Gaming Mice

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Why Do I Need a Gaming Mouse?

If you've just finished building your own gaming PC, you owe it to yourself to pick up a gaming mouse. More than any other peripheral, a mouse has the largest impact on your gaming experience. It's not ideal, but you can get away with a standard keyboard in competitive titles - the same can't be said for a mouse. In these unrelenting, fast-paced games, a standard mouse would limit your ability to perform at your best.

That's because non-gaming mice try to predict and smooth out the cursor's movement. While features like acceleration and angle snapping can help speed up repetitive, day-to-day actions with your mouse, they'll add a degree of unpredictability to your in-game actions. This is, of course, the last thing you want when you're lining an enemy up in your crosshair. The best gaming mice, on the other hand, exhibit none of these traits - more on that below.

What Should I Look For in a Gaming Mouse?

Sensor & DPI

If you don't want these so-called features affecting your gameplay, you need a gaming mouse with a 'flawless' sensor. It's the sensor which captures the mouse's movement. So, a flawless sensor translates the mouse's movement to the on-screen cursor exactly one-to-one, without any smoothing, acceleration, or angle snapping. You'll find what sensor a gaming mouse uses somewhere in its tech-specs. You can then check to see if it's flawless by searching for it in a flawless sensor list available on the net.

There's also the DPI (effectively, the sensitivity) of the sensor. Some sensors are capable of incredibly high DPIs, like 30,000 DPI. But these kind of DPIs are too sensitive to actually use. You'll want to turn it down using the gaming mouse's software or DPI toggle button. However, a decently high DPI, like 1,600 or 3,200 DPI, paired with a low in-game sensitivity gives the mouse a lot of data points to work with, resulting in a smooth, jitter-free cursor.

Weight

It wasn't too long ago that gaming mice shipped with additional weights, but nowadays the market's shifted in favour of ultra-light models. The idea's that it's easier to make lightning-fast movements and reactions with a lightweight gaming mouse. And with less inertia, you can stop a lightweight gaming mouse on a sixpence after a quick mouse flick or sweep, perfect for first-person shooters. What's more, a lightweight gaming mouse is less fatiguing over hours-long gaming sessions. Wireless gaming mice tend to be heavier than wired ones on account of their batteries. Keep this in mind if you're after the lightest possible mouse.

Buttons

Another standout feature of gaming mice is their number of rebindable buttons. Most ordinary mice have left click, right click, and middle-mouse click - that's it. Left and right click are accounted for by default in games, so this leaves you with only one button to rebind.

Gaming mice, on the other hand, usually feature two additional side-mounted buttons. These are perfect for rebinding frequently used in-game actions, like melee and grenade, so that they're only a thumb-press away. This will save you from needing to lift your fingers off the WASD keys, keeping you in complete control of your character's movement. If you want even more buttons, there's 'MMO' gaming mice which boast up to 12 buttons on their sides.

Wired vs Wireless Gaming Mice

You'd think that having to transmit data to-and-from a wireless receiver would incur some sort of latency penalty, but today's wireless gaming mice are just as fast, if not faster than wired gaming mice. You don't have to take manufacturers' words for it, either - simply look up the mice the world's top esports players use. Many pros made the switch to wireless years ago. So, if you're worried a wireless gaming mouse will feel sluggish compared to a wired gaming mouse, don't be. Just be sure to pick up a quality wireless gaming mouse from a reputable brand, one which leverages low-latency 2.4GHz wireless connectivity as opposed to Bluetooth.

That said, a wireless gaming mouse isn't a straight upgrade in every regard. In place of a wire, you'll have to contend with batteries and the need to recharge/replace them. Modern wireless gaming mice can last tens, if not hundreds of hours on a single charge. But, eventually, their batteries will run out of juice. This can happen at the most inopportune times. If you'd rather not run the risk of your mouse cutting out on your in the middle of a ranked Counter Strike match, a wired gaming mouse is the safest bet.

Gaming Mice at Ebuyer

Here at Ebuyer, we stock a wide range of both wired and wireless gaming mice from the industry's best brands, including Logitech, Razer, Cooler Master, and more. While you're here, why not pick up a gaming keyboard at the same time?

Spread the cost of your gaming peripheral purchases with our flexible finance offers. And if you want your new gaming mouse by tomorrow, next-day delivery is also available.

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