[section_title title=”Real World Performance”]
Real World Performance
As usual for mice, I will split the real world performance side of things into the three sections which I feel deserve an equal and thorough mention.
Ergonomics
From a design point of view the M65 RGB is a right handed mouse, intended for all grip types. I’ll start with the good first points first which are that the ‘Sniper’ button is well shaped and very well positioned, the thumb buttons are well placed and the coating on the sides is nice and grippy whilst the soft touch style coating on the top feels pleasant in hand.
The mouse definitely is not suitable for a palm grip though and even a finger grip would be pushing it if you have large hands.  The reason for this is that the mouse is relatively low in height and it is not very long either which meant in an attempted palm grip my fingers were hanging off the end of the mouse. What compounds the problem is that the right hand side of the mouse doesn’t leave much room for your third and fourth fingers on the wedge shaped finger rest which combined with the fact that the M1/2 buttons aren’t concave like on a lot of other mice meant that I didn’t feel like the mouse was very ergonomic in a palm grip at all.
A claw grip was definitely more viable though and although I still feel like the mouse could do with being longer I don’t foresee claw grip users with average sized hands running into any problems, but for me with large hands I didn’t really find the M65 RGB a very enjoyable mouse to use during my time with it. As always though your mileage may vary and if you have average/medium sized hands I would say you would likely find the mouse pretty well proportioned and there are definitely some positive ergonomic features like the Sniper button but palm and finger/hybrid grippers with larger hands should be looking elsewhere in my opinion.
Buttons
At the more premium price point we have here I always expect a strong showing buttons wise from mice and on the whole I was quite pleased with the M65, the sniper and thumb button switches have a nice click to them and the scroll wheel in particular is nice with a good resistance to it and a good rubber grip.
The left and right mouse buttons also feature clicky switches but in an FPS mouse like this I would personally prefer a longer travel implementation with a more deliberate click to them but what is present does the job nicely and will allow you to spam the buttons quickly if you need to. The main area for improvement is the DPI switches really, they feel pretty wooden compared to the rest of the switches on the mouse and pressing them take a bit more effort than I’d like but it’s more than forgivable being they aren’t going to get used an awful lot by most. Overall a strong showing in the buttons department from the M65 RGB.
Tracking
During my time with the M65 I played a fair bit of BF4 and being an Avago 9800 there was no great revelation to be had in terms of tracking performance, there is no significant amount of jitter or snapping but you simply cannot escape that inherent acceleration that just dampens the feel of the tracking. I do have to compliment Corsair on one thing though and that is the distance control unit/lift off control they have implemented here, the M65 RGB is only one of two mice with an Avago 9800 that I’ve used where I’ve not had any problems with the lift off height being too high so thumbs up there.
Ultimately if you like laser sensors the 9800 is still the best all rounder and the implementation here is as good as any if not better, but times are changing and gamers are waking up and smelling the optical sensor coffee for FPS gaming and Corsair need to move forward with the trends to keep their hardcore enthusiasts on board, I know I’d love to seem them giving flagship mice optical sensors like ASUS just have done with the ROG Gladius and I’m sure this hasn’t gone unnoticed in the Corsair skunkworks.
