My first impressions of the Steelseries Rival

NekiTech · July 1, 2014

Finally I got myself the Rival! After I bought it from my nearby Canada Computers (I know about their return policy being bs and all but stores such as Best Buy/Future Shop didn't have any, and they were closer than the 2 so...), I unpacked the baby and boy oh boy is their packaging really difficult to unbox or am I just awful with Steelseries' packaging? Anyways, I unpacked it without any paper damage and got the mouse out of the way, and the first thing that I did was to put my entire hand on the device and BOY does it feel comfortable and significantly lighter than the other mice I had.

The initial thoughts

The top shell, man did it surprised me with the rubber-like coating! I can see the "sweat" stains on it but after wiping it with just a glasses cloth (Or a T-Shirt. Whichever was in reach) will make it 'fade' away! I can hold the mice without fear of losing grip of it thanks to the anti-sweat coating on it as well as the two rubber grips on the side which feel like it was scratching my skin a tiny bit, since the rubber was a tad harder than I thought but still not much of an issue. I can safely Palm-grip this mice or 'Hybird'-grip it without losing grip of the entire device. I can hold this mice ALOT more easily and more comfortably than the G502 (To my surprise!) and that is speaking a lot thanks to the "bump" on the right side of the mice! The left and right clicks do feel much harder to click than the Xornet and the G502 but after getting some time into it, I can pull the trigger with ease, though the sensitivity of these clicks are much tighter than even the Razer Deathadder 2013 that I tried when I visited my friend's place! Those who are not into FPS's nor those who need to click fast and lightly as possible should try out the clicking sensitivity in-stores before you buy it! For me, it wasn't an issue after a while. The preset CPI changer button doesn't even get in the way of my index and middle finger at the least and I can press the side buttons easily with my thumb, regardless of the gripping style I use! And lastly, it came with a name plate labelled "Steelseries" and I immediately used my fingers to remove the "Rival" nameplate and plugged in the "Steelseries" one as I prefer that, though it is hard to tell the nameplate at a glance since I am using the Steelseries QcK+ XXL. Personally, I don't care too much about getting someone to 3D Print a nameplate with what I like so I won't bother with it until I feel like getting someone to help me do it.

After plugging in the mice and installing the Steelseries Engine 3, updating the mouse's firmware, I went to use the Engine's software to tweak a few things: The CPI and the colour of the mousewheel and the logo. I immediately changed the first CPI sensitivity to 400 CPI and it worked wonders to my expectations. Using the Enotus mouse test, it did show that it was using 400 DPI/CPI after I moved the mice 10 cm, so that's nice to know it worked well! The mouse test also proved that the smoothness, precision and speed (Like the 1000hz test and such) to be just what it should say on the box! Now the colour, I ended up using the ColorShift on both Mwheel and the logo using the first colour option as it breathed nice and smoothly, compared to the last option which breathes from pure Red to Green, to Yellow, Blue, etc like it was in 15 FPS than even 40 FPS! Joking aside, it looked nicer that it transitioned from one colour to another nicely when I just leave it on the pad and admire its pretty lights.

What's special about it?

From what I noticed, there is no mouse acceleration on it at all from my playtime of it on CS:GO and at the very least, it did not mouse spaz at all! After trying to fine tune the sensitivity I want with the Rival at 400 CPI, I can get used to it at in-game sensitivity of 2 with no Acceleration on, no Angle Snapping, nor even Windows's Enhance Pointer crap, left at 6/11 Windows sensitivity. The design of the Rival REALLY reminded me of the Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer from the good old days, which explained how I was able to grip it with ease. I can easily frag and perform flick shots without getting spazzed out nor discomforted after hours of playtime in the usual Deathmatch servers of CS:GO. So far, I really enjoyed this mice and it made me feel like I should not have gotten the other one so I can get more playtime on this earlier. For $59.99 CDN, this mouse really surprised me a lot, even though it isn't braided nor gold plated (But personally I do not care for it after having experienced it before...).

This is my 2nd time giving my review/impressions of a mouse and I appreciate any feedback/criticisms as I would like to improve my reviewing skills even more.