HARDWARE REVIEW

Corsair M65 Pro RGB Review

by Kieron Davies, April 11th, 2016

Corsair have been a big player in the PC peripheral world for some time now, especially in their keyboard range. Their cherry keys are hard to find rivals for but not much is really said about their mouse products. Well fear not for now we have a review for the newest Corsair gaming mouse, the M65 Pro RGB.

At first glance the mouse looks very sleek, with cut out sides towards the rear of the mouse to allow the lighting system in the palm rest to illuminate your mouse mat. It looks like the mouse is missing something in the back, as if they forgot to build the boot onto the car, but it’s a solid design choice, functionally if not aesthetically.

The first thing you notice when you pick up the M65 is its weight. It is a heavy mouse as a result of the weighting system inside the body of the mouse which can be adjusted to change the centre of balance. Alternatively you can remove all the weights and the mouse weights around the same as its main competitors for budget gaming mice, namely the Sensei RAW or Razer Diamondback. However the aluminium base to the mouse means that it still leans to the heavier end of the gaming mouse scale. I found removing one or two weights didn’t really adjust the centre of gravity of the mouse, but rather made the mouse feel unbalanced which isn’t something an FPS (First-person shooter) gamer wants to feel. A mouse should feel balanced and comfortable. Removing one or two weights makes the mouse either drag due to the one sided weighting or more of a struggle to push. I found the mouse was most comfortable to use with all three weights removed, the mouse became a good weight to use and still tracked smoothly and comfortably. I also removed the screws that hold the weights in the mouse.

Installing the mouse’s software is simple enough. Like most gaming mice today it doesn’t come with a disc, so you have to download the drivers directly from the Corsair site. Without having a Corsair Keyboard, a lot of the features of the software become redundant. The main function to focus on for gamers is obviously the DPI selector. You can have five different intervals of DPI which can be changed by a button below the scroll wheel, and a sixth interval for your “Sniper DPI”. This is a small-ish button where your thumb rests which can either be set to increase or decrease your DPI when sniping.

This sniper button wasn’t particularly useful when playing games as I generally find the best way to play is to get used to a DPI and sensitivity and just get good with that. Having your DPI change a lot is not something that is very desirable especially for a competitive FPS gamer. More and more gaming mice are stripping the DPI multi-step function as it is rarely used by gamers. The exception being when you’re flying a jet for example in Battlefield and need a higher DPI in order to fly.

The M65’s lighting has four different modes which are pretty standard for multi-colour mice nowadays. Solid, gradient, ripple and wave. It’s nothing special but it’s nice to be able to personalise your colour choices and patterns.

The top of the mouse is a smooth rubber-like plastic, and feels very nice under the palm. Unfortunately, this plastic wasn’t used for the thumb rest and instead a rougher plastic was chosen which began to irritate my thumb over the course of using the mouse. I found myself not using the sniper button for sniping, but as a little island of comfort for my thumb to take refuge on for periods of time to stop the irritation.

In game (CS:GO to be precise) the M65 Pro functions very well, it has smooth tracking, a lift off distance which means you don’t lose tracking for those moments when you need to readjust your mouse and although it’s heavier than other mice when using the weigh system, it still glides quickly and smoothly making popping heads an enjoyable experience.

Overall the M65 Pro RGB is a nice little entry level mouse. At a price tag over around £60 it’s not going to break the bank and you really do get what you pay for.