A4tech X-750F

This mouse is like an American Car. Some serious muscle under the bonnet, but with a few minor manufacturing shortcomings.

First pulled out of its box, we though someone had switched our X-750F with a 1959 Cadillac. The black chassis, raised silver plastic and psychedelic flashing mousewheel made on-the-spot identification close to impossible. Closer examination revealed that we had indeed received the correct product, disappointing many geriatrics at Atomic HQ.

The X-750F is veteran peripheral maker A4Tech’s attempt at a gaming mouse, using Agilent’s ADNS-6010 laser. It’s the same one in Logitech’s G7, however A4Tech has managed to squeeze 2500DPI out of the sucker, over its rated 2000.

Despite comparisons to a certain mid-20th century automobile, the X750F looks far too cheap, thanks to the silver plastic, extremely thin USB cable and the ‘3xFire’ orange button that rests to the left of the mousewheel. This button simulates three normal LMB clicks, supposedly providing an advantage in first person shooters. In practice you’ll more likely get banned from any online server you play on, but that’s not a big problem when you consider it doesn’t do much anyway. Firing up Half-Life 2, we were able to empty 18 rounds from the standard pistol in three seconds without the button, and 2.8 with. So unless that 0.2 of a second has been getting you killed lately, it’s just a bright orange novelty.

The middle mouse button/wheel has to be one of the best we’ve ever seen on a mouse, firmly clicking into place as it rolls. Depression is fantastic, the wheel acting like a button, rather than wheel with a crappy trigger.

Just below the mousewheel is another button that shifts between six levels of DPI. The colour of the mousewheel changes as you move through each mode, with no colour signifying the lowest setting of 600DPI and flashing yellow/green for 2500DPI.

Oddly, the back/forward buttons are reversed by default, but this can be easily reconfigured. The back button is also a little ‘soft’ and doesn’t click soundly like the rest of the mouse.

Included with the X-750F is A4Tech’s ‘X7-Jump’ software that lets you configure the DPI of both the X and Y axes. There’s also a macro recorder, so you can bind a set of key presses to one of four mouse buttons (back, forward, right and middle).

Overall it’s a great mouse for the price, but lacks the manufacturing quality to make it stand out.