Driver

The software for the SteelSeries Rival 700 is very comprehensive and gives us access to many functions - some we see often and some are unique to this mouse. I won't go through all of them as there are so many, but will try and go through the more important ones. The mouse will work without the software installed, but you will lose a lot of the features that set the Rival 700 apart from the competition.


This is your main screen. As you can see, all the buttons have labels next to them. This allows you to customize each button by simply clicking on on its label. You can also set the sensitivity, mouse acceleration/deceleration, angle snapping, and polling rate here. All of these are very easy to change - you only have to drag the slider to the position you wish to set the corresponding option to.


Clicking on the configs tab allows us to take a look at this list of different configurations. You can save up to five configurations for a set of different uses. Changing a mouse button's function is very simple - start by picking the label you wish to change.


Once you have done so, this screen appears. You can pick from among many different options over its drop-down menu, allowing you to bind a button to almost anything you want; you can launch programs, control media, rebind keys and more. One of the main features I use are macros; to record a new macro, click on either the "Open Macro Editor" or "quick record" button, depending on how thorough you wish to be.


Here, you can see what a macro looks like once it has been recorded; you can record pauses, delays, and insert delays if you wish.


Toggling the "Vibrate on click" button brings you to this drop-down box; the SteelSeries Rival 700 actually has a vibrating motor for feedback with certain games and when pressing certain buttons. Here's a list of different vibration modes. Pretty self-explanatory, the sharp click is a quick sharp vibration, the long buzz is a long vibration, and so forth. Once you have chosen your options, simply click "save" and that is your macro recorded.


Changing LED colors or illumination effects is just as simple: just click on the light you want to change and use this color pallet to select the color you want. It really is as simple as it seems.


Also with the SteelSeries software, you have an option called "Gamesense". It is basically software that allows your mouse to actually be fed information by the game you are playing. Out of the games supported natively, I only have CS:GO, so I used it whilst testing the software. Here, you can see the events that can be shown on screen, such as your kill-to-death ratio and other game statistics. As fun as this is, it really isn't needed when everything is easily accessible in game without having to take your eyes off the screen. In fact, you can't afford to take your eyes off the screen while playing paced games such as CS:GO.


Here, you can see both lighting zones that can change color based on in-game events; there are a few different options and effects you can select, as well as some presets.

Performance

As with pretty much all SteelSeries products I have used, the Rival 700 performs very well - its sensor is excellent and worked well on all the surfaces I usually test with; it being the extremely impressive Pixart 3360, it stayed accurate and worked as expected. The shape of the mouse and materials used ensured that the Rival 700 was very comfortable to use after just a few days, though it did take some getting used to at first mainly due to its weight, but I soon forgot about it being somewhat heavy and enjoyed the experience.

The software worked well. I did manage to crash it once, but that was probably due to user error as I was playing around with it a lot while trying to get some rather strange gifs to play on the OLED screen. I couldn't recreate the issue at all and it worked fine afterward. The software is extensive, and although it does have a plethora of options, it is easy to use.

Although I couldn't test the customizable hardware options as I wasn't sent the spare parts, I can't see them causing any issues since SteelSeries really made it easy to switch the sensor or the rear fascia out. The customizable lighting options and OLED screen also perform very well.


Ok, so back to the OLED screen. I really want to hate it and want call it out for being a gimmick again, but when you have an animated gif on there, it does look pretty awesome. I know, I know, I am buying into a childish features, but it is fun!


You can, as previously mentioned, set the colors at the rear of the mouse. Here's a quick gif to show you what they look like. I left mine orange, but it is nice to be able to set the color to match the rest of your setup.