After many many years of making custom PCs and laptops, Alienware has decided to descend into the high-end gaming peripherals market with their AW958 Elite Gaming Mouse and the recently reviewed Alienware AW768 Elite Gaming Keyboard.

The Alienware mouse is pretty standard in terms of design and has a few choices which are a little strange. Worst of all is the price, it is hard to imagine how the mouse was as expensive to make as the selling price of £89.99. It seems like it will come with some of the newer systems but it’s a hard one to recommend due to the comfort and cost.

The main pull of the Alienware mouse is being able to change the sides which allow you to make it wider and provide more support for your hand and fingers. With the default sides is measures 13cm x 9.5cm x 4cm. You can swap out both sides but only the right-hand side of the mouse provides more width. The side where your thumb would rest just allows you to either add some additional buttons or have nothing there at all.

Trying out both different sides, either option was not all that comfortable. The bigger side that sits on the right goes too far out and makes the mouse feel uneven, while the smaller option still felt a little off.

The style of the mouse is fairly basic, it has a tidy design with silver buttons and the rest being in a black matte colour. It looks like a more styled office mouse rather than your more traditional gaming mouse. It still has some lighting on the body in three lines though but not something you’d really see once you have your hand over the top.

There are thirteen buttons altogether, with the left/right buttons, a scroll wheel that clicks and the side which comes in two or six button and top DPI switchers. There’s a lot of options for tweaking with the AW958, you can add weights to the mouse, adjust the height of the palm rest and with the side parts it’s quite an array of options. Even with all the options though it was not all that pleasant to use for long periods of time.