Software

The R.A.T. DWS comes with its own software. Applying any changes takes what feels like an eternity, but other than that, I haven't encountered any issues during use. The first page allows for button remapping, including to mouse, keyboard, media, and macro functions. Drag and drop is used to do so, which is unusual but works quite well. The second page has options for CPI adjustment, ranging from 100 to 16,000 CPI in increments of 100. Additionally, the CPI switch button as well as the "precision aim" button can be programmed. Further options are provided for polling rate (125/250/500/1000 Hz) and angle snapping (on/off). Profile management is available, too. For whatever reason, applying settings changes takes forever (roughly ten seconds), and every time something is changed and applied, an annoying box pop-up lets the user know that the changed setting has been applied. All setting changes are saved to the on-board memory, so the software does not need to be running (or be installed) all the time. On my system, the software had a RAM footprint of 75 MB on average when running in the foreground, which doesn't change when minimized. Upon exiting the application, all processes are terminated, as they should be.

Battery Life

According to Mad Catz, expected battery life from a single AA-battery sits at up to 300 hours in Bluetooth mode and up to 200 hours in 2.4 GHz mode. No specifics are given about the polling rate used to achieve the latter number. Furthermore, there is no battery life indicator anywhere, so gauging anything is simply impossible.

After a set and non-user configurable duration of inactivity, the sensor enters a low-power state. Waking the R.A.T. DWS up from it merely requires moving it.