Driver

All of the basic functionality that we have become accustomed to is featured in the MS-3 driver suite. Func did a great job considering this is their first attempt at producing a driver. The functions work and the driver suite is easy to navigate.


You can trim both the performance and the aesthetics of the mouse to your liking. The LED light show is kept at a minimum on the MS-3, which is, for once, a nice change.


If you are into macro creation, the Func driver will not let you down.

Performance

Mouse

The MS-3 mouse does a really good job all around. The shape of the mouse forces you to grip it in a certain way. Remarkably, Func has managed to create a mouse with a forced grip that works well for both small and large hands. Its comfort level is on par with that of the Mionix Naos 5000 mouse, which is quite a feat. The MS-3 has several extra buttons compared to your average gaming mouse. Some of these buttons are more useful than others, but that is primarily due to their placement.

Out of the four side buttons, three are located well; the last horizontal button is a bit of a miss. On top of the mouse, you find three buttons besides the left and right buttons. The two south of the scroll wheel are dedicated to DPI changes, but they can be reassigned in the driver suite. There is also an additional right finger button that is very small and has a tendency to rattle a bit while gaming with the mouse. The rattle is about the only small nuisance we encountered with the mouse—its dim LEDs and general design is unobtrusive and quite elegant for a gaming mouse.

The first stop before diving into gaming performance was the driver Func definitely pulled off properly. The mouse was very easy to setup and the lift-off-distance (LOD) settings all worked brilliantly. Tweaking for both the Func 1030XL and the SteelSeries 9HD was a breeze. It seems as though the surfaces of the 1030 are a bit better suited to the 9500-series laser sensor, while setting the LOD to its minimum caused slightly erratic mouse movements on the 9HD.

This mouse demands that you grip it in a very specific way to achieve a decent comfort level. This was not an issue with my slightly larger than average hands. After getting the setup right, a long session of CS:GO got under way in which the mouse performed brilliantly, although I would have, as an FPS gamer, preferred a simpler design, since some of the buttons get a bit in the way of what I consider to be a perfect grip. The MS-3 is a very good performer with low to medium sensitivity settings. It still has the positive acceleration that plagues all of Avago's newer sensors, but that is, in my opinion, a very minor issue. The Avago ADNS-3090 will of course be more precise at a setting of 2000 DPI, but you are sacrificing a few things to get such precision, like broad mat compatibility and extreme LOD. This mouse is a bit on the heavy side, which is, in combination with a very low sensitivity, a slight issue for very fast paced FPS games, but the issue disappears with medium and high sensitivity settings, since you almost never lift the mouse off the mat and because the teflon mouse skates make this mouse glide across any type of surface very well. There is a bit of a wobble to begin with, due to its very thick teflon pads, but it completely disappeared after a week or so of testing. Due to the placement of the feet, the mouse is not 100% stable if you push the left mouse button at its very edge hard without putting some pressure on the palm.

For FPS gaming, the scroll wheel is much too loose. It is a bit weak when it comes to tactile feedback, but seems to, otherwise, be well constructed. The scroll wheel's push button mechanism is quite easy to press, which makes the loose scroll function a real shame.

The mouse is extremely good for a game like Diablo III. The primary buttons perform really well because of their normal travel length and slightly lower than normal actuation force. The number of buttons and features you can access with the mouse make it a real click saver in some scenarios—both in games and while doing delicate desktop work.

Mouse Mat

Func's 1030XL is a solidly performing mouse mat. The smooth surface works perfectly if you are into very high sensitivity gaming. Not only is it smooth but the glide is also perfectly controllable. Such a slippery mouse mat will usually be a bit fast for such applications, but Func pulls it off. The rough side is made for medium to low sensitivity gaming and is one of the best surfaces out there period. It has a finer grain than its SteelSeries counter parts and maintains the same level of glide and control. It is equally noisy and a bit of a fingerprint magnet, but that is something worth living with if it gets you such a level of performance. The durability of the surfaces is a bit of a weak point—its hardness has definitely been sacrificed in order to get the glide and feel just right. Both surfaces show more signs of wear than the 9HD, but the visible wear does not affect glide performance—it is primarily a cosmetic thing. The Func 1030's surfaces are way better than the ModMyMachince SlamePad, and there is no condensation as this is an all-plastic mat.