When it comes to gaming mice, a good one isn’t as hard to find as a good keyboard. The market for gaming mice is crowded, and not much sets them aside besides the amount of buttons, the grip, and wired or wireless qualities. With the GRIP 500, Turtle Beach aims to excel at design, control and functionality, which isn’t easy given the level of competition.
My favourite thing about the GRIP 500 is the way it feels. It has a non-slip, soft touch coating that had me wondering which material was used. It feels much like velvet, and it gives a satisfying level of grip, which compliments the name nicely. The GRIP 500 contains an Avago 9800 laser sensor and Omron switches, both of these help to provide excellent in-game response.
I recently reviewed the IMPACT 700 keyboard, in which I pointed out that the Keyboard lacks macro controls, which are used to provide hotkey options. Well using the GRIP 500 with the IMPACT 700 is the perfect combination, because the mouse allows you to create up to 50 complex macros, with 100 commands each.
The mouse has a total of 7 programmable buttons, three of them on the left side so it’s easily accessible for the thumb, and you can customise the functions of these via the software provided. You can then switch between different profiles that you have set up on the fly, using the button of your choice.
Another thing you’re able to switch up is the colour of the lighting. Turtle Beach boasts 16.8 million colour options, along with four illumination effects. My favourite illumination effect is “breathing” which makes the scroll wheel continuously fade in and out. My only gripe here is that there are four coloured lighting locations (scroll wheel, 2 headlights, and a flashing Turtle Beach logo on the base), but you can only change the colour of the scroll wheel. It’s forgivable, but when it’s one of your standout features you may as well go all the way.
In closing, the GRIP 500 is clearly the best mouse I’ve ever owned. But It’s mainly because I’ve never cared to invest in a highly priced gaming mouse before. While browsing for other gaming mice I saw ones that were priced less than the GRIP 500, with better features, but they were pretty ugly looking. So clearly the GRIP 500 offers a satisfying mix of quality design, control and macro abilities for the price.
Just like its keyboard counterpart, the GRIP 500 trumps competition by providing well tailored design, with just enough features to make it a plausible product for its price. The GRIP 500 retails at around £55/$70.
