Corsair Gaming M65 RGB Gaming Mouse Review

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Conclusion

So, there was a lot of hype about this mouse with its RGB lighting, what are my lasting impressions.

Well in a slight change of format to usual I want to take about that lighting first. The amount of customisation available in the Corsair Utility Engine for the lighting is amazing and although it is overwhelming on the face of it, the solid documentation and buzzing Corsair forums should mean that all enthusiastic users should be able to create or share their own highly impressive light shows. About the lights themselves though; There are still some teething issues Corsair need to work out here, the front LEDs still don’t function fully (the right one is currently disabled) and something about the colours just seems washed out or the transitions are a bit weird, it’s hard to explain but non primary colours currently lack a certain amount of vibrancy compared to primary ones in my experience.

Corsair aren’t sitting on their hands though, I have been assured that they are working extremely hard to put out fixes and the front LED should be enabled imminently with the colour reproduction being something they are aware of and are working on also. When it’s all working flawlessly and we are on some mature firmware I’m sure the lighting will be even more impressive than it is now and I certainly can’t criticise them when it comes to support as the software updates have been coming thick and fast, but the mouse does feel like it was let out the door a little too early.

Back to the mouse itself though and as I have said, the ergonomics aren’t ideal to my tastes but I think the vast majority of claw grip users will get along well with the mouse and it does have some strong points going for it ergonomically with the very nicely positioned sniper and thumb buttons, though users with larger hands that want to palm grip the mouse will not find much to love in the shape of the M65.

Performance was as good as one could expect from a laser sensor equipped FPS mouse, the vast majority of the switches in the buttons are good and the sensor certainly does well in some areas like low jitter and the lift off performance is good thanks to a well implemented DCU. For me though the inherent acceleration of a laser sensor is just not something we need to put up with any more and with great optical sensors like the Avago 3310 and S3988 on the market there really is no reason for the 9800 to still be finding a home in FPS mice if you ask me.

Value wise I’ve got to say when you consider the build quality and the very nice materials used, and of course the awesome and soon to be even better lighting the M65 RGB is well priced at £60 for those who want what is currently a unique product in terms of the amount of customisation you have over the lighting.

I can see users spending hours working on their lighting profiles and that’s something no other manufacturer has achieved with their software offering before so I have to give Corsair credit for their work in creating the deep user experience of CUE. With some ergonomic refinements and a sensor transplant the M65 RGB could be a truly great mouse, but even in its current form I still think it deserves a Silver award for developing the RGB concept into something very cool and adding a whole new meaning to the words user customisable.

I’d like to say a massive thank you to Corsair for sending this mouse in for review, I look forward to seeing more from them in the future.