Build Quality

Overall build quality is solid. There is a very slight rattle when shaking the mouse. When applying lateral pressure, minor creaking of the shell can be observed. Lastly, when slamming the mouse down, no accidental clicks occur.

Buttons

Main buttons on the Rival 3 are very good. Both pre and post-travel are low, yet the click feel is slightly subdued and not entirely satisfying. Still, compared to the Rival 110 buttons, these are a huge step forward. Button stiffness is light. SteelSeries-branded switches (blue plunger) are used here, which apparently are essentially Zippy DF3-P1L1 (60M) switches.


Side buttons are good. Both pre and post-travel are low, resulting in a snappy click response. They're very small and thin, however, which makes it quite difficult to easily actuate them by rolling one's thumb over these. Kailh switches (gray shell, black plunger) are used.

At the top of the mouse is a single button which cycles through the set CPI levels. Its click feel is decent. Another Kailh switch (gray shell, black plunger) is used for this one.

Scroll Wheel

The scroll wheel is very good. There's no unwanted noise when scrolling, and the fairly well-defined individual steps result in decent tactility. Compared to most other mice, the wheel sits quite a bit lower. Using a bigger wheel or a slightly taller encoder might have been a better choice. The middle (scroll wheel) click requires little force for actuation. An unbranded square switch is used here.

Coating

The Rival 3 has a black matte coating all over. It's very grippy, but does attract dirt and finger prints quite a bit. Cleaning it is rather easy still, with barely any signs of wear visible afterwards. All in all, a good coating.

Button Sound Test

Disassembly

Opening the Rival 3 is pretty simple. Unscrew the four screws beneath the two top and the bottom mouse feet and the top shell should come off with ease. The design is equally simple. Everything but the side and CPI buttons sits on the main PCB. The side-button PCB is screwed into the top shell and connected to the main PCB, which is in turn affixed to the bottom shell with four screws. The main PCB is surprisingly large, and all PCBs are of moderate thickness. Similarly to the ROCCAT Kain 100, the sensor (PMW3331) is encased. The RGB lighting is done by a top-mounted LED and four bottom-mounted LEDs. Both the side-button and the main PCB have a "1936" marking, which indicates that their production week was the first week of September 2019. Apparently, the Rival 3 has been in the oven for quite a while.


The MCU is a Holtek HT32F52341, which is a 32-bit ARM CPU. Please see here for the datasheet.

As for the soldering and general quality of the PCB, I'm unable to find any noteworthy flaws.