Steelseries WoW Wireless MMO Gaming Mouse Review

If you’re a gamer then you have no doubt heard of Steelseries, if you haven’t heard of Steelseries, then you’ve been gaming while sitting under a rock for the last few years! Steelseries are one of the biggest gaming peripheral brands on the market, both in terms of sales and reputation, this is down to their much loved product ranges that span PC, console gaming and more recently mobile.

I wouldn’t count my self as a massive fan of Steelseries, this is partly down to me only ever having used a few of their products, but each one I have tried has been a great product. Yet as a gamer I’ve always admired many of the products in the Steelseries range as for the most part they’re great looking products with some awesome specifications to match, so I’m really happy today to finally get to put one of those more desirable items to the test.

This week I’ve been putting the Wireless, MMO friendly World of Warcraft gaming mouse to the test, a hardcore, button riddled, rechargeable and expensive gaming mouse that I’m hoping will be nothing short of exceptional. With a price tag of around £100 at most major online retailers, the WoW mouse is quite an investment, but as anyone who takes their gaming seriously will tell you, you can’t put a price on performance and quality, lets just hope that this product has plenty of both to justify the price tag.

The mouse comes in a cool looking presentation box, with a fold out panel, clear window and the mouse mounted in its recharge base, given you a great view of the mouse its self. There are a few marketing slogans and specs on the box.

• Weight: 115 grams (0.25 lbs)
• Height: 40 mm (1.6 in)
• Width: 81 mm (3.2 in)
• Length: 115 mm (4.5 in)

In the box I found a USB charge cable, quick start guide, manual and a Steelseries sticker. Of course there was also a mouse and charging dock, but we’ll take a closer look at those in a moment.

The left side of the mouse features a light curve that should give a nice resting position to your thumb, which is important given the multitude of buttons here. 4 control buttons adorn the side and these will be perfect for pairing up with macros and shortcuts. All the buttons have a nice tactile feel to them and the joining plastic between allows you to pivot your thumb between each switch. On the bottom front left side you will find a single LED indicator, this is used for showing power / charging status and just below the mouse wheel at the front of the mouse a Micro-USB port.

The top plastic cover for the mosue features a gorgeous map decal that really makes this mouse stand out, its almost as stylish as the gold finish control switches that adorn the top and sides of the mouse. At the back we have a  pre-set DPI toggle switch, two long toggle switches at either side of the scroll wheel and of course the standard L/R mouse buttons.

On the right hand side we have a large swell that makes this mouse wider than most, this acts as a sturdy rest for your ring finger and also provides a good resting position for the single button found on the right side of the mouse, its a little awkward to press as the force required is a little heavy on this button but I’m sure that having a switch that isn’t going to suffer from accidental triggers may be a good thing.

The mouse wheel feels fairly robust and has quite heavy notches in its rotation, but overall its quite a slow wheel, which isn’t really a bad thing, but some may prefer one that can be turned much quicker, it can also been clicked inwards to provide yet another control switch to the setup.

One subtle feature that is easily missed in pictures is the ergonomics of the mouse buttons, both left and right features a slow curve and a light raised lip toward the front of the mouse that will suit both a raised (claw) or flat resting hand position.

A stunning WoW logo brings the top of the mouse to life and features some subtle indentations that serve no purpose beyond style. The top panel is made from a matt finish plastic, but its very slick to touch, the side panels are still very hard but feature just a subtle amount of grip, although most of the grip here is provided by the curvy ergonomics rather than tactile surfaces.

There are three large Teflon surfaces on the underside that provide a good ammount of glide, the mouse is also super light given its overall size so its quite versatile in terms of traction on both hard and soft surfaces. Also on the underside you will find a master power switch, very handy for a wireless mouse and a connect button for pairing the mouse to the base unit. In the center we have the sensor which packs 8200CPI, 150ips, 30G acceleration and 3m wireless range.

The chasing base usnit is a plastic moulded and very stylish looking thing, with a simple drop and charge area, LED lights and around the back a Micro-USB port to hook the device upto your computer. This also acts as the wireless receiver for the mouse and unless you use the USB cable directly into the mouse, this is required to use the mouse.

Four firm rubber feet help to keep it in one place on your desk and in the center you will also find a pair button that allows you to sync the mouse to the base unit.

The mouse drops into place with ease and its quick and easy to store here, which of course also keeps the mouse charged.

Both the mouse and the base unit feature some gorgeous blue LED lighting, the mouse has a customisable brightness setting (low/med/high/off), it can be set to pulse on and off and it can also provide feedback on the RF pairing with the charging base.

Setup & Installation

“Plug & Play” wasn’t an issue for the MMO Wireless mouse and as soon as I connected the charging base to my PC via USB windows installed the basic drivers. The mouse automatically paired to the base and was up and running without issue and all the major control switches on the mouse functioned perfectly. The Steelseries management engine can be downloaded from the official website and provides further customisation options, as well as extensive macro settings that are perfect for MMO gaming, most likely more settings than you’ll likely ever need, but its better to have them and not need them.

General Performance

Day to day browsing is well suited to this mouse, its very light, and that makes it easy to control and move around, plus the added benefit of wireless technology means you have a lot of freedom of movement around your desk without worrying about the cables. Lift off distance is set pretty low as standard at around 1mm, and this is going to be very handy in our gaming tests, if you prefer it can be increased to around 5mm, although I can’t understand why you would want to. The software is also really easy to navigate and tweak to your liking, and that means you can spend more time gaming, less time tweaking.

Gaming Performance

I’ve been using this mouse for a few days across WoW, Diablo III and League of Legends and it hasn’t let me down yet, although it did take me a while to get used to the layout. The macro keys are fantastic but they don’t feel natural and it can take a while to adjust to where everything is before you really see much benefit. I had heard that there was some light acceleration on the mouse but either I couldn’t find it or it was so minor that it’s not an issue and over the sensor was very accurate at both high and low DPI settings.

The light weight and the wide hand resting position meant that I was able to play for hours without any noticeable hand fatigue, which is obviously a good thing. The fact it works flawlessly on a multitude of surfaces is also a nice feature as I prefer a softer mat for work and a harder cloth surface for gaming.

One big issue however is that while the mouse does come with a recharge base, it doesn’t have any power saving options and if you don’t dock the mouse it will just run until the battery dies. Sure you can turn the mouse off on the underside but its easy to forget to turn it off as it is to forget to charge it. Most wireless mice I’ve used in the pass will auto-off after a while and it would be a welcome feature here.

The wireless tech was faultless and even with the dock at 6ft away I didn’t notice any input lag or drop in signal throughout all my test, I know a lot of people refuse to use wireless tech for serious gaming, but I really couldn’t find a fault with it.

Overall this is an expensive product and it goes a long way to justifying that price tag. The software is robust and offers extensive options for macros, especially for World of Warcraft thanks for 130 preset actions. It’s also very cool to look at and of course style is subjective but I love the overall visual design of the mouse. The wireless technology is well integrated and even with a built in battery the mouse is still super light weight which I found rather impressive, although I would have liked to have seen a set of calibration weights to better reflect against some competitors gaming mice within this price range. If your serious about your WoW or any MMO for that matter this more an exclusive collectors item than anything else, it’s a brilliant gaming mouse but the fact that it is heavily branded makes it a bit of a niche product overall.

Had this been a little more nondescript in terms of branding, rather than just WoW and had it had weight customisation and perhaps even some power saving options, I would have been awarding our Editors Choice Award. Yet if your serious about WoW, you play for long hours and need something that is both practical and comfortable, then you will struggle to do much better than the Wireless MMO.