Best Mouse2017

Winner: Roccat Kone Pure Owl-Eye

My top pick for 2017 is the Roccat Kone Pure Owl-Eye. It delivers on all possible fronts in a convincing fashion. An exterior with a great haptic feel, using highest quality materials, is combined with top of the line internal materials as a basis of its success. The Owl-Eye sensor tracks beautifully, as you'd expect from an Avago 3360 sensor. The buttons are light and crisp without any pre-travel or wobbling, the wheel is the best you can get, and the mouse is very agile because of its low weight. To top it all off, the software Roccat offers allows for a lot of fine-tuning for advanced users. All of these features combined make the Kone Pure Owl-Eye the best mouse of 2017 for me.

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Runner-up: Steelseries Sensei 310

Runner-up of 2017 is the Steelseries Sensei 310. A beloved shape that has finally gotten the long-deserved update with the best-available sensor is almost a guaranteed hit anyway, but Steelseries kicked it up a notch by improving other aspects of the mouse as well. The buttons have been separated from the shell for a better click feel, the sides have been textured for a more secure grip, and the cable is made of flexible rubber. It's not as perfectly crafted as the Kone Pure Owl-Eye - the separated buttons can be a little wobbly when pressed down - but the Sensi is very close. It still is the mouse I used for the longest time in 2017 and deserves the special recognition that is its due as the runner-up for 2017.

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Looking forward to 2018

2017 was a good year for mouse enthusiasts, with many great mice using excellent sensors and upping build quality in general. For 2018, I'm hoping to see the eSport focus in mouse development increased, with more lightweight, barebone, performance-driven mice for demanding gamers. The peripheral market is saturated with flashy mice glowing in all the colors of the rainbow, but I prefer the appeal of a minimalistic design that applies the mantra of form-follows-function and offers perfect tracking in lightweight shells that are comfortable to hold for a long time during intense gaming sessions. Quite a few steps in that direction have been taken already, and hopefully, 2018 caters more to that niche.