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Microsoft's venerable Sidewinder™ brand has been dormant for quite a few years now. With the release of a brand new gaming mouse, the company plans to bring Sidewinder™ back to the forefront of the gaming scene.  Kevin had to keep moving the box he had the product in because I repeatedly tried to open it. However, he eventually succumbed to my internal demons, wrapped up his speech to the four of us, and opened the box. In the custom-cut foam sat three identical mice. Lifting one out he said “Here it is”, and my initial reaction was one of sadness. This thing looked incredibly uncomfortable and the side buttons looked wierd. I was disappointed until he handed it to me and i tried it out. Kevin and his team wanted to bring something new to the gaming market, but most of the ideas they were coming up with were already out there. Razer has the angular, symmetrical market cornered, Logitech had the curvy, ergonomic market cornered and Microsoft had already seen tremendous success with the IME 3.0. What was left? They went back to the drawing board and came up with something just extreme enough with a slight twist. Kevin noticed my concern and encouraged me to give it a shot. I obliged, plugged it in, and began my assault on this poor prototype. More on the performance in a bit. As far as the others’ initial reactions: by the time each of us had our hands on the mouse, we didn’t want to give it up. We had small criticisms and suggestions, but ultimately we felt they had done their job and done it well. I, of course (it might be in my job description), attempted to snag one, but this Kevin Flick guy is really sharp… and I am kind of obvious. At the end of the day we were all very pleased at Microsoft’s new entry and pretty bummed when Kevin had to run to the airport…with the mice. A great visit and a fantastic opportunity. |
Sunday November 22 2009 | |||||
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User Comments
anyway, very interesting and cool thing it seems. but i expect it to be quite expensive.
last note : on the first look this review feels more like promo, tbh :>
just looks retarded like all the other new outer-space looking mice lol
This is the company that brought out the fabled IE 3.0 that most people seem to love. When it first came out its not like the world stopped and everyone went out and bought it. :)
and they are planning to buy mcdonald´s and coke, so they won´t need to leave the office anymore
should be called a sidewhiner
Ahaha.
Definitely looks like an interesting mouse.
you know that reviews are meant to test the product. not to promote it...
c'mon...
looks totally unnecessary...
i'll stick to my 3.0 =)
I buy every new mouse. I was a hard core MS user till the MX510 came out. It will be interesting if this will make me want to switch back. I cant wait to try it.
#22 Halo 2 has been out for PC for some time. So your theory is already wrong. ;)
#25 Obviously you are quite the scholar and mistakenly took this for the actual review. Or perhaps you chose to not read the numerous times its says PART 1 or the end of the article which states PART 2 will be the actual review with testing once we get a product in house to abuse.
TO ALL: If you read PART 1 of the review, you can see that I had the same reaction as the rest of you on first glance. It was wierd looking and unnatural. However, once we tried it, we were all very impressed with the shape, comfort and performance of this mouse. I have made some additions to the end of this article about some things I forgot to address.
Also the Side Buttons look nice and I wonder how the Back having its peak will affect how we hold our mouse :P.
Nice Review BTW. Looks like Microsoft is back :P...
too big,and 'macro rocord' this button to control can't fell good
sorry my english is not well
Did anyone ever say "yeah, our lazers aren't good tbh"? No.
I agree with you ! although i am not a profession cser
Weakpoint there for low-sens'ers, especially since it's supposed to compete with the likes of the Deathadder/518/3.0/etc which manage high speeds.
Still seems like an interesting mouse, I wonder what people will think of it after it comes out and they get to do some long-term reviews. :p
didnt think so
OK, now about the mouse! Well, honestly, the fact that I or any reviewer loves the mouse shouldn't seal the deal for you. I expect that you'll need to try this yourself and I expect that you'll need to thrash it a bit before you make up your mind. We've talked to gamers enough to know that they know their way around PC hardware better than most and we expect a healthy skepticism. By the way, most of us are gamers as well (though the guys at GotFrag can school me without breaking a sweat).
Here's a little inside information. We've shown dozens of prototypes to hundreds of gamers in the process of developing this mouse. That shouldn't surprise you. What may surprise you is that we expect the first impression before you get your hand on it to be "Huh?!" Over and over we've heard it... "Wow, that's.... interesting." When that same person gets 5 minutes of hands-on time they're practically always sold on the concept. "Huh?!" turns to "Ooooh, that's why you guys did it that way, I get it!!"
Back to my point - we thoroughly expect the kind of comments you guys are making about the shape. One of the reasons that developing products for gamers is so satisfying is that you guys are so opinionated and vocal! From our perspective, it is different looking for good reasons, but we know you'll have to make that judgment for yourself.
One last thing... some of you are blasting GotFrag for their preview (note - real review is yet to come). They are in no way accountable to us for what they write. Period. While we're glad (relieved, really) that they liked the mouse, it is their objectivity that we value.
Please consider upgrading the SideWinder Laser Sensor ( Others are better at last from the Specs ) and the USB Rate...
I'm sure this review wasn't biased at all, with the Microsoft advertising deals, and promotions everywhere on Gotfrag.
Also, change the name of this section back to Gotfrag Hardware. FPS Labs is an awful title, it doesn't even apply to most of the hardware you review; you know, gaming gear.
You easily can.
Example:
Taking out all reaction based stuff etc, you need to turn 180 degrees. This takes about 0.2 - 0.3 seconds to execute, maybe less for some. What i mean is a 180 quick turn around.
Now say you have a sensitivity of 30 cm (11.8 inch)/360 degrees. To make a a 180 degree turn you need to move the mouse 15 cm ( 5.9 inch ). The speed per second (assuming 180 takes 0.2 seconds to execute) will be 15 cm * 5 / 1 second = 75 cm / second ( 5.9 inch * 5 / 1 = 29.5 inches per second)
30 cm sensitivity works on most pads, now lets see if you make a 360 on a Qck+ (44 cm)
22 * 5 / 1 = 110 cm/second
8.7 * 5/1 = 43.5 inches/second
Here we are already dangerously close to the speed limit of the laser sensor.
Now if your sensitivity will be lower than that, you can easily skip the mouse.
What's more, wrist flick shots tend to be somewhat quicker than 180 turns, so when flicking the mouse could already skip at a sensitivity of 35-40 cm / 360
When building the mouse the research behind the lazer or optical engine must be 1st. Even prior to design I would even say. Low sens gamers are a huge market. Whats great about building a solid engine for those low sensers, is that you dont miss out on high sense gamers either. 2 birds one stone!
But lets not forget, it is microsoft guys. And maby this lazer engine is better in quality, then the things were comparing it to. After all, they are building it for gamers, not for office workers. Lets just hope anyways. Otherwise they've simply left out a part of the market.
the Steelseries new mouse looks like it hit this one with the ugly stick,
-da2k
there needs to be warning signs on laser mouse reviews
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