Another low cost mouse enters our sights
We’ve already had a Xebec Tech product through our door before, its Samurai Gaming Mouse, which turned out to be an exceptionally good gaming mouse for an unbelievably low price. Now it’s the turn of another mouse, the Sniper; a six-button mouse that differs significantly from its gaming sibling. Rather than having the wide grip, splayed sides of the Samurai, the Sniper is a more streamlined, lightweight and narrow peripheral.
It has a rubberised finish throughout, with brief splashes of colour from the internal LEDs at the wheel and two small points at the bottom of the palm rest. Being narrower makes it a more universal mouse to get to grips with, pun intended. Smaller hands can get a reasonably comfortable hold of the mouse as well as most adults, although those with bigger hands may find it a little too narrow for longer periods of use.
The design isn’t too bad; all black, but with an odd rubberised metallic looking section across the palm rest, which resembled the kind of metal you’ll find on walkways and gangplanks. It’s not too distracting (you’ll have your hand over it while in use), just a curious design decision.
Five of the six buttons are programmable using the included control panel software, the sixth being the hardware button to select the dpi settings (that range from 800 to 3200) in various increments. You can also change the colour of the LED, and assign each macro to a button across four different profiles. Basically the control panel is the same across the Xebec mouse range, just with a different image of the corresponding mouse taking centre stage in the screen.
While the specs are good for the Sniper, with an Avago 5050 optical laser sensor, 1.8m braided USB cable, and a set of balanced weights that bring the mouse to a lighter than normal 259g, there is one element we just can’t grow to love. The mouse buttons are soft touch, including the two main left and right buttons. While some people don’t mind a soft button press, we did find it extremely annoying. Furthermore, the two sidemounted forward and back buttons had a lot of travel in them and, at times, didn’t feel like they’d activated at all, even when pressed in quite hard.
It’s a shame that the buttons don’t quite come up to the same standard as the rest of the design, or that of the Xebec Samurai. However, the redeeming feature here is the fact this mouse is available from Beyond Technologies for a mere £10, or from Amazon for £12.
Although very cheap, it does cause a bit of an issue for the Sniper. The Xebec Samurai, which we’ve conveyed as being a far better mouse, costs exactly the same – from both suppliers. Even with the gaming bent on the Samurai, there’s little reason then to opt for the slightly poorer developed Sniper.
Despite the negativity we’re showing toward the buttons on the Sniper, it’s not all that bad. For less than a tenner it’s more than adequate as an external mouse for a laptop or something similar. To be honest, we can’t see it being too comfortable over longer periods of use.
In short then, if you’re in need of a new, cheap mouse, then we would recommend you go for the Xebec Samurai over the Sniper. David Hayward
A cheaper alternative mouse, but one with rather poor button designs.