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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Very responsive mouse not just for gamers, March 18, 2009
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
When it comes to mice, I have always been picky. Since I touch the mouse more time than any other computer peripherals, I have chosen the best mouse available on the market if I can. That is why I am using a Logitech MX Revolution as my first choice. I have been using many different kinds of mice, however, I have never used a gaming mouse. I happened to have a chance to own a Microsoft SideWinder X5 mouse and would like to share the experience. I am not a avid gamer, so this brief review would be one from a non-gamer's perspective.
From the first look, I thought that this mouse looks the best if it sits on Batman's desk. It really has a Batman look, and I would not be surprised if I see this mouse in the next Batman movie. And the red lights coming out from two places in the bottom look pretty cool. If you actually grip it, you would immediately recognize that the mouse was not made of the best plastic material you can get. The material used to build a mouse is just OK. When you grip it, your thumb naturally lies on the two vertical buttons in the left side. These buttons pop out more than the thumb buttons you can find on different mice. However, if you need to consistently use it (ex. for gaming), you can recognize the buttons easily and press it faster. The problem is that while you are using this mouse for normal usage, you might press it by mistake. As a matter of fact, I did it several times. These buttons are programmable, so you can assign any action you like for your favorite games.
At first time, I was wondering what the real benefit of 3 buttons in line on the top of the mouse for a on-the-fly dpi switching. By pressing each button, you can change the sensitivity of the mouse action from 200 to 2,000 dpi. I do not play games often, however, this feature really helps me to do my everyday work. I use two big LCD monitors side by side (dual display) and can use on-the-fly dpi switching to move between two monitors very fast. And I change the sensitivity at any time using different applications without opening any setup windows to change the parameters. Once you get used to it, you can switch it very fast. For the gamers who need faster actions than others, they would definitely love this.
Most buttons on the X5 are a little bit too clicky for me. Microsoft says the left and right (main) buttons last for 10 million clicks, so the FPS game lovers do not need to worry too much about the longevity of buttons. As a matter of fact, I tried to click the buttons as crazy as possible and it seem like the buttons were durable (of course I can hardly reach to even 100,000 clicks). There are 5 plastic feet attached at the bottom of the mouse (most of my mice have 4 feet) and those are very smooth. I have a good feeling to slide the mouse in any direction. The quick launch button that brings up the games built in Windows would be useful for the people enjoying solitaire and mine sweeper on a daily basis. I know that the X5 offers macros to do multiple jobs in a single click; however, I did not try it.
I know that this is not a gaming mouse with lots of bells and whistles such as a Logitech G9 or a Microsoft SideWinder X8. However, I think it will fit most gamers nicely. This mouse focuses mainly on fast actions, durability and several programmable buttons that I think are most important for a gaming mouse. In addition, the X5 is the most responsive mouse I have ever used. I would not replace my MX Revolution with the X5, however, I would recommend the X5 for anyone looking for a good gaming mouse at a reasonable price.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Decent entry level gaming mouse, but better mice out there for serious use, January 16, 2009
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
The Sidewinder X5 appears to be a somewhat cheaper Sidewinder version with a few less features to lower the price. If you need a cheap gaming mouse, this may be one to look at. If like me, you not only do gaming at your computer, but extensive internet browsing and other activities, you may want to look at some other mice. The biggest issue for me with this mouse was that the size and length of it was not at all comfortable and made the button placement difficult for my hands...having about normal-sized hands for a woman. In particular the two buttons on the side were regularly slightly in front of my thumb, so I had to adjust my hand and/or reach to use them. Not good, and the type of thing that causes tendinitis or RSI over time.
The mouse itself has a very cheap, plastic feel to it. Having previously used the very nice Logitech G9 Mouse I found it hard to go back to scrolling that was jerky and required a lot of tweaking to work anything near to acceptable. The turbo scroll on the Logitech mice is just so much more pleasant to work with when you are at the computer for hours at a time. I'm also never happy to get a mouse with buttons that I can't customize. In this case, there is a button on the top that might be nice to use as a quick-launch button, but it only opens up Intellitype in XP, (Games in Vista) you have no option to customize the action for it.
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5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Good Gaming Mouse - Works With OS X, December 30, 2008
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
I went from a wireless six-button mouse to this wired gaming mouse, and I have to say the difference is significant. Where my wireless would do weird things like not recognizing clicks until I moved the mouse, and dropping out every once in a while, this wired mouse with increased resolution never does either of those things. It's incredibly responsive, and makes me glad I decided I could "live with" having a cord on my mouse.
The buttons are handy, and easy to reach. The feel is a little more blocky than I'm used to, but it's still comfortable. The mouse just feels like it's tracking far better than any I've used in a long time-- There's no "jumpy" feel to it in lower DPI settings, and less of one in the high setting than on my wireless mouse. It's kind of cool that I can switch DPI on the fly with a button.
In games, I noticed my response time was better, especially for circle-strafing and mouse-looking. While I'm not a huge FPS gamer, I did get some better control with this mouse in Team Fortress 2, and I felt a HUGE improvement in the way the mouse felt for Oblivion. Clicking on small icons and buttons on the in-game GUI isn't as tedious with the Sidewinder X5.
I use it in both OS X and Windows XP. Despite what the package says, the mouse does, indeed, come with drivers and control panels for OS X (not that OS X needs drivers, but the control panels are handy to assign buttons).
There's one button that I find sort of stupid and useless on this mouse. It's near the back (under your palm, when the mouse is being used) and its purpose varies depending on what OS you're using. It's not reassignable, either. It does what it does, and that is all. In Windows XP, all it does is launch the Intellimouse software; That's the mouse control panel, which you can normally reach two other ways (click the desktop/Start menu icon, or go to Control Panel). That's all it does. I hardly see why a button was needed for this function. In OS X, the button just pops your pointer up to the top left corner of the screen, and again, you can't reassign this button. It's just sort of a waste of moving parts, if you ask me.
However, stupid button aside, I dig this mouse. I think I may stick with it, despite losing wireless freedom compared to my old mouse. This mouse just works better!
Oh, I should mention that this mouse has two red lights on the bottom, near the back, and one on top. They remain on as long as your computer is sending power to the mouse, and this might be annoying for some people who don't want their mouse to be all lit up. It doesn't bother me much, but it is curious that Microsoft would put bright red lights on the mouse when the laser tracking emits light that is invisible to the human eye. These lights aren't part of the tracking hardware: They're just decoration. I guess it's supposed to look cool or something. I just think it's sort of a waste of power.
A good mouse, but not for the office or conservative desktop. Definitely a step up for gamers, though.
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