Cyber Snipa Intelliscope Mouse

With 2400DPI, 6 buttons and lazer pickup, we see if this mouse has what it takes to be a gamers weapon of choice.

Specifications

The packaging for the Cyber Snipa Intelliscope is fairly attractive and gives you an excellent view of what your buying. Included in the box are the mouse itself, a software disk for the Intelliscope software and a simple black and white manual.

The mouse itself is probably not what I would call eye-catching (at least not without power) but it isn't an ugly device by any stretch of the imagination. Being symmetrical in shape makes it viable for lefties and righties, even if the button arrangement is not symmetrical. The shape has been designed to provide a sculpted place to rest your hand and so hopefully reduce discomfort during those long gaming sessions.

Speaking of buttons, the Intelliscope mouse is a 6 button mouse with the standard right and left on the front top of the mouse as you would expect. Much like the xRaider mouse we reviewed previously, the actual buttons as well as the top of the mouse are a one piece affair which gives a clean aesthetic and as I have discovered is also better for cleaning. The material used is a soft rubberised plastic which provides a nice balance between grip and slip to keep you happy using it. The two main buttons are also quiet a length allowing you to place your fingers in whatever manner you are comfortable with without worry of not being able to push the buttons properly. The third button is the mouse wheel itself; like many mice on the market these days, you can push down on the mousewheel for a third button.

Buttons four and five sit on the left side thumb position and are sloped in an upward manner making it easier to slide your thumb upward to press the buttons rather than releasing your grip on the mouse. The sixth button is a large button on the right side, sloped upward like buttons four and five but maintains a longer length, ideal for the right handed to use your little finger regardless of your hand size or grip.

Powering up for the first time brings a warm red glow to the mouse around the edges and from under the translucent mousewheel. Now this red glow is not just an aesthetic feature but is also an indication of the current DPI setting of the mouse. When I said this was a six button mouse, that wasn't strictly true, as a seventh button resides on top of the mouse just behind the mousewheel*.

Adorned with the Intelliscope 'i', this button has but one function; toggling of the DPI. Adjustable DPI is not a new feature as it is something that has been done before, but what I like about this set up is that you only have two choices; 1000DPI or 2400DPI. I'm sure that there are those of you out there who would like incremental adjustments but to be honest, would you truly use more than two during a game? Cyber Snipa call these two settings Stealth (1000 DPI) and ATAK (2400 DPI) and these are indicated by the coloured glow of the mouse, the Intelligent Ambient indicator. Red, as mentioned before signifies a setting of 1000DPI while switching to 2400 DPI will give a bright blue glow.

*I'm bound to be asked, but no, at no time have I accidentally pressed the DPI switch. It sits in just the right place so that as you hold the mouse, it will be within the crook of your fore and middle fingers without actually being under any part of your hand during normal use. With a little practice you might find that the bottom of the second joint on your middle finger could be used to adjust the DPI on the fly as the DPI Switch is curved to allow you to slide onto the button.

The bottom of the mouse is quite bland but there are a couple of things I would like to point out. Teflon coated feet, 6 of; they provide a very nice slide to the mouse as you would imagine but the downside here is that as much as I would like to say otherwise, the feet will eventually wear down with use. If you use mouse feet or some other form of mouse feet covers, you will need to replace six feet rather than the average four. More positively, four of the six feet are small enough to balance this out and the actual slide you get from the layout appears to work well regardless of the condition of the mousing surface you are using.

The picture close up shows the hole for the laser although to be honest, there is little to show but I have displayed it for the sake of a complete review.

Mouse Software

The included software CD supports Windows 95 and 98 (with supplied driver) and 2000 and XP. While you don't have to use the driver installed by the CD for operation within Windows 2000 or XP, you will want that driver to be used for full interactivity between the mouse and the Intelliscope software. If you switch USB ports, the software doesn't automatically use the Intelliscope driver but instead uses the standard Windows driver. I doubt this will be much of a problem as most will likely plug in to one singular USB port and leave the mouse plugged in, but thought I would mention it anyway.

There are four tabs within the software beginning with a little about the mouse with the second tab for button assignment. The software is quite simple and allows you limited control of button assignment. I would have liked to have been able to choose from any keys available rather than the limited amount in the list, but I've been lucky in that it hasn't affected gameplay for me in any games. Still, I can see the situation arising whereby an end user has already got a specific button layout that they use for their favourite game, only to find that the button arrangement will have to be altered to accommodate their new mouse. Hopefully the selection will be large enough not to interfere with many, but I would suggest you look at the picture above which shows the available buttons selections.

The third tab shows the sensitivity control and double click speed along with a test area. The fourth tab allows set up of the pointer and scroll wheel which lets you calibrate the mousewheel as well as enabling 3 related options. The first is the keep shooting option which is kind of like an autofire for the mouse; clicking the mousewheel down will continually send left click commands with a 0.1 interval to the game, just as if you were using the left mouse button repeatedly. The second option is for compatibility purposes, specifically with older versions of Windows. The third enables Virtual Double scrollwheels; Clicking the mousewheel down will let you toggle between standard vertical scrolling and horizontal scrolling. Options 1 and 3 will override any button assignment made on the second tab.

I would like to see a profile system added to the software; being able to have different button set-ups for different games/applications would be a great feature that I think would benefit this mouse. Since that would be a software update, perhaps a future update of the software might allow for this.

Final Words

I've been using the mouse both in and out of gaming for a solid two weeks now. My previous mouse of choice was the old faithful Microsoft Explorer V3 which has served me well for a good few years now. The Cyber Snipa is without a doubt easier to use for longer periods although I did find that the orientation was slightly different from other mice I have used before. This necessitated a 'breaking in period' whereby I had to learn to push up ever so slightly when moving side to side to maintain a straight line. After a few days this became quite natural and isn't something that I think about in normal use now, but thought it worth mentioning. I've noticed this same orientation difference with Logitech mice that have the pick-up to one side just as the Cyber Snipa does.

Gaming is good with this mouse; like any new mouse, it won't turn you into Jonathan Wendall overnight (Ed - not even his mouse does that!) but the Cyber Snipa Intelliscope is certainly a good mouse to game with. For a few games, I already have multiple sensitivity set-ups for each weapon within that game, but there are a few games out there which cannot offer this. The Intelliscope offers you on the fly changing between 1000 DPI and 2400 DPI which will get around this limitation in certain games. And with the Intelligent Ambient indicator, it's easy to see at a glance which setting you're in. To be honest, 1000 DPI and 2400 DPI is quite a difference in speed, so you should feel the difference without the need to see it but either way, pressing the DPI switch will change the mouse from red or blue.

During everyday desktop and application use the was also a good mouse to use. The supplied software allows you to assign different buttons to different key presses, which can also be used with certain programs. I use the left thumb button for CTRL-V for example. I do wish the software for the mouse had some sort of profiling ability, even if manually selectable (right click the tray icon, choose Photoshop/Quake 4/ F.E.A.R/Word) as this would expand the usefulness across different programs. The other thing I would have liked it for the software to not have been as limiting with its assignment choices.

Weighing up the good and the bad of this mouse, I find in favour of the . 2400 DPI is very accurate, the mouse is comfortable in use during long sessions, has 6 buttons, and is just an all round nice mouse to game with.

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