Not perfect, but surprisingly responsive in-game. Nice work Gigabyte.
Gigabyte may be better known for its internal hardware, but the company's released some solid control peripherals over the years. We were oddly taken with its very rugged GK-K800 keyboard, and now there's a gaming mouse to match, the GM-M8000.
The M8000 is a sleek and stylish product, slimmer than a lot of gaming mice, and encased in dark grey plastic and featuring a cloth-wrapped cord. The cord's very handy and durable, though cloth cords can get a little... messy after prolonged scraping across grungy mouse-mats. It's also got a selection of weights to customise the way the mouse sits in your hand, and these sit nicely under the base of your palm; you get the increased weight you want, without making the leading edge of the mouse sluggish.
The first thing you notice when you pick the mouse up is that it's, for Editor-standard hands, kind of thin. Off the desk, it's easy for you the last two fingers of your hand to wrap under the mouse. On the desk, this leads to a reasonable cramped hand position. That said, there are inset rubber grips on both sides of the mouse, so you never feel like you're in danger of losing control.
The included Ghost Engine software lets you setup macros and customise mouse settings to your heart's content, and even save up to three groups of those settings onto the mouse itself so you don't have to fiddle with the software on the road. The mouse features four DPI levels, switched via a toggle, and these can be further customised from 800 up to 4000dpi. It's very well-featured.
And, surprisingly, it's very good in-game. We've started using the kill-house training level of Call of Duty 4 for mouse testing, and with the M8000 our runs through were all smooth and fast, with solid accuracy against the wooden targets. What's more, the mouse feet (and there's a spare set in the box) are super smooth on even a normal desktop.
This is a solidly specced bit of kit, responsive and solid, and would make all but the fattest-handed gamers happy.
Issue: 133 | February, 2012