Closer Examination

SteelSeries has one sweet looking mouse in the Ikari. The sloapy wide body looks fairly elegant. That the ergonomics rules the design becomes apparent the first time you grip this mouse. Your hand simply lies on the mouse with the mouse providing support on all the right places. Besides being formed to compliment your hand the mouse is also quite light weight which means that it is easy to move around.
The overall length of the mouse is about the same as a Microsoft IntelliMouse Explorer 3.0 or a MX/G-series Logitech mouse. In order to support your hand in every possible place the mouse is much wider near the bottom and helps to lift your hand of the mat.


When SteelSeries writes "Large pressure points that reduce friction for optimized glide" in their product summary they really mean it, just look at the backside of the Ikari. The back side of the mouse is dominated by four extremely large mouse feet positioned to provide excellent balance. Because all of the mouse feet are positioned near the edges and cover a large area the mouse feels extremely balanced and stable when moving it across one's mat.


All of the extra large Teflon mouse feet are of a high quality. Compared to the mouse feet on new generation Razer mice these are a bit thicker meaning that you will not have to worry about getting replacements for a very long time after you get the mouse.


The cable assembly feels very solid and the cable mount seems very sturdy.


The odd shape of the Ikari is also what makes it fit your hand so nicely if you are right handed. All of the lefties out there will not be able to put this mouse to good use.


Good buttons should never be underestimated. The ones featured on the Ikari are alright, however, I would have preferred if they were a bit tighter and with a shorter travel length. The buttons reminds me a bit of those featured on old MX-series mice from Logitech because they are soft and easy to press.


Comfy shape or not this mouse looks quite extravagant because of all the slopes and different angles in the design. I like the looks and the feel of its skin. It is semi rough and allows some air to slip in under your palm to reduce sweating. The palm plate is of a different material than the rest of the mouse. The sides are actually made of an even softer type of plastic making it easy to grip and get a firm hold of. This is especially important for all low sensitivity gamers that reset the mouse to the center of the pad many times during a gaming session.


Thumb buttons are always a nice thing to have especially when they are in the right place. For the majority of the people I think that the positioning of the thumb buttons on the Ikari is about right perhaps a bit high, but accessibility is good and the buttons feel natural to use.
The space between the two buttons makes it easy to feel where they are which means that they are very intuitive to use.


Towards your palm from the scroll wheel is the sensitivity adjustment button. The Ikari firmware/driver allows for the user two store two different sensitivity settings on the mouse. These can be changed through the driver.


To indicate which profile has been enabled there are two small LEDs on the side of the mouse which make it easy to spot if you are using a high or low DPI setting.


Since a profile containing two sensitivity options can be stored directly on the mouse there is a small display on the bottom of it which can display a total of ten characters. This little display is backlit blue and easy to read both in daylight and at night.


Sitting at the edge of the palm plate is a small SteelSeries logo.


It is not often that I can find any problems with a scroll wheel, but the Ikari is an exception in that category. Because it is not centered perfectly when you scroll while putting a little sideways pressure on the wheel it will begin to scrape against the side of the wheel hole. This is not a big problem, but it does not live up to the general high quality of the mouse.


The sensor used is a 2nd generation laser engine. Since the mouse is capable of tracking up to 20G and has a maximum resolution of 3200 DPI it is one of the very newest second generation sensors.


The cable is braided and looks quite good. The USB connector is pretty sturdy.