Cyber Snipa Stinger

David Hollingworth discovers some pleasant surprises from this boldly coloured pointer.

At first blush the Stinger is a pretty unprepossessing mouse. It’s packaging is kinda tacky, and it looks a little tacky itself – all red rubber and light looking plastic. Once you crack the clear plastic and take it out you at least notice that it’s got a nice long USB cord. There are few worse things than a short cord that’s not going to reach the natural positions of your mousing area and PC. Okay, maybe getting garrotted by a long USB cord is worse, but you get the idea.

The Stinger is certainly lighter than a lot of gaming mice. Even discounting the difference between using it with and without the included weights – seven 20g jobbies – it’s simply very light in the hand. It feels good, though, and that’s when you get the idea that the Stinger may have a few things going for it.

Each side of the mouse features red, textured rubber grip, nestled in slight curves for your thumb and little finger. It’s a comfy grip, even more so once you settle the mouse on a flat surface. It’s got a lot of Teflon on the bottom, and it’s very smooth.

It feels smooth in action, too, and once you get the weighting right, install the software – a simple macro editor and a limited set of properties to adjust, such as changing each of the four push-button DPI settings – you can tear away with it in your favourite game. The more you use the Stinger, the less it

feels like that tacky first impression was even remotely correct.

The extra wide Teflon feet make for a very smooth glide across almost any surface. There’s a veritable galaxy of buttons (well, nine, actually) to press and poke to enact mayhem on foe and application alike, and it the arch beneath your hand and grip areas help with precision control in important situations. Like sniping some poor bastard before he or she snipes you.

It’s easy to discount the Cyber Snipa range, but give the Striker a go and you’ll change your mind.