Performance
The performance of a mouse can be broken down into a couple aspects, specifically comfort and sensor performance. With a shape similar to the Deathadder, I wasn’t surprised at all that when I started using the Rival I was happy with its shape. As I mentioned before, I’m not normally a big fan of mice with rubber grips on the sides but the Rival’s did a great job of adding traction. As someone who lifts my mouse all of the time when in heavy gaming it is important to have a good grip. The reason I like the Sensei is because its shape gives a slight lip above your thumb for good grip, the Rival doesn’t have that but makes up for it with the rubber grips.
The Rival, when compared to the Sensei, is larger in every dimension and is also only for right handed gamers. Oddly enough the Rival is also 26 grams heavier than the Sensei but my initial reaction to the Rival was that it felt light. The larger size fits my large hands well but I have a feeling that people with smaller hands might not find it as form fitting. This is why the window in the packaging is important, you should get your hands on both the Rival and the Sensei to see what fits you better.
As for the rest of the Rivals performance, I found the placement for the two side buttons to be spot on for me, but the second button could be a little far away for anyone with a smaller hand. The back button on the other hand is so large that there is no way it will be an issue for anyone. The scroll wheel is very grippy with its rubber coating and slits cut into it for traction. Additionally the scroll wheel isn’t too loud, an issue that a lot of the Sensei’s experienced.
The Avago ADNS 3310 optical sensor performed well with no acceleration or weird tracking issues during my initial testing. Later on I did run into a few small issues where the mouse acted up. I didn’t see anything in the sensor, but blowing it out did resolve those issues when they came up. Hopefully that isn’t an issue that comes up to much. Beyond that the Avago 3310 impressed with its tracking on multiple surface types including my white table top.
