SteelSeries WoW Legendary Edition Mouse


Introduction:
So when it comes to steelseries many of you may be thinking…Ah professional FPS gaming WRONG..SteelSeries don’t only produces peripherals for FPS gaming…it produces many other product for different genre of games,not necessary FPS gaming…So this time we are looking at SteelSeries recently launched mouse,the SteelSeries WoW Legendary Edition
So let me just introduce you to the specification 1st 
• Frames per second: 3600
• Inches per second: 130
• Counts per inch: MAX 3200
• Acceleration: 30 G
• Lift distance: 2mm
• Buttons: 11
• Cord: Around 2 m / 6.5 ft
• Polling: MAX 1000 Hz
• Measurements: Weight: 115 grams (0.25 lbs)

PACKAGING
The Front
SteelSeries has created a simple yet stylish packaging.It allows you to gain the feel the mouse from the box without the need to unbox it.Its critical for consumers under a tight budget who wanted to get an idea on how comfy the mouse feels.Packaging last time allows you to hold the mouse but the wrist area will be block. You can see from the packaging now,the wrist area are now free without the box blocking the way


The back of the mouse gives u an idea on the mouse specification. Nothing special about it so lets just move on
What is in the box?


Pretty much what you basically get from a steelseries mouse..
1. Mouse
2. Product Catalog
3. SteelSeries Sticker
4. SteelSeries WoW Legendary Edition User Manual


DESIGN
So lets start looking at the mouse itself.As you all know this mouse consist of 11 buttons which is quite a lot for a mouse(Normal Mouse have 3 buttons).Let me start with the front view of the mouse


1.Right Click
2.Button 1
3.Button 2
4.Button 3
5.Left Click
6.Universal Scroll Button
7.Button 4
The top mouse button placement was good, all the buttons are easily accessible except for button 3 where you need to realy move back your finger to reach that button. Do note that button 3 isn’t the CPI low/high switch. It’s just a macro button
So let’s move on to the right side of the mouse. This is the flaw of the mouse. This button is hard to press with ur ring finger. You need to claw grip your mouse to access to it. But not to worry, it need some good amount of force to press it so that you won’t press wrongly your mouse key. It has rubber sides while the top is plastic. The top mouse body doesn’t feel like it will going to fade sooner or later. Although its plastic, it feels very solidly built.

Finally we move to the left side of the mouse where all these buttons are only accessible by using the thumb. So there are total of 4 thumb triggers. Button 8 and 10 are you normal thumb triggers which is your windows button 4 and windows button 5 or known as back and forward when browsing the web or through the folder. Button 9 and 10 are macro buttons which usually does what other macro button does. The stock setting only mouse key 1,5,6,8,10 are active. The rest is disabled. You need to modify your setting using the driver which I will get on to that later. Button 9 and 11 are sticked together and only one button can be pressed at a time.
Left and right click are quite firm..Other buttons are ok you got a nice tactile feeling.
This mouse is quite small despite of the number of button it has. The previous mouse which was the WoW Mouse was huge and bulky. This is smaller than that one .In fact this mouse is smaller than the other mouse I had in my collection

This is a side by side comparison with my deathadder. I aligned my mouse top edge to the red line of the paper..You can see deathadder is much slimmer but longer.


So next I compared it to the Ikari Optical. Its more obvious that Ikari Optical is winning in its length but width wise it feels almost the same. But Ikari Optical still has a slimmer feel than the WoW Legendary Edition.


The height of WoW Legendary Edition mouse was the highest among the other mice that I had compared with(DeathAdder and Ikari Optical).
I think that this mouse is more suited for claw grip users. Palm grip users are welcomed to try it out but it will not be as comfy as other SteelSeries palm grip mice(Sensei/Xai/Ikaris/WoW 1st Edition).Fingertip grip should be fine also.
 
So from above this picture you can see that the WoW logo isn’t sticking to the body of the mouse.It has a 1/2mm gap between the glow logo and the mouse body. Don’t worry the mouse isn’t dented. It has a hard plastic covering it.


From here we can take a better look of the logo. The stock setting was medium intensity with orange colour (as shown as picture above).This colour can be changed. It will be discussed later on in the review

The mouse cord is back to rubber. It isn’t braided like most of the other SteelSeries mice. The connector is silver plated. Ever wonder why this mouse is cheaper than other SteelSeries WoW Mouse?
The scroll sound when scrolling down with this WoW Mouse is silent than when scrolling up.In comparison with the 3 mices deathadder is more silent than WoW Mouse but WoW Mouse is more silent than Ikari Optical. This isn’t an issue to worry about since most gamers will use headset when gaming.
PERFORMANCE
So let’s just start with the performance of the mouse. The mouse utilizes a 3200cpi optical sensor. All of you must be thinking why SteelSeries equip an optical sensor on such a premium mouse? The answers are simple. Optical nowadays performed almost the same as laser. Featuring 3600 frames per second tracking and 130 inches per second which is more than enough speed for intense WoW Gaming…The lift distance isn’t much to be worried about. The website stated that it is 2mm its still good because u won’t be tracking when you lift up your mouse. Ikari and DeathAdder will still have a slight tracking capability when I lift off at 2mm,which causes a slight jitter for a short period of time. Maximum polling rate of the mouse is 1000Hz which is normal for any gaming grade mouse cause you need all the speed you can get when gaming. But instead of a normal 125Hz/500Hz/1000Hz setting. SteelSeries WoW mouse let you tuned form 250Hz to 500Hz and all the way to 1000Hz


Picture of the WoW Mouse 3200cpi optical sensor
I almost forgot to mention the size of the mouse feet. SteelSeries like to keep it large so that your mousefeet can last you for a longer period of time. As as usual you have a SteelSeries logo on the bottom of the mouse
So I have been playing a few games with this mouse. But sorry guys I left out the main game for this mouse and that is WoW. But I will let you know what other games you can play with this mouse.
So I started off with DotA (Defense of the Ancients) also known as a Warcraft III Frozen Throne custom map. The thumb triggers of the mouse can be assigned with macro. In my case I assigned it for Numpad. It’s quite a drag when you have to move your left hand of your keyboard from basic hero skill hotkey to item key at the numberpad. With this WoW mouse you can solve that issue by assigning  a total of 7 programmable buttons (the maximum number of slots you have in War3 is only 6.So 7 keys are more than enough)
Then I moved on to one of my favourite game and that is Counter Strike 1.6.All of you must be thinking why I used this mouse for FPS when this mouse isn’t designed for it. Well for the sake of other readers I decided to do it. The mouse isn’t that awesome in FPS gaming mainly because of it sluggish weight. If I were to compare it to a ikari optical..The WoW Mouse feel like a 50cent syiling while the Ikari Optical feel like a 20cent syiling. Not much of a weight difference but FPS gaming need more on faster movement which need the mouse to be in a right design and light weight. Acceleration of the mouse isn’t that noticeable almost to non which is good for fps games and also RPG games where acceleration will sometimes drag your cursor away from your target. I have yet to see any issues about that on this WoW Mouse
But there is a drawback while using this mouse. The world’s most famous GGC doesn’t support macro. And usualy WoW competitions bans you from using macro while playing it. So keep that in mind that this mouse aimed at serious online gaming rather than competitive gaming scene..
DRIVER INTERFACE
Well it’s the most confusing part is when you need to configure the mouse. Dont worry I will guide you through this review. So when all tabs are expanded this is how it should looks like.


On the left you have your sensitivity adjustment..You have your CPI adjustment,double click speed,scroll speed,win pointer speed,advanced sensitivity where you can manipulate your X axis and Y axis sensitivity.I recommend setting the win sensitivity speed on your windows mouse configurator. Set it to 6/11 and turn the ‘enhance mouse precision’ off. This will allow you to remove any software calculation or known as acceleration.
In the middle you have the button laid out with each number indicating which buttons you are programming..On the top left you have a hero icon..Click on that and it will open up this box


So this allows you to set your in game setting to the buttons of the mouse..
On the right you have your game commands,change cpi,change profile and change macro.
Game command

Basically its just show you the in game keys that you are able to bind with the macro mouse buttons(only for WoW)
You have a change CPI tab which changes the cpi from 400,800,1600,3200 or you can set it to CPI UP or CPI DOWN which basically increases or decreases your CPI in order
Third you have the change profile tab which does everything is there
There is a total of 10 profiles to choose from.When profile switching, there will be a slight delay for it to load the other profile. This isn’t a problem to WoW since you gonna have your hero ready with your mouse setting before the game even starts.
*Note that this mouse doesn’t have memory. But it will save the last colour, cpi value, polling u used. Macro will not be saved and will reset to stock settings

If you want to know how I set numberpad on my macro buttons you can contact me I will pass my details below of the review.
You can’t assign single key for this mouse. Single key can be utilized in GGC  but macro will be banned.

So lastly it’s the illumination setting also known as BLING BLING. like the old WoW Mouse you can choose any colour under the sun. Choose your intensity, you have low, medium and high or off. So when you have it off means you turn off the lighting system. The pulsation has 4 settings is the same as intensity it has low, medium, high and off. The higher the setting he more pulse it will do. When it’s off then the lighting is off.
PROS:
-11 buttons which can technically do everything
-3200cpi high cpi which is enough for gaming use
-small and portable
-stylish

CONS:
-Buttons isn’t usable when playing some online client or in competition
-Quite heavy for a mouse
-Plastic Cable
-Doesn’t have memory to store macros

Conclusion:

Retailing at rm269, this mouse is set for WoW, but it’s also applicable to DotA and Warcraft III or the same genre games..I’ll think I’ll rate it
Performance:9/10
Price:9/10
Design:8/10
Overall I’ll rate it 8/10
Until next time, happy gaming and have fun fragging
Any questions about the mouse you can contact me directly but sending me an email silthereen@hotmail.com or you can post your question here or at steelseries Malaysia facebook page @ http://www.facebook.com/SteelSeriesMalaysia
NOTE* Lowyat forum didnt let me add more pictures...Here is the full review with picture
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