Performance

Judging the performance of a mouse is base almost purely on subjective opinion. Some gamers like a fast, small and light mouse. Others want to use bigger movements and mice that fill the entire palm, while feeling the weight during movement. The first thing you will notice when using a mouse is the comfort (or lack thereof). The Intelliscope is a very comfortable mouse. It fits well into the palm of your hand and is not too high or heavy. I even tried the mouse with my left hand (as I am actually a left handed person, who was tought to utilize the right hand instead) and it did not feel out of place. I was even able to play a bit of the games used to measure the performance of this mouse with my left hand.

While the right mouse button did work at the beginning, it suddenly stopped responding during the creation of this review. I was ready to consider a hardware defect, but as soon as I hit the DPI button the right mouse button worked again. Seems like a small software bug within the mouse could cause this. I was not able to reproduce the error at all, but if you happen to have this problem just hit the DPI button once and you shoud be fine again. The noise level of the left and right mouse button is very loud. While this is of no concern at a LAN party, it may be quite annoying if you spend a lot of money on a quiet computer and find your mouse to be by far the loudest aspect during every day use.

The difference in the two DPI settings seems quite accurate. The mouse was first moved across the desktop at the 2400 DPI setting from one edge to the other. Then the DPI was changed to 1000 DPI and the device moved back across the mouse pad to the point of origin. The mouse pointer did not even reach the center of the screen, while the device itself travelled the same distance as with the higher, more sensitive setting. This is a very simple test to determine if the difference is somewhat accurate.


The new Lost Planet demo is a great example of some fast mouse movements, without the need for absolute accuracy. This is a good game to focus on the comfort, speed and weight of the device. Due to the included DPI switch I determined which setting was best for me. Gaming in my case, is more comfortable at 1000 DPI, which should be good for most mid sensitivity gamers out there. A setting of 2400 DPI is certainly something for high sensitivity players. Playing extended periods of time with the Intelliscope did not yield any discomfort and even playing with the left hand was quite successful after a bit of practice.


F.E.A.R on the other hand is a very fast paced game with a lot of fire fights. Accuracy is also of importance here. You will find yourself moving around across the screen very fast to either take cover, evaluate the situation with the different enemy groups attacking you or just to look for some cover after being surprised by a large enemy force bursting through the door. There are a lot of situations where accuracy is needed to gain control of a situation quickly. The semi transparent enemies in the game are a great example, as these are barely visible and very fast. I had did not have any more trouble with the Intelliscope at 1000 DPI in F.E.A.R as with any other good gaming mouse. I did notice that 1000 DPI is just a tad bit too much for my taste, but simply adjusting the sensitivity in the included software, solved the problem.

The mouse is definitely geared toward the mid or high sensitivity gamer, as it lacks a low-sensitivity setting. There are no other DPI settings besides 1000 and 2400 DPI. The only thing you can do, is to adjust the mouse sensitivity. It would have been great to see a 400 or 500 DPI setting as well - maybe even with a third LED color within the Intelliscope. The lack of this feature keeps the device from catering to all the gamers out there.

The mouse wheel is very well done. The feel of the wheel is great and you have a very good idea as to how far to scroll. It is easily done and the grip feels great. A lot of mice in the same price range fail to deliver such a comfortable wheel.