Introduction
It’s blooming windy up here on top of this crane, but my mouse is gonna jump whether it likes it or not…
Ok so I am not shoving my mouse off a high place attached to some elastic. I am here today to talk about Cougar’s Bunker Vacuum Mouse Bungee.
Cougar is a fairly well known budget to mid-range brand, offering lots of different peripherals. Initially exposure was mainly with mice and cases, with which they managed to turn out some decent offerings, lately headsets, keyboards, power supplies and even chairs have been showing up too.
Mouse Bungee’s have been around quite a while, offering desktop cable management with an anti-snagging capability. These things are not high on my priority list when putting together a setup, however I think I just changed my mind.
Box Contents
- Cougar Bunker Vacuum Mouse Bungee unit.
Design Specifications
- Patented Vacuum suction pad with release tab and sticky surface.
- Heavy Duty Plastic base construction, with a solid clamping lever.
- Rubberised bendable Bungee cable harness.
Closer Look
The front of the box shows the Cougar Bunker with an orange glow underneath, this is just for marketing effect as there are no lights on this device.
The back of the box holds a bunch of information about the Bunker, in a selection of languages. Some of this information is repeated in bigger text on the sides of the box along with some more images.
Inside the box the Cougar Bunker is encased in a plastic clamshell, this is easily opened at the studs, I would say the packaging offers plenty of protection for the device during transit.
Taking the Bunker out of the packaging, we are presented with a lightweight yet solid device, it is quite compact, no sprawling legs, it doesn’t take up any more space than a mug of tea.
Turning it around to the front, we can see the clamping mechanism on top of the base, the rubbery cable harness holding its shape and position well.
Going underneath the Cougar Bunker, peeling off the protective plastic reveals the very tacky (as in sticky) vacuum pad, yes that is my fingerprint on there, such a shiny surface, this thing grips in place even without using the suction clamp. As you can see this design is similar to in-car phone or sat-nav mounting systems. To release the sticky pad when moving the Bunker, pull firmly on the rubber tab, shown on the right hand side of this image, which enables the bungee to come away from the surface without a lot of force.
Next I threaded a mouse cable through the rubber harness, playing around with different lengths of cable available from the end of the harness for movement is needed, you need to have enough to move around without tugging on the harness with enough force to feel restrictive movement, when you get it spot on the mouse moves freely and you don’t feel the bungee’s presence when mousing around.
Performance
Mounted on my desk with my main gaming rig, the Cougar Bunker has been sat unmovable for 4 days, the clamping system is very well designed keeping the bungee firmly in place. Of course you are going to want to have a nice smooth flat clean surface for this to work, and it will be interesting to see how this manages to hold on to one of those textured plastic tables they often use at LAN parties, in fact I will pop an update here after attending one in the next few weeks.
Once I found my ideal cable positioning with the Bunker bungee I found that freedom of movement was improved. The cable at the point of attachment to the mouse up to the bungee harness is lifted off the desk surface, removing cable drag I didn’t even know was an issue. Moving the mouse around the bungee moves slightly with the cable, the length allowing no restrictive feedback unless I really move the mouse over to the edge of the mat, which is outside my normal movement area. The best way to describe how it feels using the Cougar Bunker is almost like using a wireless mouse, the drag from the cable without it is noticeable and I am 100% converted.
Conclusion
I used to think these things were more of a gimmick but I sit here corrected with one gaming disturbance gone. I really had no idea the effect of my cable dragging on my desk, bunching up against the mouse or getting snagged on other desktop bits n pieces was having on my gaming.
The Cougar Bunker Bungee is a fine example of the perfect kind of device to add improvement to the day to day experience of mousing around. Not just for gaming, the lack of cable snagging and dragging will also help with precise mouse movements during photo editing or drawing for example.
Giving the Cougar Bunker a high score is easy, it has a small footprint and a solid construction and does exactly what is required of it.
The Cougar Bunker is available around the £15 mark and can be grabbed from Overclockers here.
