, but they *will* freeze constantly on one or both pointer movement axis’. …and a GREAT mouse that stops working all the time… yeah not that great after all.
Do NOT buy, people. Heed the Google warnings here. They’re true.
Shame on you, eTeknix for not being thorough or truthful here. I wonder – would you rather that you’ve committed shoddy reviewing, or are screwing your readers deliberately? Pick one…
Ok my tone was too harsh – apologies… it’s just that reviews like this is exactly why I sit looking at a really expensive mouse here on my desk that is absolutely dismal because of constant freezes. No support on the issue from Cyborg, mind you.
“My personal opinion” isn’t good enough in a review that is on a site like this. You’re influencing people to buy a product that has a really, really bad track record for a vast amount of buyers. Having been swayed by just such a review to buy mine, yours got me riled up, I must admit.
“I did not have issues” when TONS of people have reported this line of controllers as having fundamental problems with tracking freezing is just not a serious review, man… this at the very least demands the reviewer call attention to this, so readers don’t rush out and buy without knowing the risks.
It’s like endorsing a Chinese car saying it runs brilliantly. It may for you, but if it has a track record of bursting into flames for 50% of the buyers, you HAVE to call attention to this!
So yeah – apologies again for going over the top, but I *do* stand by my main issue: Cyborg RAT series are very, very risky buys, and any review of them should warn readers of this. Might be fine for you, might be absolutely horrible. And this in itself is a huge problem that reflects on the RATs – “maybe it works” is not really quality, now is it?
If you’re getting tracking freezes then try giving the laser lens a clean – single axes not tracking on the twin eye are usually due to dust or something else getting in the way of that axis’ laser.
I stick to my words on my review, I WILL ALWAYS call attention to ANY issues that I experience, but since we’ve been using MadCatz products for months with no issues…I won’t.
Yet I fully respect your input and I beleive you when you say you have had problems, there are always issues with near any product range from any selection of companies, of this I am certain. Which I why we leave your comment here for all to see, your welcome to speak you mind here so long as you keep it fair.
Just wondering has any1 solved the freeze problem with the R.A.T.?
I have seen a video in Youtube showing that you can adjust the palm rest by removing the right hand panel screw…………….. This makes a big difference and solves the size issues what many people might face…………….. Though even the manufacturers do not highlight this feature………………. 🙁
Can you please put some light on it………
I was searching for FPS Gaming Mouse Latest 2020 and I was amazed when I came through a list having some advanced mice with High DPI. I bought one and believe me my gameplay is improved a lot.