Saitek Cyborg Laser Gaming Mouse Review (PC)

Not just a pretty gimmick!!

When I first embarked on my mission to find my perfect gaming mouse, Saitek were the first to offer me a mouse to review, the Cyborg Gaming Mouse. So why then, you may ask, is it the second mouse I have reviewed. The answer is simple; I had no way of comparing the Cyborg to anything other than a standard Microsoft Intellisense optical mouse, which was hardly going to be a fair fight!

A very affordable alternative

So what does the Cyborg offer? First of all, it is impossible to get any further without mentioning the motorised length adjustment. I want to get that out of the way here as it is actually the least important feature on this great little mouse! The Cyborg has a small motor in it that allows you to change the length of the mouse by up to 15mm, to suit the size of your hand perfectly. Whilst this is great fun at first, it is sadly nothing more than a gimmick that once set up correctly never gets reused!

Brush that aside and you are left with a very serious feature set! The unique design, whilst looking like something out of Star Wars, is one of the more comfortable designs I have come across, once you get used to it. That said, if you have a fat thumb, you may have difficulty! There are 3 buttons directly around the area of your thumb as well as a 4 way ‘d-pad’ style button setup on the side. All of these are easy to use with a slender thumb!! Each button can have 3 different sets of macros associated to them, each saved as a selectable profile. As well as the button configuration, each profile can have a different DPI setting. The selectable resolutions can range from 400 to 3200 DPI. On top of the mouse, near the left mouse button is a mode select switch, to allow you to switch between the 3 profiles.

Another interesting and, I think, unique feature is the adjustable scroll wheel friction. With a 3 way switch on the bottom of the mouse, you can select how hard the clicks are on the mouse wheel. This sounds a bit pointless, but in practice if very handy. When scrolling through a web page, you want a fairly resistance free scroll click. When I am selecting my guns in Team Fortress 2, I want to have much harder friction so that I cannot click up twice when I just want to click once!
The software used to set all of this up is comprehensive, if a little ugly. You can create any kind of combination of macros that you can imagine for each of the 10 buttons on the mouse. This mouse is all about customisation!

Initially I found the Cyborg to be quite uncomfortable and was going to write it off as all gimmick and no trousers. Thankfully I gave it another chance and am very glad I did. Once it is set up, it is really a very nice mouse to use. As long as you have a decent gaming mouse mat, the tracking is very good. The ability to change between 3 profiles is also very helpful. Combine that with number of buttons that you can assign actions to, you should never feel that you cannot get a good set up for your personal style!

So all good, what’s wrong? Well, not much really, but a few things that stop it getting full marks! Although it is a nice weight for me, it may be a little heavy for some. Considering all of the customisation options, I am very surprised that they did not include some kind of weight system. Also, the profiles and button settings are all saved to the computer, not the mouse. This means that you have to install the Cyborg profile software on any computer you are using. Also to change resolutions on the fly you have to create different profiles and switch them.

However, this is a fine mouse and can be picked up for about £25, making it a very affordable alternative to some of the mice aimed at the professional end of the gaming market.

Some Specs

• Adjustable mouse size extends or contracts to suit any size of hand or grip
• Adjustable Scroll Wheel – changes click strength of scroll wheel
• Programmable, 4-way, low profile hat switch
• 2 additional programmable buttons
• 3200dpi for increased precision

The Scores