HARDWARE REVIEW

SteelSeries Rival 500 Gaming Mouse Review

by Luke Walsh, January 16th, 2017

SteelSeries has been focusing a lot more on the eSports gamer recently with M500 keyboard that has been designed to be eSports friendly in size but still pack a punch when needed in game. You could also look at the Rival 700 with its OLED screen designed to show you CS:GO ingame information and tactile feedback.

However, the next in line for eSports gamers is the SteelSeries Rival 500, priced at £80 it has gained the more than usual plethora of buttons for competitive gamers and a bucket load of customisation options for a reasonable price to anyone looking at breaking into the professional tournament scene.

From a design perspective it’s a slightly bigger mouse than the older brother, Rival 700 measuring 118mm x 78mm x 43mm, so it is best suited for those with bigger hands. The number of buttons are useful, more so to those who favour the claw grip but, the mouse is broad enough without the buttons getting in the way for those who use a palm grip and still want access to them. It weighs 129g which is quite light really for a gaming mouse when you compare it to the G602 which can weigh upto 152g.

An unusual new feature on the 500 is a button slider on the underneath that changes the thumb rest on the left hand side of the mouse into actual buttons. The slider allows you to either lock or unlock the buttons to use them as your standard resting place or additional macro buttons. For gamers who don’t want to use all 14 buttons dotted around the mouse, this is a great idea as it gives you a comfortable place to rest your thumb without accidentally pressing them.

Speaking of buttons, the Rival 500 has a ton of them. All together it has a massive 14 buttons; a left and right, scroll wheel that clicks three ways, dpi controller which consists of two buttons, five thumb buttons, two on the left and another two on the right top face. Similar to the Naga or Naga Hex, these mice are quite well suited for MMOs but it is a lot sleeker as all the buttons are not concentrated in one place. For competitive gamers, it is important that the mouse is streamlined and that buttons are easy to reach but also not easy to confuse with one another.

Tactile feedback has another comeback and works exactly the same at the Rival 700, it allows you to customise the buttons to rumble depending on the situation you choose. This can be useful to make the mouse buzz when your skills reset in an MMO or recharge in FPS titles such as Overwatch.

One drawback of the mouse though is the fact is has no onboard profiles. While you can sync it up with the “cloud” and store your profiles that way, not being able to take your settings with you to events or LAN can make a huge difference in the eSports scene. It may not seem like much but it can add a level of complexity when out in LAN and adds more stress than just being able to switch on the fly.

If you have a 3D printer handy you can also 3D print your own bumper which is much like the Rival 700. It will have a bumper by default labelled “Rival” but if you are heading out on LAN it could be a good way to include your team name.

When trying the 500 in games, I tested it by playing Overwatch, The Witcher 3, Age of Empires II HD and Battlefield 1, for every game I played it worked just as well as any other competitor on the market.

In The Witcher 3 and Age of Empires II HD the massive amount of buttons were a little over the top as it was impractical to use even half of them. I used a couple of the buttons for some commands such as building, finding idle villagers or setting spells but the rest where never used.

When playing Overwatch and Battlefield 1 the Rival 500 did an amazing job at being able to assign the Overwatch characters abilities to each of the buttons and able to keep up with the quick jerky movements of the title expects. In Battlefield 1, I was able to set up buttons for healing on medic, throwing a grenade and putting on a gas mask which made it extremely useful to keep on top of things in the fast paced environments without ever taking my eyes or hand off the keyboard.

In terms of eSports potential the Rival 500 has a lot to offer, even though it might be a little overkill for some gamers who don’t need 14 different buttons at their disposal. It probably won’t pull me away from my Logitech G602 which has become my staple gaming mouse but it will be perfectly suited for a lot of gamers who want a mouse capable for competitive play. When you add in the price it costs, it has a lot it offers for not that too much of a cost compared to mice on the market.

If you are not interested in eSports or tournaments and won’t play many MMOs the Rival 500 could probably be overlooked for a simpler mouse with less buttons. A lot of pro eSports gamers like streamlined peripherals but the Rival 500 is to have a different option entirely and will definitely turn some pros.