Thermaltake Level 20 RGB Gaming Mouse Review
Peter Donnell / 5 years ago
A Closer Look & Performance
The Level 20 mouse comes hard-wired with a really nice quality black braided cable. It’s got plenty of length to it, as you might expect, and they have a rubber cable tidy fitted to it, ensuring you can keep excess cables as neat as possible. Plus, they even have a custom-designed USB header on there, which I really like; the little details go a long way in my opinion.
The mouse its self looks pretty neat and tidy, and the design is pretty familiar-looking given the designs Thermaltake has been putting out in recent years. The bulk of the mouse uses an almost granite looking finish, with a very hard-wearing surface coating that’s sure to withstand plenty of punishment.
Down the left side of the mouse, you’ll find a harder plastic side panel. Rather than sticking a rubber grip on there, which tend to wear out, Thermaltake has used a deep texture pressed into the plastic to give it added grip. Plus, I think the design looks pretty funky too, which is always a good thing.
Down this side, you’ll also find the two side buttons, but they’re not what I would call standard. The front one is actually a frosted plastic finish, allowing it to be illuminated by the built-in RGB. The rear one is much larger, with a curvy and angular design to make it easier to control with your thumb.
This being an ambidextrous mouse, it’ll be of little surprise to you that the right side of the mouse looks the same as the left. That’s obviously great for both left and right-handed use. However, even if you only use it one way or the other, that’s still an extra two switches you could use for macros, profiles, launchers, etc.
On the back of the mouse, you’ll find the TT logo, which is their more modern logo that can even be found in the shape of their new RAM modules. It’s nice to see them keep things uniform. Of course, it’s RGB lit too, so it’ll look pretty funky when powered up.
Up at the front, you’ll notice the mouse is perfectly symmetrical, which is pretty important given the ambidextrous intentions. There’s a nice deep scoop to both the LMB and RMB too, meaning your fingers sit comfortably and naturally in the sweet spot for each.
On the base of the mouse, there are just two slipmats, but they are ENORMOUS. That means the mouse glides beautifully on just about any surface, even directly on the wood of the desk it was pretty nimble. Of course, right in the middle, you’ve also got that lovely PixArt sensor, delivering up to 16k DPI for smooth and fast gameplay.
The size of the mouse is really comfortable too, I can get a nice full hand grip on it without feeling like I’m weighing it down or running my fingers past the end of the mouse. However, it’s still light and compact enough to be used with a fingertip or a hybrid grip, so it’s really pretty versatile.
The mouse is also fairly light despite looking a little larger. Light, comfortable, and with great glide, it’s already on its way to being a fantastic work and gaming mouse.
Of course, it has plenty more to offer too. Fire up the RGB and you’ll see colour from every angle on this mouse. There are RGB zones all over the place, with loads of lights in there to throw out some really cool effects and transitions.
The colours are really bright, enough to keep throwing out the ISO on my photos and making them look a little more pastel than they actually are. There’s more vibrance when you see them in person. However, look at the middle sections, and you can clearly see there’s quite a lot of colours in that one zone alone.
With the TT software you can obviously customise the lighting to suit your taste, I can’t stand the RGB rainbow thing, although it does work well for my photography of the product to showcase what it can do. So just pick your favourite colours if you wish, dial them in, and leave it alone. You can turn them off too, if you really need to.
While you’re in the software, you can tinker with the button configuration too, which is pretty important for an ambidextrous mouse. At default, the left and right sides mirror each other. However, I set the right side buttons to a cut and paste function, which is great for editing work.
The mouse has some really nice switches too, they’re firm enough to have a good tactile feedback, but still nimble enough for those his CPM games like LoL and ESO.
I do think the side switches could offer a little more resistance though, I did tend to trigger the other side buttons a little by accident. However, I suspect that’s something you would stop doing after a little more use holding it; I’m used to a right-handed only mouse.