titleEarlier this week I took a look at the K60 and K90 Vengeance keyboards from Corsair. I was impressed with their unique take on the mechanical keyboard. Prior to looking at their keyboards I also took a look at the Vengeance 2000 wireless headset. To round out our coverage we of course need to check out Corsairs Vengeance gaming mice. We know that Corsair always takes a different path with any product they introduce and I am excited to see what they did differently in the gaming mouse market, a market that has become fairly stagnant with higher DPI, more buttons, and more lighting be the focus from most manufactures.

Product Name: Corsair Vengeance Lineup Part two – Mice

Review Sample Provided by: Corsair

Written by: Wes

Pictures by: Wes


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Specifications

Vengeance M60 Laser Gaming Mouse

Warranty

Two years

DPI

5700

Report Rate

1000Hz/500Hz/250Hz/125Hz

Programmable Buttons

8

Package contents

Vengeance M60 laser gaming mouse

Warranty card

System requirements

PC with USB port

Windows® 7,  Windows Vista®,  or Windows XP

Vengeance M90 Laser Gaming Mouse

Warranty

Two years

DPI

5700

Report Rate

1000Hz/500Hz/250Hz/125Hz

Programmable Buttons

15

Package contents

Vengeance M60 laser gaming mouse

Warranty card

System requirements

PC with USB port

Windows® 7,  Windows Vista®,  or Windows XP

Internet connection (for software and driver installation)

At least 35MB of hard disk space

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Packaging

The packaging for both the M90 and the M60 is nearly the same with the M90 having a blue background much like the K90 and the M60 having red. The front of each of the packages is very uneventful beyond the actual mouse being right on the front where you can grab and feel if it’s going to be a good shape for you. Around back each has a nice list of their key features. It is interesting that the M60 shows a picture of the bottom of the mouse here but the M90 doesn’t. I understand that the M60 was trying to show its weight system, but it’s weird that we wouldn’t see the whole M90 in comparison.

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Opening each up by pealing back the easy to remove perforated plastic we didn’t find much beyond the mice themselves in the packaging. You do get a warranty guide and a quickstart guide. Software on the other hand is based entirely online.

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Software

Unlike their keyboards, both the M60 and M90 take advantage of software. To get the software for each mouse I had to visit the website and download a zip file. In that file you get a few things, two guides on how to use the software and program your mouse, the software installer, and a firmware updater. I love that they include all the good information as well as push for you to update your firmware. Where I was disappointed was that the firmware software isn’t just built into the software and even worse you actually have to install the firmware updater. That means when you are done you need to uninstall that same firmware updater. Another thing that stood out to me right away is that even though both mice and the K90 use the same piece of software, you have to download and install the program for each device to get them to work. I would prefer to see something like what SteelSeries and Logitech use where once installed it will recognize Corsair devices installed and even prompt when updates are needed. Our situation is extreme, because who would need to install two of their mice, but that doesn’t make it any less valid.

With the software updated and the firmware updated on both of the mice. I was able to jump in and take a look at the features given to you. Surprisingly this is all very similar to what we saw on Corsair’s K90 keyboard. You have three tabs up top. The first page allows you to select the button you would like to adjust and then from there you can setup your macros, delays, or even set the button to open up an application or run a file.

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The next tab is what you would normally expect to see on the first page of mouse software. Here you can change your DPI settings, report rate, and set the DPI of sniper mode. Two things that do stand out is the surface quality button and the lift height option. This is the first time I have ever seen software tell you how good your sensor is picking up the surface. In our picture of the real time feedback I started with my normal mouse pad and moved to my desk and then back to the pad. You can see the drop in quality, very impressive! The lift height option gives you five different options for lift off points, this is great if you lift your mouse and have problems with it picking up your movement when lifted.

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surfacequality

lift

The last page is just where you can save your profiles. Here you can set specific programs to prompt for that profile to load and/or you can set the LED settings that it will represent on the mouse.

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Features

Unlike the K60 and K90 keyboards the differences between the M60 and M90 run very deep. The same ideas are in place on both but each of them is a unique design based entirely on its focus. The M60 is focused on FPS games; this is easy to see with the sniper button located on the left side. The M90 on the other hand is focused on MMO’s with its 9 buttons on the left side alone.

M60

Starting with the M60, lets break it down.  

The first and most noticeable feature of the M60 is almost floating design. The top plate floats on a machined aluminum design on the back of the mouse. That same top piece splits around the scroll wheel and the two button dpi adjustment. In between those two DPI adjustment buttons there is a three light LED that will also show you what DPI setting you have the mouse on currently.

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The entire right side of the M60 lacks any buttons meaning this is for right handed people only, sorry lefties! On the left side you have three buttons, two small buttons and the large red sniper button.

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For the M60’s USB cable you have a braided cable with Corsairs blue USB plug to help your mouse stand out when digging behind your PC. Where I was most impressed was with the inclusion of a Velcro strap to keep your cord wrapped up. This is such a small detail but shows that corsair thought about the details, this will come in handy when taking your mouse to and from LAN parties.

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Looking from the front of the mouse this thing looks a lot like a Lamborghini with what look like large air intakes. Even better is once again we can see more aluminum on the mouse.  Flipping it over we were greeted by one large piece of aluminum that reached from the front to back of the M60, this is just plain sexy. Corsair has put four large gliders on the bottom and with the solid aluminum design you know each pad is getting full contact. In between the pads there is a small hole for the M60’s sensor and then three thumb screws for its built in weight system. Each thumbscrew holds in one weight each.

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M90

The M90’s design is a lot more like a traditional mouse than the floating look of the M60. The top of the mice are actually very similar, but that’s where the similarities end. The M90 has just one button up top rather than the two and LED display that we saw on the M60. They do share the same metal and rubber scroll wheel though! Of the M90’s 14 buttons (15 counting the scroll wheel) all but three are on or near the left side. Much like the WoW mouse from SteelSeries they have placed a whole array of buttons around your thumb, 9 in total. The other two buttons are in the front left corner of the left trigger button, something that Razer also did with their Mamba. Along the left there are six small holes drilled into the aluminum that house the profile LED’s.

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The M90’s cord is just like the M60’s; once again I was impressed with both its quality and the inclusion of the Velcro tie strap. 

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The underside of the M90 is a little different than the M60’s but still is made entirely out of aluminum. The aluminum bottom is actually two pieces this time around, but it covers a larger surface area. There are only four smaller gliders as well; I’m not sure why they wouldn’t use more or larger gliders considering the option space and lack of the weight system seen on the M60.

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A close examination of the M90’s sensor hole actually shows the sensor is turned sideways when compared to the M60, I’m not sure if this was due to internal space or for performance reasons though.

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Performance

One of the main things that both the M60 and M90 share is their sensor. Corsair went with an Avago ADNS-9500 Laser sensor giving them a peak DPI of 5700. Of course peak DPI only matters to people looking to put another stat on the front of the packaging something that Corsair didn’t do. Even people who are running extremely high DPI’s don’t get anywhere near that. I myself prefer 1800, and for a lot of people this is still very high. Back to the point though, because of this, both of these mice will perform the same due to the matching sensors. So we will focus on their performance overall then talk about how the features of each work out.

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As usual to put the mice to the test I broke out a few of our mouse pads and spent time in game, in Photoshop, and doing everyday tasks to get a feel for their performance.  Having experienced this same sensor multiple times in The Xai, Sensei, and Logitech G9x, I knew what to expect. Just as expected both of the mice performed great and without any glaring flaws when using on my normal hard mouse pad. When on a soft mouse pad I experienced a slight amount of negative acceleration. When compared to mice with the Phillips Twin Eye sensor this thing is perfect. Tracking around items in Photoshop was easy and without any jitter or tracking issues. In game I experienced no weird Z axis issues as we have experienced with on past mice. Everyday use was just as uneventful, it’s always great to have a mouse that doesn’t make you frustrated at weird quirks.  Much like the Xai, Sensei, and G9x, I was very happy with my experience with both the M60 and M90.

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Once I moved past the sensors performance. It was time to take a look at the buttons. Starting on the M60, I found the two small buttons on the left side to be perfectly placed for my thumb. The Sniper button on the other hand was slightly too far forward making it very hard to reach, someone with a shorter thumb than I would not be able to use it at all. The other part about the M60 that really impressed me was how solid the mouse feels. You wouldn’t think that this would be very noticeable on a mouse, but the second I picked it up I could feel the unibody design on the M60 at work. The side shape of the M60 allowed for just enough grip when lifting for those of you who are like me and lift their mouse while in game.

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The scroll wheel on both mice has a nice rubber grip and a light click as you scroll that doesn’t give you too much resistance while still giving good tactile feedback.

The M90 being focused on MMO gaming is packed full of buttons. In my past experience mice like this normally only have a few buttons that are truly within reach and the rest are too far back or forward to hit quickly. Out of the 9 buttons on the left side of the M90, I could reach 5 without much movement. The two at the farthest front and back can be reached if needed, but I wouldn’t consider it easy. The two buttons on the left side of the trigger are the same. These you could train yourself to use quickly over time, and even though this isn’t the FPS mouse, they would be perfect for binding to your grenades for example. Unlike the M60 I didn’t get the same “solid” feeling with the M90, not that there was anything wrong with it. Also because of all of the side buttons it lacks the shape on the side to make it easy to pick up for gamers who lift their mouse.

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Overall and FV

My experience with the M60 and M90 was much like my time with Corsairs K60 and K90 mice. With both they found ways to make me wonder why more companies don’t do things. On top of that they managed to make mice that just scream quality with a good portion of each being made of Aluminum. This is a far fetch from even the best mice on the market where most are made out of plastic and share the same design features. All of my complaints are small issues, and are almost all related to the side buttons on the M90, but if you don’t lift your mouse and don’t mind reaching for a few buttons you will be really happy with ether choice. But considering the lower price of the M60, unless you actually need the addition buttons or glowing Corsair logo you can save a few bucks and have a top level gaming mouse. 

fv2recomendededitorschoice

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Author Bio
garfi3ld
Author: garfi3ldWebsite: http://lanoc.org
Editor-in-chief
You might call him obsessed or just a hardcore geek. Wes's obsession with gaming hardware and gadgets isn't anything new, he could be found taking things apart even as a child. When not poking around in PC's he can be found playing League of Legends, Awesomenauts, or Civilization 5 or watching a wide variety of TV shows and Movies. A car guy at heart, the same things that draw him into tweaking cars apply when building good looking fast computers. If you are interested in writing for Wes here at LanOC you can reach out to him directly using our contact form.

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garfi3ld's Avatar
garfi3ld replied the topic: #26587 27 Jul 2012 19:59
The M60 and M90 gaming mice from Corsair today.
Twodavez's Avatar
Twodavez replied the topic: #33396 03 Dec 2013 02:34
Just tried to plug in and install my M60 that i won at a prior LANOC event, and my computer won't recognize it. Trying to get it RMA'd as i've seen alot of people have problems with their computer not finding the device when plugged in...

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