Like a kitten in your hand, but no pussycat when you get gaming
Turtle Beach is really onto something with the soft coating it's dipped the Grip 500 in. Its molecules spun and woven to feel like the firmest marshmallow beneath the hand, the mouse kisses your fingertips like a nymph newly spawned from a pool of inky black water, begging for protection from a pursuing satyr.
Other things we’d like to see dipped in this stuff include the door handles on lingerie shops, those massive KFC containers you should never try and finish on your own and, most glorious of all, the insides of our socks, so we could wiggle our toes against it all day and get a little shiver of excitement each time.
Back to the mouse. You get seven buttons, all programmable with commands or macro sequences but not really suitable for left-handers. You could probably get away with using it in the left hand at a pinch, but the position of the buttons that fall so nicely under the right thumb would lead to some awkward ring finger gymnastics were you to try it for long gaming sessions. You can click the main buttons all the way back at the mouse's mid-point, useful should you have particularly short fingers.
The body of the mouse is broad, sitting high in the palm for those who prefer it that way, while a tapered shape accommodates claw grippers. It fits perfectly in our American-sized hands, but could be too big if you're somewhat more lightly built. Button layout is nicely thought-out, as long as you're prepared to use your thumb, with a good amount of travel once you've pressed down. It never feels like you’re going to push the switch all the way through the body of the mouse, which is comforting.
The main switches are Omrons, the ubiquitous choice of the gaming mouse, and the infrared garnet eye of an Avago laser sensor gleams invisibly underneath. There are the now-traditional grilles either side of the cable to make the mouse look like a sports car, and the lighting can be adjusted with an app on the PC along with the button programming. Five colour-coded profiles can be copied over to the mouse’s onboard memory, ready to be switched between on the fly, if you can remember which is which and can be bothered to set them up.
The wheel, where so many mice fall down, is nicely notched and sports a grippy tyre. It feels very light however, putting up just barely enough resistance to being spun. We’d have liked to see a bit more presence and weight to it, so we could be certain wed rotated it rather than just brushed against it. It can be assigned different functions using the PC app, which is nice to see, though we lack the imagination to think of too many situations in which it would actually be useful.
The soft-touch coating could, unfortunately, prove to be the Grip 500’s major drawback. If you regularly game in a sauna, or perhaps one of the hotter parts of the country, you may build up a tiny bit of perspiration. Should this ever happen, the mouse is going to get quite slippery, the problem being that there are no ridges to hold your fingers on the buttons or grippy textures on the body. This is especially true on the left of the body where your thumb rests. Come down from the buttons too hard and you risk sliding off and thumbplanting the desk underneath, possibly causing a nasty bruise.
There's also the price. For £55 you can get a Razer DeathAdder or Logitech G502, either of which is a more satisfying mouse to use than Turtle Beach's commendable, comfortable effort. Ian Evenden
Lovely soft finish; decent buttons; customisable.
SPECIFICATIONS
Sensor Laser
Max sensitivity 9.800dpi
Programmable buttons Seven
Cord length 2m
Connector USB