Features/Pictures
As far as mouse shapes go, the Rival is a departure from the shape that they went with on most of their previous mice. The Rival is closer in shape to the Deathadder than the Sensei, but you can still see a little Intellimouse in the design as well, where the Sensei style mice leaned more on the Intellimouse. Even with the similarities the Rival is still a unique design and a big departure for SteelSeries especially. Let’s poke around the mouse and look at a few of the details.
One of the most interesting additions to the Rival is the rubber grips on the sides of the mouse. Typically I’m not a big fan of these because they feel weird, but SteelSeries did a good job of making this grippy with small nubs over the rubber without making it to obvious. Some mice with rubber grips like the most recent Cooler Master that we reviewed use a directional material that doesn’t grip as well in some directions, but this design doesn’t have that problem at all. Also on this side you have two very large side buttons that you can program. Both buttons are two to three times the size of their Sensei equivalents; this should make it easier for people with different hand sizes to be able to reach them.
The right side of the Rival has the same nub covered rubber grip that the left side of the mouse had. There are however no side buttons on this side of the mouse.
The back of the Rival has a bright white SteelSeries logo that will light up in any color you would like when using the SteelSeries Engine 3 software. Up under the glowing logo if the unique nameplate design. The Rival comes with the Rival and SteelSeries logo nameplates but SteelSeries says that replacement nameplates can be made by anyone with a 3D printer. Rumor has it there might be a company who will be partnering with SteelSeries on doing name plates for people, but as of right now there isn’t any official word of this.
Up top you have a scroll wheel with lighting on each side that, like the back logo, is configurable in the SteelSeries Engine 3. Behind the scroll wheel is a small button that lets you flip between low and high DPI settings that you configure in the software.
On the flip side the Rival reminds me very much of the old school Intellimouse with is fairly small Teflon gliders. For the sensor SteelSeries went with the Avago ADNS 3310 optical sensor, this helps keep costs down a little while making a lot of enthusiasts happy to see more Optical sensor mice.
The Rival has a standard 6 and a half foot UBS cable. It has a rubber coating and lacks the braided covering that most other mice have these days. I’m sure they did this to keep costs down, but a lot of cheaper mice even have it. Having said that, I’m not really upset at it not having a braided cable, they sometimes catch on things on your desk.
