Performance
Performance
At first plug-in, the Minos X5 and Revenger S both light up nicely and begin to swirl their lights. Just sitting at the desktop, the mouses are stable, responsive, and glide with ease. Coming from the MX518, a decent mouse back in the day, there’s just no comparison. Both the Minos X5 and Revenger S blow it out of the water, in both performance and comfort.
To test these mouses, I dipped into a couple of games, Divinity Original Sin 2 and Assassin’s Creed: Origins. I also drew a doodle.
Very much an open world game, Origins scratches an itch like Witcher 3 did, though the hide-and-sneak mechanic is hilariously fun in Origins. It’s also a beautiful game, and I guess that’s the best thing I can say about the Minos X5 and Revenger S, they became of an extension of my arm and didn’t call attention to themselves. With my old MX518, it was a physical activity to push around that mouse. The Minos X5 is a lighter mouse, at 92g, which coming from the MX518 was a little irritating at first. I’d knock the Minos with even the slightest touch, but now I’m quite used to it. The Revenger S is similarly 96g light and is a little bit taller and longer than the Minos.
For something more point-and-click, I played some Divinity OS2, which I’ve only just started to play. It’s a D&D like game with quite a few twists on the usual fantasy classes and races. It does make you click, though. This is where the differences between all the mice really showed, in the buttons. The Revenger S was a little tiring after about 40 minutes. The left mouse button on the S is a little mushy compared to the Minos X5’s crisp click. It could be this sample, but it was enough for me to go back to the Minos X5. Speaking of buttons – with the Omron switches rated for 50 million clicks, this would mean that if I clicked once every second for 8 hours a day, for 365 days, these switches will last about 4.75 years. Yep, these ought to do it. I spent about 8 hours gaming with both mice. If you’re either a claw or palm gamer, or the rare hybrid, a smaller mouse is better. Figure about 60% of your hand size, since we’re talking ergonomics, for the most comfortable fit. It may take a while to find that perfect mouse for your hands. Certainly, don’t mess with a mouse that hurts you, if you’re even a little bit sensitive to RSI. Blowing out your hands on a bad mouse is bad. After a few hours with the Minos X5, going back to the Revenger S, the very positive and grippy rubber had developed a slight stickiness.
As you would expect, both Revenger S and the Minos X5 tracked excellently well. I’ll have to be an extreme flick mouser to upset either the Minos or the Revenger. I had no issues whatsoever with either mouse.
There are a couple of things to notice with doodling with these mice. The first is the square box, angle snapping was not enabled, however, vertical lines and occasionally in the horizontal lines, would come out perfectly straight. This indicates strong path deviation correction is already working in the sensor. The circular pattern is just about as screwed up as I drew it, but still shows some abnormally straight lines. The cat, yes it’s supposed to be a cat, shows excellent tracking on slow, pixel-by-pixel, movement. There’s no doubt that Cougar’s choice of the PMW3360 sensor in the Minos X5 and Revenger S was excellent. Ergonomically the Minos X5 was a better fit for my hands in long gaming sessions, and the crispy clickiness didn’t tire out my fingers at all. The Revenger S, while a better feeling mouse in the hand, is a little too large, and didn’t have that crispy clickiness. Neither mouse creaked or rattled during gaming, and like their tracking is excellent.
