SteelSeries Ikari Laser mouse

Feature

SteelSeries Ikari Laser is the flagship mouse of a Danish gaming gear developer, SteelSeries.

August 28th, 2008 by Varg

A challenger has risen...
A few months back, we wrote an article on gaming mice and set them against each other to find the best gaming mouse on the market. Anyone who read the article must have noticed that it was just a small sampling of the plethora of the gaming mice on the market. In fact, several worthy entrants were missed. One of those is SteelSeries Ikari Laser.

Specs

SteelSeries Ikari Laser is the flagship mouse of a Danish gaming gear developer, SteelSeries. According to the developer�s site, the Ikari Laser mouse took 15 months to develop and the development benefited from feedback from several world-class gaming organizations. The main features include an almost total independence from drivers, as you can adjust the CPI setting directly on the mouse which has a small built-in LED screen for this purpose. You can adjust the CPI with one digit increments between 1 and 3200. You can also create macros for your games and utilities.

Max. DPI 3200
Max. Polling 1000Hz
Buttons 5
Form factor right
Size in mm (lxwxh) 130 x 83 x 36 mm
Price c. 60.00�
Inches per second 50

Ergonomy
Ergonomy here denotes the comfortability of the mouse when used, including its weight. The shape of SteelSeries Ikari Laser makes us think of a mix between classic Logitech designs, such as G5, and Razer mice. The mouse is flatter and wider than any of the mice we reviewed last time, however, at 130 x 83 x 36 mm (5,1 x 3,3 x 1,4 inch). The size combined with the comfortable surface material makes the mouse pleasant to touch and all the buttons are easy to find whether you use full-palm or finger control.

Buttons
The buttons on SteelSeries Ikari Laser are quite few � only five in comparison to the 6 to 10 buttons that the competition had � which may hinder gamers who like to use complex combinations of macros in their games. However, the thumb buttons are easy to reach and use and offer great tactile feel and an audible click when pressed � you are not left guessing whether your intended click was delivered or not. All in all, in our use we didn�t feel crippled by the smallish number of buttons, because we don�t use very many macros and if we do, we tend to use the keyboards for that purpose.

Wheel

The wheel design in SteelSeries Ikari Laser is, without doubt, one of the best we�ve seen. The rubbery tactile feel reminds us of the wheels on Razer�s mice, and you don�t find yourself accidentally pressing the middle button when you intended to scroll the wheel � and vice versa. The wheel is also easy to press and use as a middle button.

Customisability
Like most gaming mice, SteelSeries Ikari Laser allows you to bind keyboard macros to the keys. Basically, you can only do this to your two thumb buttons, because you will probably want to keep the left and right buttons and the wheel at the basic settings. However, even two macros bound to the mouse can increase your control speed at games tremendously, if you choose the macros carefully.