A cool looking mouse in white and grey from our friends at Arctic, but the unique looks hide glaring flaws.
Search the intarwebz for the M571 and you're likely to find a whole mess of computer parts with the serial number, but no mice. It looks as though we've gotten this latest piece of Arctic Cooling gear as a pre-release tester - it's available OS, of course, but yet to cast its shadow on these shores.
And what a portentous and evil shadow it casts. A shadow of almost pure... fail.
On the surface, it looks benevolent enough. A white housing with silver highlights is certainly a nice change from the GRIMDARK black of most gaming mice. The only issue on that front is the worry that sweat and grime will dirty it up after only a short period of use.
Especially in the Australian summer.
The cable, which isn't quite as long as we'd like (at only a single Editor's arm-span), is also white, and another grunge magnet.
Arctic's gone the ultra-ergonomic route, design-wise, with a moulded, right-handed grip grooved for your grippy pleasure. Unfortunately, not only will this annoy the cack-handers out there, but it pretty much annoys anyone whose hand is not the ideal size of the mouse.
It's worth reminding you at this point, dear reader, that mouse reviewing is quite a personal thing - the M571 may well be the perfect shape for you. You might enjoy filthing up white mice. You might also like the performance that the M571 delivers... But we'd call you some kind of utter loon or baboon-like throwback. To your face (or muzzle).
Or normal run-through the CoD4 killhouse level sits at around 19 seconds on a Razer Lachesis. The change-over to a new mouse usually sees a bit of an uptick, but the M571 was ridiculous - it added 13 seconds to our time! After some major re-thinking of the way we naturally mouse, we got our time down to close enough, but at the cost of any real comfort.
The issue is two-fold: firstly, the laser sensor on the M571 continues to track even when the mouse is lifted 10mm from your mousing surface. If you're like us, and pick up your mouse often for precise lateral movement, you'll be seeing your viewpoint skew madly across the screen. The second issue is the off-center positioning of the sensor; this takes a lot of time to get used to. To be honest... too much. Add to that painfully poor positioning of the triple-tap button, and this becomes a mouse we absolutely cannot recommend.
Issue: 137 | June, 2012