Solving The Wireless-Mouse Problem With 15-minute Charging

SteelSeries has finally produced its first must-have mouse.

- Hayden Dingman

SteelSeries has long had a weak spot in its peripherals lineup: mice. Great headsets, good keyboards, mediocre mice. Some were too conservative, others too daring, but none of the ones we’ve looked at over the years have qualified as must-haves.

That changes with the new Rival 650 ($120 on Amazon (go.pcworld.com/srvl)). At long last, SteelSeries has a mouse that both nails the fundamentals and packs a solid gimmick.

WEIGHTED AVERAGE

Let’s start with the design, because SteelSeries has improved by leaps and bounds in that regard. SteelSeries headsets have always featured forward-thinking aesthetics, but its mice have looked more like something you’d find in an office. Lots of grayish planes, function-over-form materials, and so on.

The Rival 650 is recognizable—which, given the limited elements in a mouse, is about the highest compliment one can score.

Two RGB LED light channels run across the palm rest and then segue into similar lines on the side of the scroll wheel. Sure, RGB is functionally useless, but the Rival 650 is probably the most elegant implementation I’ve seen since the 2015 Razer Mamba (go.pcworld.com/razm) and its all-encompassing light ribbon. It’s eye-catching, and a real standout in the SteelSeries lineup.

I love the shape of this mouse, as well. SteelSeries leans heavily on the standard right-handed scoop shape for almost all its mice, the Rival 650 included. This is the most successful implementation I’ve seen from SteelSeries though, mimicking the flanged left and right mouse buttons from Razer’s DeathAdder (go.pcworld.com/dtad) and featuring a gently sloped right edge with plenty of room to rest my ring finger and pinky. There are also rubberized pads on the left and right sides to facilitate picking up the mouse, without being too prominent.