With its extremely customisable shape and feature set, even including the ability to 3D-print your own parts using your own designs, or templates available online, Roccat’s Nyth isn’t your average gaming mouse. Included in the box are two hot-swappable sides to change the shape. The first is a slimmer one that’s well suited to claw and finger grips, while the second is a fuller, hand-filling one that’s comfortable with a palm grip. Switching from one to the other takes seconds as well, thanks to the magnetic design. However, they could do with a rubber grip applied to the sides to help combat the low friction on the mouse’s main body.
A modular thumb zone is also included, enabling you to install between zero and 12 thumb buttons. Individual slots are arranged in three rows of four, and you can install single or double-sized buttons as your needs dictate, and fill unused ones with inactive blanking plates. It’s a clever mechanism, but working with it is fiddly – you have to release all the buttons and spacers at once using a slider on the bottom, even if you only want to make one change. Still, the numbering system helps you keep track of parts, and all the necessary bits come in a carry case for easy storage and transport.
The whole zone is generally easy to reach with your thumb, but we found accurately differentiating between 12 buttons, for example, to be practically impossible – it’s much easier to work with the double-sized buttons.
The Nyth itself has a soft-touch, scratch-resistant surface that make it comfortable to wield but it’s also rather slippery in your hand. The Teflon feet ensure smooth movements and the 1.8m USB cable doesn’t drag, although there’s no adjustable weighting.
Other buttons include one at the front end of the scroll wheel, and a mid-finger fin switch behind it, which you can rock to either side, giving you two extra functions without getting in the way. However, it’s much easier to trigger this switch when in a palm grip; with a claw grip your middle and index fingers are elevated above the fin rather than right next to it. The scroll wheel itself is also lovely to use, with clearly defined steps and a pleasing rubber coating.
The Nyth uses a 12,000dpi laser sensor that’s adjustable in 1dpi increments. At this point, sensor resolution is turning into a numbers game, with ever higher numbers offering little tangible benefit, but the Nyth’s sensor performance at realistic levels remains excellent – we didn’t detect any acceleration, snapping or excessive jitter in our movements.
Adjustments are made in Roccat’s Swarm software, which is fast and intuitive. Up to five resolution levels can be saved, and managing your profiles is easy. All buttons bar the two main ones can be reprogrammed to almost any function or macro, and you can give all keys a secondary programmable function, by assigning the EasyShift function to any mouse button, or a key on a compatible Roccat keyboard. Telling the software how you have the thumb zone configured is easy too, thanks to a simple drag and drop interface.
Meanwhile, the two lighting zones use RGB LEDs and can be configured with a few effects, although your hand will block most of the lighting from view in use.
Conclusion
With good build quality, solid sensor performance, flexible customisation options and intuitive, detailed software, there’s a lot to like about the Nyth. At £90 inc VAT, however, it’s extremely expensive and a very niche product. The number of people who will want to swap grip styles between games, rather than stick with their usual preferred shape, is arguably small, although the ability to swap different thumb button sets could be handy for folks who play both RPGs and first-person shooters. If you’re looking for that level of customisation, though, the Nyth is a superb piece of engineering that uniquely fits the bill. MATTHEW LAMBERT
VERDICT
A great piece of craftsmanship, but it’s only worth considering if you truly need this level of modularity and customisation.
SPECIFICATIONS
Connection Wired, USB
Sensor Laser
Resolution 12,000dpi
Cable Braided
Material Plastic
Extras None