PC gamers and gaming mice (mouses?) are like knights and swords – one the master, one the necessary instrument of destruction. For some, it matters very little which piece of plastic and/or metal and/or rubber and/or other material lies beneath their sweaty palms, but for some, for those select few “hardcore” gamers, the right mouse can make all the difference in the world. Thus, the “gaming mouse” was born.
I’ve always preferred PC gaming to the limiting interface and horsepower of consoles, but I never cared much for the type of mouse I used, that is until I played with a dedicated gaming mouse at a press event for the first time. From that day forward, I’ve become intently concerned with not only the look of my mouse, but the feel, the texture, the customization and the personality of the monster itself. Any PC gamer will understand – the mouse makes the gamer just as much as the gamer makes the mouse. Alas, like people, not all mice are created equal.
GX Gaming’s Maurus X Gaming Mouse is something I wanted to love with all my heart and I really, truly tried. In fact, in a lot of ways, I really do love it. The dark black body with bloody red accents is sleek, sexy and intimidating. While opening the package I couldn’t help but feel I was about to handle a piece of top-secret military hardware. The 50 grams of built-in internal weight made sure that it not only looked the part, but felt the part as well. The main highlights of the exterior design however, are undoubtedly the vivid pulsating lights. The middle stripe of the scroll wheel and the palm-placed logo both pulsate with the same bright, red illumination the company’s website is known for – and I really, really dig it.
Everything about this mouse screams customization – which is the number one turn on for most any PC gamer. You can adjust the intensity and frequency of the logo pulsations, you can adjust the DPI settings on the fly, set up DPI setting profiles for hotswapping and programmable macro buttons. It may not have as many knobs, levers, switches and whistles as some of the decked out mice you can find on the internet, but it comes fully loaded in terms of functionality and attractive design. If your rig is sporting some nice liquid cooling with red LEDs, you’d be hard pressed to find a mouse that better matches your setup.
Feature List and Evaluation
- Ambidextrous design
- Up to 30 macro keys
- 5 different game profiles
- Maurus X User Interface for macro management
- Customizable, mouse speed, double click speed, scroll speed, sensitivity, polling rate and DPI
- Up to 4000 DPI
- Switch between five preset DPI profiles or change in increments of 100 on the fly
- 1.8 meter braided cable with gold-plated USB connector
- 50 grams of built in, internal metal weight
- Pretty lights
All of that stuff is definitely included and I can thankfully report that none of it is coated in any marketing speak – it’s all accounted for. However, the key point of contention, for me personally, is the ambidextrous design. I’m sure there are plenty of left-handed PC gamers that like to customize their control schemes and allow for left-handed mouse controls – I get that. The issue with designing a mouse to “work with both hands” though, is that it never feels comfortable for either hand. Ever. There is never going to be an ambidextrous mouse that’s more comfortable for a right-handed gamer than an ergonomically right-handed mouse and vice versa for the lefties. Maybe it’s just force of habit, maybe it’s the way that I grip the mouse, or maybe I’m actually 100% right here, but the fact of the matter is that something designed specifically to feel good for one hand is always better than something designed to feel “not terrible” for both.
Granted, after several hours of use I started to tolerate it. Let’s move past that and assume “good enough” is okay for you (which it shouldn’t be). The next biggest issue for me when evaluating a mouse is precision and response time. Regardless of how much I tweaked and tried to optimize the settings, the mouse always felt a bit off. I tried it on my laptop and on other computers and ran into the same issue – it felt jittery. Often times, I could release the mouse and not even be touching it, yet the cursor would frantically skirt around in circles on my screen. This was compounded by the fact that it seemed to lack to pixel-precision needed for a gaming mouse – I often had trouble highlighting words while word processing, or even clicking icons on my screen – it was that inaccurate at times.
When actually playing games, it performs much better. Maybe it’s because I don’t consider myself an elite FPS or RTS gamer so I didn’t notice as much (yeah, probably that) but in the heat of battle I seemed to not care as much about the fact that I couldn’t click on my units eyeball with ease – clicking his forehead was good enough. MMOs played great as well, but I still found myself missing the familiar comfort of my Logitech G700 that I have grown so accustomed to over time.
Final Verdict: Decent
GX Gaming’s Maurus X is a fine PC peripheral and an exquisite specimen of how truly attractive a mouse can be. The sleek design, deep colors and wonderful lights really captivated me in the moments that encapsulated opening the box to plugging it in. However, once I laid my hands on the beautiful beast and put it through its paces, I ended up feeling a bit dissatisfied compared to expectations.
For more details, check out the official info page on the Maurus X here and be sure to let me know your thoughts in the comments below on the mouse and other gaming mice in general!
