This mouse is not perfect but I would have given it a 4.5 so I upgraded it to a 5.
For my large hands this mouse feels just right. It moves well on my nylon mat that I use for a pad and I have tried it on a hardwood desktop with good results. The mouse has very good yaw and pitch movement and it is easy to adjust dpi setting on the fly.
It has a quick turn feature that works very well in first person shooters. you assign one of the buttons for quick turn around and as your playing if you want to check who's behind you click the button and you turn 180 degree's. If you need to change your direction fast because you can see your out numbered ahead it comes in mighty handy.
The top buttons have a good responsive click to them and I had no problem with learning the over and under side buttons, which I perfer over my old Logitec MX518 foward and aft configuration.
The weight of this mouse without adding extra weights feels about the same as the MX518. I choose to add 5 grams of weight to it and perfer it that way.
The mouse wheel has a micro feeling touch and a little too light for my taste, but I got use to it fairly quickly. The one feature I think would have made this a great mouse would to have put side push switching on the wheel for adjusting look around corners.
I think this mouse is well constructed and will hold up for a long while.
If you running windows/vista than it has two other buttons that bring up the game file and macro changing, useful but not really must have feature.
All in all a confident and very good gaming mouse. Microsoft SideWinder Gaming Mouse
This is a reasonable gaming mouse, but has some problems which may be dealbreakers for you.
Pro:
-adjustable weight (I like mine heavy)
-adjustable sensitivity, whether you like to twitch your wrist or engage the whole arm, you can create settings that feel good to you.
-BIG, It's massive, one thing that always bugged me about the Logitech G5 was that my hand wrapped around it, the Sidewinder is enormous, and my hand rests atop it, quite comfortably I might add.
-Detent scrolling, many mice have switched to smooth scrolling which is much less useful for weapon selection in FPS games.
-Macro button allows you to create macros in game, on the fly
Con:
-detents in the scroll wheel don't have as much resistance as I would like
-would like more weight (included weights allow addition of 30g max.)
-no tilting scroll wheel, my previous mouse had a tilting wheel which I used for leaning left and right in F.E.A.R. , however, as few games implement this feature, this isn't a major issue. However, I also used wheel tilting to switch between tabs in my browser (Opera), so I still use that G5 for general use and browsing, and have the Sidewinder strictly for gaming.
The addition of a tilting wheel would have easily boosted this to 5 stars. If you like tilting wheel mice for browsing, as I do, consider a logitech G9, which has an almost identical feature set, minus the macro button.
Sidewinder just feels good. Customizable weights make your pointer swoop across the screen with predictible accuracy. The 360 view feature gives my World of Warcraft character a great advantage with situational awareness. Thumb buttons are very easy to find. A well thought out mouse for gaming.
Took a bit to set it up, but works like a charm now.
I have major trouble finding good peripherals. I go through keyboards like candy and mice like Gatorade after a long bike ride, so I was really glad to finally get my hands (literally) on a keyboard (Microsoft SideWinder X6 Keyboard) and mouse that I'm happy with.
A wired mouse was a must for me as the RF connection hiccups that occur occasionally, no matter how rarely, bug me horribly (though with the Bluetooth setup on my Mac I've had no real issues). I also have trouble with occasional wrist pain - a minor carpal tunnel issue - so finding a comfortable mouse was very important to me. And while the SideWinder mouse isn't perfect, I'm keeping it.
The first things that struck me about the mouse were the size (it's big) and the shape (it's weird). But for me, they work well: the unconventional size and shape allow me to shift my grip throughout the day while still being able to reach all the controls. This keeps the pain away better than any other mouse I've ever used, particularly those that force me into holding my hand in the same position all day long.
The scroll wheel and forward/back buttons are next up: I've found the buttons a bit too far forward for me (my hands aren't HUGE), though not far enough to make their position a deal-breaker. The scroll wheel is graduated, meaning it doesn't spin free like some others, but has excellent feel and weight to it. It also doubles as a button; I've mapped mine to the Vista Flip 3D function that shows all open windows. This is a function I got addicted to on my Mac (where I use expose mapped to a scroll-wheel press) as I tend to have a lot of windows open at once and can get a bit lost. My only complaint here is that I have trouble finding the perfect setting for scroll wheel increments - sometimes each step goes too far, but making them shorter can make scrolling long pages a pain in the butt (this can mitigated a bit by using accelerated scrolling).
There are a few more things make this mouse unique. First, there are three DPI switches on the top of the mouse which allow you to change the mouse resolution on-the-fly. The new resolution is displayed in a small LCD window on the mouse itself, and each of the three pre-set DPIs are changeable using the mouse software. Second, there's the weighting system: the mouse comes with set a of 5g and 10g weights (two of each) three of which can be inserted into the mouse body in a slide-out tray. Third, the mouse comes with three different sets of feet that can be easily switched out to find the optimum material for your mousing surface. The differences aren't huge, but I have found that picking the right feet makes the mouse slide easier. Finally, the feet and weights all store easily in a small box that has a slot through which the mouse cord can be fed; this makes it not only a handy storage container but an excellent cord control device.
As for the software, it's exactly what you'd expect. You can map all the buttons (except for the one which opens your games folder...stupid, that..though it is out of the way) pretty much any way you'd like, including making program-specific setups. I've had no crashes of the driver, and everything has worked flawlessly for me since day one. Please not that I have only used this with my PC, and have NOT tested it with any of my Macs.
If I could change anything about the mouse I might make it a TINY bit smaller, I'd definitely make the game-launch button re-mappable, and I'd add the ability to put the scroll wheel into a free-spin mode (like some Logitech mice). Overall though, the good FAR outweighs the bad, and I'm not changing mice anytime soon. - Sidewinder - Mouse - Corded - Programmable'
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