# SteelSeries Xai Laser Gaming Mouse



## Frederik S (Dec 31, 2009)

With the launch of the Xai laser mouse SteelSeries aims to take on the competitors with an ambidextrous design coupled with a mere second generation laser sensor. The mouse features a simple yet elegant design and has a driver suite that is well equipped, but is the laser sensor up to the task?

*Show full review*


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## t77snapshot (Jan 6, 2010)

I like the simple design of this mouse, there doesn't seem to be many ambidextrous gaming mouse's out there. I was hoping this one was a little more affordable, but I was wrong...


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## MilkyWay (Jan 6, 2010)

Fantastic review, i like this mouse but it is a little bit to much in price.

All i want is something simple, with a few buttons, something solid and durable, last it looks plain which is what i like somethings can get to flashy and plasticy.

The kinuz just lacks that 2 side buttons that would make it perfect.


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## WarEagleAU (Jan 7, 2010)

Yeah that mice looks killer and is FTW!


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## VulkanBros (Jan 7, 2010)

How big is this mouse in comparison to the G5 ? Bigger or smaller?


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## Mussels (Jan 7, 2010)

who DOESNT love the intellimouse 1.1? hell, i still have 2







(yes. sometimes i have that many mice on one mousepad. dont ask why, i dont know)


Seems like a decent mouse, although i've moved on to the shape of the G5 - i've gone from a claw grip to a palm grip, and cant really go back, my hands cramp up gaming on the intellimice.


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## Kantastic (Jan 7, 2010)

Mussels baby, that's the Wheel Mouse Optical AKA WMO, not the IE 1.1.

The 1.1's have 2 side buttons on the left side of the mouse.

PS - I did a rough measurement, the Xai should be the same exact shape as the WMO.


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## Mussels (Jan 8, 2010)

Kantastic said:


> Mussels baby, that's the Wheel Mouse Optical AKA WMO, not the IE 1.1.
> 
> The 1.1's have 2 side buttons on the left side of the mouse.
> 
> PS - I did a rough measurement, the Xai should be the same exact shape as the WMO.



:O you're right!

i wonder what i did with the ones with the thumb buttons... i got some of them around here too


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## Super XP (Jan 10, 2010)

I’ve been gaming with the OCZ Equalizer mouse and love it to death. I’m left handed with the mouse and so the Equalizer works great for me.

The new SteelSeries Xai Laser Mouse looks really impressive and seems to work great for both left and right handed gaming. I hope SteelSeries re thinks the high price tag.


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## r9 (Jan 10, 2010)

Mussels said:


> who DOESNT love the intellimouse 1.1? hell, i still have 2
> 
> http://img.techpowerup.org/100107/Capture391.jpg
> 
> ...



I think that they are so ugly it hurt my eyes just looking at them and I`m not joking I really think that.


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## VulkanBros (Jan 10, 2010)

I just got the Xai yesterday...it is fabulous.....it fits right-handed as left-handed
I am very pleased with the build quality, handling and performance ... it´s on par with the G5


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## Super XP (Jan 11, 2010)

VulkanBros said:


> I just got the Xai yesterday...it is fabulous.....it fits right-handed as left-handed
> I am very pleased with the build quality, handling and performance ... it´s on par with the G5


I may go pick it up next week. Or I may just hang onto my Equalizer for a little while longer.


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## wein07 (Jan 11, 2010)

Anyone tested this with Qck+? I tried a kinzu with Qck+ before and the mouse feet were not smooth on it =(


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## iiee (Jan 12, 2010)

VulkanBros said:


> How big is this mouse in comparison to the G5 ? Bigger or smaller?



I don't know about G5, but i have G5's successor G500. XAI is smaller than G500, and much lighter.  G500 is very heavy (to me) even without any additional weight-cartridge.  I have the habit to 'lift' the mouse from time to time and the G500 weight make me mad and I sold the G500 after 2 weeks just because of this.

G500 is designed for right hand user, XAI for both hands.  G500 fills the hand palm fully and XAI leaves some rooms. XAI has small LCD at bottom.

XAI is the first steelseries product i bought and i like it very much.


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## dr emulator (madmax) (Jan 12, 2010)

Mussels said:


> who DOESNT love the intellimouse 1.1? hell, i still have 2
> 
> 
> 
> ...



you mouse whore


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## BababooeyHTJ (Jan 17, 2010)

For the price that they charge I would expect some halfway decent service. My Ikari died in less than a year and when I contacted SS I never got a response, twice. I've bought a DA since and haven't looked back.

I should also say as always great review. I was waiting for this one.


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## Mescalamba (Jan 23, 2010)

Bought this and Ozone Smog (funny name). I´ll have my hands on them next week.. time to do little comparsion, bad that I wasn´t able to get G9x along them.  (all Avago 9500 based)

Well, we will see how good it really is. 

Edit n1: Unpacked and testing, hell thats absolutely amazing mouse.. I don´t get how they were able to make such great ambidexterous design. Haven´t played with it yet, just tinkering..


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## nt300 (Feb 23, 2010)

BababooeyHTJ said:


> For the price that they charge I would expect some halfway decent service. My Ikari died in less than a year and when I contacted SS I never got a response, twice. I've bought a DA since and haven't looked back.
> 
> I should also say as always great review. I was waiting for this one.


Make sure you check your junkmail folder in your e-mail account. I've noticed e-mails from companies such as Patriot, Western Digital, Corsair, OCZ, Segate all end up in my junk mail folder and according to my friends, the same happens with them


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## grosbedo (Jun 9, 2010)

*Note before reading my post *: My goal here is not to insult the author, and I'm sorry to have done it in my first post. I simply want to point out some facts that I strongly disagree with, in order to get more clarification, which could be useful for other readers.

--------------

Hello there,

Just read the review, and found it very... biaised to say the least. Plus, the author criticize things he seems not to understand.

Eg :


> The driver suite for the Xai mouse is very well crafted. It seems that SteelSeries have put a fair amount of effort into the drivers for this supposedly driverless mouse.


Seriously, he doesn't even know what "driverless mouse" means. This doesn't mean that there exists no drivers, but that they aren't needed for the mouse to work to its full capacities. But to configure it, you still need a software, and a driver to interface and update the mouse !

Plus, the driver suite isn't really good (look at roccat kone's one) and it's not even included in a CD, the packaging is just bland, and even if the tester recognize it he continues to praise it XD

And



> The silly trend now-a-days is having mice with braided cables.


That's for duration and cable quality. And personally I find braided cables more aesthetics.



> The USB plug is gold plated and seems to be of a good quality. The strain relief system seems very solid.


WTFluck with the strain relief ? XD
That's the first time I hear compliments about an usb strain relief !



> SteelSeries mice have always looked good. And the new Xai is no exception, the simple design is very stylish.


No, seriously, it's ugly, saying that is just fanboyism. The design is very good for an office mouse, but for a gaming one it can't be compared to other mice in the market.

-----------------------------------------------

The review is not that bad, but the author brings it down by his obviously biaised opinion. And I'm pretty sure that the Ikari and Xai mice are the author's favourite mice, am I wrong ? XD


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## erocker (Jun 9, 2010)

grosbedo said:


> *Note before reading my post *: My goal here is not to insult the author, and I'm sorry to have done it in my first post. I simply want to point out some facts that I strongly disagree with, in order to get more clarification, which could be useful for other readers.
> 
> --------------
> 
> ...





Personally, I think you are taking your opinions of the mouse and construding them in a way that makes the author of the review look biased and "fanboy". Clearly you have a differing opinion, that doesn't make the review wrong or biased. The fact that it took more than one try to get your post across in a non-insulting manner leads me to believe that you have some other motivation or bias that led to you to sign up here and post.

I don't find the mouse ugly. I like braided cables. I believe the "strain relief" that he is refering to is the sturdiness of the cable ends. I've broken a couple mice through strain on the cable before. I see no bias in this review and it's pretty rude to say so, especially since (once again) you are just stating your opinion and presume it is fact with no basis. Your opinion indeed, is not fact.


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## DannibusX (Jun 9, 2010)

Nice review, looks like a good mouse.  Too spendy for me though.


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## grosbedo (Jun 10, 2010)

erocker said:


> Personally, I think you are taking your opinions of the mouse and construding them in a way that makes the author of the review look biased and "fanboy". Clearly you have a differing opinion, that doesn't make the review wrong or biased.



I'm just pointing out the absurdity of some "facts" that are given by the author. Anyway, even if I can't agree more that it is my opinion, the review is merely the author's opinion too, so there's pretty much no difference. What I criticize here is the pretty vague argumentation.



erocker said:


> The fact that it took more than one try to get your post across in a non-insulting manner leads me to believe that you have some other motivation or bias that led to you to sign up here and post.



Ad hominem is not an argument. Anyway, to answer you, the first post deletion was justified, but the second one was a mistake (else I wouldn't be able to post now).



erocker said:


> I don't find the mouse ugly. I like braided cables. I believe the "strain relief" that he is refering to is the sturdiness of the cable ends. I've broken a couple mice through strain on the cable before. I see no bias in this review and it's pretty rude to say so, especially since (once again) you are just stating your opinion and presume it is fact with no basis. Your opinion indeed, is not fact.



I like braided cables too, but the author seems not, without any real reason XD

The flaws you are citing are exactly the same that I*find in this review : I can't see no basis for many points, and in the end, you end up telling to yourself that "it's a good mouse", but don't really know why.


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## artvandalay22222 (Jun 12, 2010)

Well, I've had this mouse since January. The only reason I continue to use this mouse is because I gave my old away and Im laid off work so I can't afford a new one.

Personally, I would highly recommend staying away from this mouse.

The firmware is very, very buggy. Check http://www.fragyou.net/2009/11/15/steelseries-xai-142-software-available/ to find many examples of issues with this mouse.

The extra side buttons are mostly useless, due to the lack of programming optios. You cant even assign a regular kestroke to them!

Trying to program macros proved to be nearly impossible. A software bug prevents you from assigning macros uless you do a glitch/trick to get it to work. To get it to work, first I went to the "macro manager". Wasnt too hard to figure out how to create a macro. The hard part was assigning it. After creating a macro I labeled "macro1" I exited, expecting it to be in the popup list next to "assign macro". Unfortunatly it was not. This is as far as I had gotten b4. So I decided to try again a few times. After some trial and error, I was able to get it in the list by exiting the program, and restarting it. Now its in the list, just select it right? Nope, now when I select it, the whole program crashes. More trial and error, and I discovered that it will assign without crashing if I open and close the macro manager. So the procedure is this: create macro, close program, restart program, open and close macro manager, select the previosly created macro. 

Now, unfortunatly the macros arent exactly what i wanted. Sice you can only have the button be depressed for a specific amount of time, it doesnt help with voice chat programs like ventrilo, where you hold the button while talking. What I would like is the ability to assign any key on the keyboard to any button on the mouse, so that when I push the mouse button, it behaves like the corresponding key-it stays on until you release it. When I assign a macro, then use that key for ventrilo, it keys up the voice chat for only the amount of time configured in the macro manager(up to 5 seconds. This means I would have to press the key every 5 seconds if I want to talk longer. Or if I only want to talk for only 1 second, it stays keyed up for 5 still. 


I actually got Mike Stankowski from SS to talk to me by letting him know that I was posting my feelings about the mouse on many sites including newegg.  

His last correspondence read this:

James, 

Thanks for letting me know about these. I'll contact our R&D guys and see if this is a feature that can be added on a software level or if we can integrate it in our future products. Sorry for the limitation at this time. If you have any further feedback or questions please do let me know. 

Unfortunately at this time we are not sure what is causing the software problem and hope to come out with a patch if possible to resolve the issue. 

Regards, 
Mike 

Apr-23 2010 19:16.


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## Frederik S (Jun 12, 2010)

First of all braided cables do not improve durability over a standard PU cable. I have never had or seen a well made PU covered cable where the cable jacket material has been destroyed through normal use. 

Braided cables are a pain all the time, they are stiff, have a tendency to grab fibers in cloth and standard hybrid mats, causing excessive wear around the edges of the mat. Since the durability of the cable jacket was never a problem with any of the mice I have used or seen in action from fellow gamers I write down braid covered cables as a marketing gimmick, something with no other value than aesthetics. 

Believe it or not the prime reason for cable failures in mice is the strain relief. Mostly at the mouse end but some of the mice I have that have suffered a lot of traveling gave way at the USB end as well. I have had a lot of Diamondback mice where the cable would snap inside the mouse where the cables were soldered to the PCB, hence strain relief is important.

My preferred mice are: Microsoft IntelliMouse Explorer 3.0 would be 1.1 if they were still readily available, and the Razer DeathAdder a distant second / third.

I did not have problems with the driver when I tested this mouse, I can see that they have not updated their driver since November which I think sucks, because software is tricky to get to work on all setups and every piece will be installed on a platform where it does not function as intended.


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## Mescalamba (Jun 12, 2010)

Just in case you wanted to know..

..bought this mouse few months ago (around time of this "review").

RMAed after week, got second pieace and its laying in shelf since then, cause guess what? Its good for RMA too, Im just to lazy to do it.

Its not mouse, its piece of crap. Period.

If you want this sensor, buy G9X. Rest simply sux (acutally problem is in sensor itself, more then being fault of mouse build around it).

I would suggest getting Razer or something else.. And I DONT like Razers at all. But I think that Phillips Twin-Eye is maybe less buged than this.


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## grosbedo (Jun 13, 2010)

Ok, thank you for your feedbacks guys, interesting infos 

Frederik, ok, I understand better your arguments. The other comments added enough infos so no more questions left for me.

Have a nice day.


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## shaLL (Jan 1, 2011)

*User review!*

I have this mouse and after using it for a while this is what I think:

-Braided cables: They are aesthetically pleasing but most importantly, it feels light when there is slack hanging; you don't get that pull feel. However, unless I find some plastic for it to slide upon, it's going to be torn apart real soon in that area where it rubs against (just at the end of my mouse pad, where wood meets the braid).

-Sensitivity: It took about an hour of going into a game, going back and forth between the Xai application to get the right feel. Not to mention that I was so used to my previous mouse it would of course take time getting used to this mouse. Very happy with the available options. Tip: Read the tips in the application (it will save you a lot of guessing).

-Physical: After throughly using the mouse, I have this to say: I hate the side buttons!
I'm right handed. At first I didn't notice this playing some games, but then when I need complete control and a solid foundation for extremely precise movements, it fails because of the side buttons for the left hander. The left handed side buttons go exactly where your ring finger is placed, so when you go to squeeze the mouse with your ring finger, it >_< you up! It plays a psychological sound click in your mind too, because if you're used to hearing your mouse clicking and an action happening, it will definitely >_< you up.
It very well to note though, this only happens when you need very precise movements and are firmly gripping the mouse or doing sudden movements. You will not notice this if your hand is relaxed!


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