Performance

Without its cable, the XM300 weighs 101 grams, which is on the light side for a wired mouse, so if you like the feel of heavy mice, the XM300 is not for you. Its shape is a right-handed palm-grip design. Very comfortable, it is also very secure, which is due to the rubber grips on both sides. Claw-gripping the mouse is somewhat doable with large hands, but finger-tip gripping it is impossible. People with small hands may even find palming the XM300 difficult; however, palming it should be fine for most. Overall, the shape seems to be Razer Death Adder inspired, so if you like its shape, the XM300 should have you covered.

The left and right clicks are hair triggers. They are by far the lightest mouse buttons I have used and have no travel distance before they activate, which I really like since it minimizes my reaction time; however, some people may prefer heavier mouse buttons. The side buttons have the same low travel distance, but are stiffer. Also, being hard plastic, they don't feel great, though they work just fine. On top of the mouse are two more buttons, and while these also have a short travel distance, they are just a little gummy compared to all the other buttons on the mouse. The mouse wheel's click feels like that of the other two buttons on top, but its notches are very very light, which may have you scroll up or down accidentally as you try to press it.

Gigabyte went with a top-of-the-line sensor. The SDNS 3988 is an optical sensor by Pixart Imaging with a DPI of 50-6400. It is completely acceleration free and tracks reliably on all matte surfaces regardless of color. It, however, does not deal well with anything glossy and gets more and more unreliable the glossier the surface is. As long as you have a mouse mat or some other matte surface to use the mouse on, you shouldn't have any issues with tracking. This sensor supports up to 200 inches per second and 50G, which is as much as many high-end mice because they use the same sensor. The only difference with the XM300's use of the 3988 sensor as compared to, say, the Coolermaster Sentinel III's is that the XM300 has a much higher lift-off distance. Now, this should be patchable with a software or firmware update, but as of right now, the XM300's lift-off distance is a little too high.

Randomly strapping RGB LEDs to things does not make them better, and nor does it make them worse, but they should have a use. The four white DPI LEDs on the side are useful. The RGB illuminated Gigabyte G on the palm rest, however, isn't unless your hand gets cold because setting it to white and turning its brightness all the way up has it produce quite a bit of heat. Putting the RGB LED in the palm rest means you will not see the RGB effect while holding the mouse. So if you want to use it to indicate profile changes, you will have to take your hand off the mouse to see which profile you are on, which makes switching profiles in the midst of action impossible, though doing so will work well enough in other situations. I also don't mind the lack of RGB effects in the driver because any kind of reactive effect wouldn't be visible, which has the available effects of a solid or breathing color or a rainbow suffice. LED balance is not great. With all three colors maxed out, you will get a white with a green tinge, and the same is true when going for various shades of orange and yellow. 255 Red and 255 Green should be a yellow but is a lime green instead. Orange shades show up at around 255 Red and 20-80 Green. However, I find this to be a very minor issue since you can tune one slider to the exclusion of others to get whatever color you want.