I’ve abused more mice throughout my questionable career than Walt Disney, and out of all the brave peripherals that have come to fall upon my wrath, the wireless ones have always fizzled out first. “MEDIOCRE”, I exclaim to my many wives in our post apocalyptic bunker, as the battery dies at the most unfortunate moment.
“AVERAGE” I bellow to my long-suffering cat as he looks on in horror, the mouse-click registers a fraction of moment longer than a wired peripheral would have done.
“DISAPPOINTING!” I shout at my mirror through gritted teeth and salty tears after eating 24 Jaffa Cakes in the space of five minutes.
A friend once told me that wireless peripherals have come on leaps and bounds since my initial upsetting experiences, so naturally I buried him alive with a straw poking out of the ground for oxygen and went about my day. In all seriousness, I know that my phobia of wireless stuff is just that – irrational. After all, nothing annoys me more than having to play and charge my PS4 controller at the same time, so why shouldn’t I take that same approach to the humble mouse? Eventually, one fell into my lap to review, which brings us to the time I pushed further out of my comfort zone than I did the last time I visited Amsterdam.
LOOKS: 3/5
Like Katy Perry without makeup, the W100 is nothing special, but almost commits to function over fashion – with the exception of the pulsing Combatwing logo radiating a spectrum of generic colours. I understand why it’s there – to distinguish from other mice using the same body marketed by different companies – but that doesn’t make it look any better. A simple embossed, LED free logo would have given the mouse that extra touch of class without falling prey to the MOAR LEDS MEANS MORE GAMERS mentality that still hampers a lot of peripheral developers these days. You do have the option to turn off all the lights entirely but I’m not a complete savage – I need at least one to find the mouse when I’m hunched over my desk in the dark listening to pro-wrestling podcasts and crying into instant noodles.
PERFORMANCE: 5/5
This mouse has been such a solid surprise all round. It’s performed just as well as my previous Razer mouse and has gone on a week of daily extended usage with a single charge. There’s a handy indicator light to let you know when to pop in the cable to keep the internal battery going but I haven’t needed it once past the initial two-hour juice-up. This has lead me to believe the mouse is not fuelled by electricity, rather by desperation, which is in unfortunate abundance in my combined office/bedroom. A button just shy of the scroll wheel allows you to adjust DPI on the fly from four presets and media controls rest on the side. For a budget mouse it’s more or less a complete package, and any doubts I had about wireless peripherals has been laid cautiously to rest for now – if a cheaper option can perform this well, the high-end ones must be fantastic.
BUILD QUALITY: 4/5
In general the mouse is pretty solid – definitely well made, and the high end of budget. There are only really a few small gripes that stop it from hitting a 5/5. For one, it’s way, way too light. There’s not enough weight in the core of the thing to stop it feeling flimsy. All the buttons are fine and the connection points are sturdy enough, but the light weight and glossy black plastic surrounding the sides cheapen the feel of the whole thing. The weight might not be such an issue for some people, but I personally like my mice to have a bit of heft. Which is why I bait the traps with bacon grease and Big Mac sauce.
Oh, wait. Wrong mouse.
FINAL SCORE: 4/5
