I had a little hotshoe plastic viewfinder which was "fine" but framing was wonky. So instead of continuing using it, I got a TTartisan viewfinder that has glass optics and an aluminum body. I added a little wooden grip for good measure !

Handles well ! I thought I wouldn't like not having a thumb rest as well as the grip, but the camera is light enough that it's not a problem.

So here's the thing : I have usually been using mice that are average size, not small but not large mice either. I have 20x10cm hands and I generally use a relaxed claw grip.

My main mouse up until 2 weeks ago was a Pulsar X2 Medium (size 2), before that I had an Aerox 3.

I recently got (by mistake?) an Attack Shark X11SE which is a cheap Razer Viper V3/V4 clone and I've been using it quite a lot, and I have been enjoying the Viper shape. The mouse itself isn't perfect (my biggest issue is a lot of post-travel on the main triggers, which is "fine") but I would like to use it as a backup rather than my main.

So here comes the thing : the X11SE / Viper is quite a bit larger than my Pulsar X2, and that was something that I noticed quite quick. The mouse was comfortable but it needed adjustment, so it made me think that I would maybe like the Viper Mini shape better?

I'm torn between two mice at the moment : either get a Viper V3 Pro SE (because it's on sale now at 79€) or a RAWN SH-01 which is a Razer Viper Mini clone but wireless, with excellent reviews and a 55g weight (which is where I tend to aim as well), and it's available at the exact same price (79€).

There's also the Attack Shark V1 which has the same shape and similar specs at about half that (arounc 30 bucks) but that would maybe something I get as a backup later, if I really end up likeing the Viper mini shape a lot (otherwise the X11SE will do fine).

So, people with similar hand size and grip size as I do, and that ahve used the Viper and / or Viper mini, which way should I go?

TL;DR for those that don't want to read it all :

Mouse (by brand, from oldest to newest)	Weight	Sensor	Rating
Logitech G502	121g	PixArt PWM3366 (12K DPI)	5/10
Logitech G403	87g	Logitech HERO 25K	6/10
Logitech G305	99g	Logitech Hero 25K (limited to 12K DPI through firmware)	6.5/10
Razer Taipan	95g	8.2k dpi 4G laser	6/10
Steelseries Rival 100	93g	PixArt 3059-SS (4K DPI)	6.5/10
Steelseries Rival 3 Wireless	106g	TrueMove Air (PixArt 3335, 18K DPI)	6/10
Steelseries Aerox 3 Wireless	66g	TrueMove Air (PixArt 3335, 18K DPI)	7.5/10
Pulsar X2 Medium	55g	PixArt 3395 (16K DPI)	9.25/10
Attack Shark X11SE	58g	PixArt 3311 (24K DPI)	9/10

Top row, from left to right :

Logitech G403 - I really liked the shape, and it was the mouse I used for most of my Overwatch tourneys before I switched to wireless. Overall a decent mouse, but the build quality while impressive out of the box, came to bite me a few years down the road : the Omron switches in it double click and the rubber is deteriorating quite a bit. I have fond memories of this mouse, but it's mostly because of what I used it for, not its intrinsic qualities. I'd give it a good 6/10. Slightly above average because the shape is great, triggers are good, sensor is good, but the cable was ass, skates could have been better and despite being wired, it was still over 80g

Logitech G502 Proteus Spectrum - the mouse I had when I started playing Overwatch competitively, had it for years before that but was almost never used as an FPS mouse. Still works great, but this is a brick : 121g without any of the additional weights in it. Loads of buttons, great scroll wheel but the moment you decrease your sensitivity you feel it in your arm and wrist. In typical Logitech fashion, the cable was absolute cheeks (heavy, stiff, even more than the G403), skates were scraping every pad that I had. I'd give it a 5/10 because the shape was great (still fits me like a glove), the button layout is really practical and it's been reliable for everything that isn't really a FPS game (especially fast ones), but the cable, weight and skates were horrible for anything intensive aiming wise.

Razer Taipan - It was my dedicated FPS mouse back in 2014 or so, when I was rocking a duo of Razer mice (I had a Razer Naga 2014 for MMO games etc as well on the desk). It's a good mouse, and it was my first introduction to ambi shapes. I have fond csgo memories with this mouse too, but despite being smaller than both previous mice, it was kinda heavy and the edgy Razer looks (expecially the breathing logo that you cannot turn off) + the scroll wheel encoder that ended up having issues made me move to something else. At least the cable was nice enough and kinda flexible, way better than Logitech cables of the time. I'd personally give it a 6/10 because the weight was meh (95g), the skates were bad, sensor got easily confused with fast movements (lazer, not optical) but despite all of that, the shape was good and ahead of its time imho. Build quality was top notch.

^((If you're curious about the Naga 2014, well it was basically a heavier Taipan with a numpad on the side, and heavier weight. I replaced it quickly with the G502 because of scroll wheel issues.))

Steelseries Rival 100 - speaking of what I moved to, this is it. Mostly because of the price it was back then (around 30 bucks in a local store). The mouse was good honestly, but build quality felt cheap. Sensor was low end, software sucked, clicks were rough and the scroll wheel was rattling. But the SHAPE was amazing. It was a little lighter than the Taipan, which helped a bit, not much, it felt lighter because the skates were better. Cable is rubber but flexible enough. Surprisingly, the skates didn't suck that much, but really the build quality on this is dreadful, especially for the side buttons, I can't give it more than a 6.5/10. Shape is king but it can't do absolutely everything.

Steelseries Rival 3 Wireless - I didn't use this mouse much, it was my dedicated travel mouse for a while because of the combo AAA batteries + dongle storage + BT connection. Unfortunately, the BT doesn't work well with my new laptop (lol). In 2.4GHz mode it eats through batteries unfortunately. Sensor is decent, build quality is very good. Skates are serviceable. Weight on the other hand, is still quite heavy (106g with both batteries). I let it slide because it's using alcaline batteries, but this is not a mouse I'd use for competitive play nowadays. Overall it's a pretty solid mouse with weird issues. 6/10 sounds fair to me. Grade would be higher if it was lighter, mostly because the shape only really matters in high intensity situations, and this mouse will never see them, which is a shame because the sensor is amazing too.

Bottom row from right to left :

Steelseries Aerox 3 - Original version with the round skates, not the updated 2022 one. Overall solid mouse for me, used it for about 2 years. Again the AMAZING shape from the Rival 100/110/3 series but in a "lightweight" package that had a top tier sensor (at the time) and decent switches. It's still a good mouse, and I used it recently for some Overwatch, it's as good as a couple of yers ago imho. I swapped the skates for Corepadz (mandatory with those stock round skates). The hole design is interesting, but overall annoying. The RGB diffuser is really what kills this mouse in my opinion. It's heavy (7g) but also prevents dust and gunk from getitng out of the mouse, leading to a mouse that looks pretty gross after a year or two, and you can't clean it unless you open the mouse, at which point you ruin a set of (expensive) skates. It's a good performer with a decent weight, but it was never at the top of the foodchain, and while I love love love the shape, I have since moved to something better (imho). I'd give a 7.5/10 overall.

Attack Shark X11SE - This is the latest addition to the collection, and it came as a bit of an error (let's requialify it as a "happy accident"). It's a Razer Viper V3/V4 clone with a budget sensor (3311, still good enough) that you can get for about 30 bucks, and for that you get a mouse that feels decent, plays well and is feature packed (dongle storage, BT connection, decent software, long battery life). It's not the best mouse in the world, but I can't really fault it. Its only problem to me is the post travel on the main triggers, but you get used to it in like 20 minutes of playing, after that you don't really notice it. Pre-travel would have been more of a problem. I'm honestly pretty impressed with this thing, especially the fact that it weighs only about 60 grams (Attack Shark claims a weight between 60 and 63g on their product page, I measured mine at 58g) without any holes, neither on top or bottom, and it still feels solid with no creaking. It has replaced my Rival 3 Wireless by being BT compatible with my laptop (I dunno why Asus laptops straight up can't pair Steelseries mice via BT neither my R3W or A3W worked with my G14...), and also being lighter, and easily replaceable if anything happened to it in my bag. I played with it for a couple of weeks for testing, and I was planning to go back to my main mouse (which is the last on this list), but I can't seem to put this mouse down. I ended up really liking the shape, it reminded me of my old Razer Taipan. Grading wise, I would put that mouse pretty high, maybe too high for a lot of people on this sub. I initially thought about giving it a 8.5 rating as there was no obvious problems besides pre-travel (even the skates are decent), but then I remembered it's basically the same MSRP as my Rival 100 was, while also being wireless and being 10x better in terms of build quality, so I'm bumping that up to 9/10 without any regrets.

Logitech G305 - That was my very first "good" wireless mouse, and one that replaced my G403 for esports tournaments and scrims, as well as pretty much every other competitve FPS game. Once I went wireless, I couldn't go back. Weight was a little bit higher than the G403, but that was an acceptable sacrifice. Shape was nice enough as I was an avid claw grip user and the egg shape was really good for that. Build quality was overall nice, though there are a few things that I didn't like : the white plastic became yellow because of the sun much faster than I though, and the back shell became creaky (annoying af when playing). The side buttons are mushy, and well it's still about 100g with a AA battery in it, and it didn't have any BT (at least it had a dongle storage). At some point the creakiness just annoyed me a little bit too much and I went back to some wired mice in search of my favorite shape for my future purchase, and I played the best with the Rival 100, so I ended up geting the Aerox 3 wireless. The scroll wheel had a few issues and bloated up to the point that it was unable to turn. I ordered a replacement kit (scroll wheel + skates since you have to destroy them to get in) and "restored" it for my mother which is in need of a better wireless mouse than her office mouse to play minecraft and other games. Imho, because of the weight, build quality issues and "special" shape, it cannot rank higher than the Aerox 3, and a 6.5/10 rating sounds about right. Basically the same as the Rival 100 which makes sense to me (since it had a way better shape but also wasn't wireless, both being about the same weight and both having build quality issues).

Pulsar X2 Medium - This is my main mouse, and still the best mouse I own. Shape is excellent, and coming from a Rival / Aerox shape it was basically no adjustments needed. Triggers and side buttons are solid and sharp (pretty much no post travel on the triggers), sensor is amazing, wireless is reliable, software is very light and not required to run in the backgorund (looking at you steelseries). It's also the lightest mouse I own being only 55 grams. I have a couple of issues with this mouse : the first is that there are very large holes at the bottom, which tends to let in a lot of dust and hair or whatnot, and if you want to clean it, it's a rear skate gone (I have replaced them twice already...). Also, the battery deteriorated quite a bit, it used to last about a week on a single charge and now it's barely 2 days. The battery is a little swollen too. Asked Pulsar for a way to buy the replacement battery, but they basically told me to get lost, which is unfortunate (I'm not counting that in the rating btw). It's nearly 3 years old, but despite that it's still the best mouse that I own. Not by much though, playing with the X11SE and the X2 Medium back and forth, I would say that the percieved difference is less than 10% for me, outside of shape differences (which are both fine). Having said that, it's not completely perfect and I have a couple of annoyances with it (like no dongle storage, no BT connection). It would have been a 9.5/10 if it had those things, but as it stands it's closer to a 9/10. Let's call it a 9.25/10 because it's still marginally better than the X11SE in pretty much every way (sensor, shape, weight, build quality).

I don't know if I'll get any more gaming mice in the future, my collection starts getting a little big right now, with a lot of unused nostalgia items in it lol

Thanks for reading if you managed to get to the end

Bit of context as of what my mouse history has been : I have played competitive games for a good decade now, joined a csgo team back in 2015 or so, but quickly dropped it to focus on fast-FPS type games like Overwatch and entered an e-sports team in 2018. Was playing with a Logitech G403 back then, moved to a Logitech G305 on which I have played most of my tournaments with. In my last year in esports (2020) I upgraded to a Steelseries Aerox 3 (the first version with the round skates) then about 2 years later to a Pulsar X2 (which still is my main mouse).

My girlfriend recently got her first gaming PC, and wanted to get into FPS games and such after watching me play (she's a Nintendo girl), and I decided to search for a mouse for her. I didn't really pay attention, saw that the X11SE was cheap af (under 30€) and could be delivered very quickly, so I pulled the trigger without doing much research. Turns out it's too large for her hand and she says it's uncomfortable, we bought something smaller instead. But instead of sending the X11SE back, I thought, why not play with it? See what a budget mouse can do nowadays.

Long story short is : it's pretyt damn good ! I was expecting a decent sensor inside a heavy mouse but it's around 60 grams on my copy, which is right in the middle of my two previous mice (Aerox 3 being 66g and X2 being 55g) while also being larger and without any holes on it, top or bottom. I'm kind of impressed (I know it's not that impressive, but still, I was expecting much worse for 30 bucks). One nice point that my other two mice completely removed : it has dongle storage !

Shape wise, it's a Viper V3 clone, so a pretty popular shape. I had never tried such a mouse before, and it's a nice change of pace. I need to adjust to it a little bit, but it's overall a nice shape. I have 20x10cm hands and while I generally use a relaxed claw / fingertip hybrid grip on the other two mice, on this one I go into a straight claw grip, it feels more natural. Within a couple of hours, I was aiming the same no matter if I was using my X2 or the X11SE.

Build quality is overall good, with one major exception : post travel on the tho main triggers is dreadful. Neither of my tro previous mice exhibited such levels of post travel on the triggers. It's not the end of the world, but it's something you need to adjust to as it renders the mouse slightly slower to spam click. Scroll wheel is fine, not as defined as my other mice but overall not a problem. Switches are decent, not too loud, but not too light either, I'd say they strike a decent balance. Side buttons are okay without beinf as sharp as I would want them to be.

I was genuinely not able to see a difference between my X2 using the PAW 3395 and the PAW 3311 in this mouse. I know it's a lower end sensor but nowadays even the entry level chips are extremely good, so I guess there is that.

The two areas where I expected this mouse to be absolute cheeks was the battery life and software support, and in both cases I was nicely surprised. In short, the battery life is pretty good, it lasted me about a week, which is excellent (to be fair, I don't play 5 hours a day either...), and the software is decently light, and is easy to set. The mouse has on-board memory, so you can just set your DPI settings and whatnot, then uninstall it if you don't want to keep it.

There is nothing particularly outstanding on the X11SE, like it's a mouse, it does mouse stuff. It's not better than my 3 year old Pulsar, but the thing is that X2 Medium cost me something like 115€, the Aerox 3 before that was about 110€... in short, I was used to pay over 100 for a "good mouse", it has been like that for me for quite a few years, and with the price of mice always going up (at least with the namebrands), having options like this that are decently light, have good wireless performance, decent sensor, good shape and overall allow me to play at basically the same level as my X2 for under 30 bucks is a breath of fresh air.

It's not perfect at all, and it's not going to replace my X2 anytime soon. But if you don't have a ton of money to spend on a mouse, and you want it to be versatile, this is definitely a mouse that I could recommend. The dongle storage, BT capabilties and long battery life make it a perfect "sacrificial mouse" to throw in my bag to go with my laptop when I go in vacations. I didn't expect much from it, I kind of expected it to be a PoS, especially after the reputation that Attack Shark is getting here, but it turned out to be "okay".

Quelle est la probabilité qu'il ne s'attendait juste pas à voir l'offre acceptée?

Yesterday I got hold of a Razer Blade 14 2022 model. This is not mine, this is intended to be for my girlfriend and this culminqtes a couple of months of research of which gaming laptop would be right for her (the choice ended on the fact that it's was the only 14" laptop that was available with decently powerful components, had a premium build and didn't cost a ton of money for some unknown reason (this one is a 6900XH / RTX 3070Ti model, and we paid 820€ for it. I was first looking at a modern-ish G14, but models with a decently good GPU were all overpriced, similarly specced G14 would have been at least 1200€).

Anyway, the build quality of that thing is incredible, it feels extremely premium and solid. One thing though : the keyboard is utter garbage. It looks amazing, the RGB is super bright (I don't think I have ever seen RGB that brignt on any keyboard), but the typing feel is lacking. I have the feeling I'm typing on a weird macbook, and that's not a compliment.

I have owned several laptops over the years (MSI GP60, then HP Omen 15, and now Asus G14 from 2020), and I have tried a few others (HP Z book G5 and some 2020 HP Elitebook at work, my mother's Lenovo Ideapad Gaming 3, old T440 Thinkpad, stuff like that) and I really can't rememeber a single laptop keyboard that was worse than this Razer Blade. Sure, it's not exactly unusable or anything but it's really not satisfying to type on. It has a very light sounds that feels cheap, the key travel isn't that great. The sublegends aren't lit either, which I don't understand why.

I knew that Razer laptop keebs were a little bit special and not everyone's preference, but holy shit is this keyboard not on par with the rest of the laptop which otherwise is pretty solid.

Another small issue : the trackpad is great but the trackpad click is incredibly heavy. I don't know if that's an issue with this particulat unit, but holy hell is this thing almost impossible to press during normal use I really have to put a lot more force than necessary to depress the thing. 10 minutes in and I was just using tapping to click with that trackpad (which is awesome otherwise, large, glass surface etc, no complaints there)

Fortunately, my gf will use this laptop mostly with a mouse and an external keyboard, so it's not like she's going to interact with those things on a regulat basis. I just thought that it was pretty interesting to get both trackpad and keyboards this wrong on what was a $2600 device back in 2022.

My biggest surprise really was how simple Razer Synapse was to use. It's really not thast bad (at least for now, we'll see for long time use). Screen is great, performance was good in Cyberpunk (though the chassis becomes very uncomfortable to the touch reallt quickly as well, which is understandable looking at the components it's housing. Once again, happy this will not be in my gf's hands while she's playing lol.

After having to deal with an old HP Omen 15 that I bought back in 2018, I decided it was time for me to take care of my back and move to something a little bit smaller.

Found this 2020 top spec G14 for 600€ a few months back and so far this has been an amazing laptop. It goes through everything I throw at it (photo editing, video editing and exporting, and some video games too, I was really happy to see I could play Cyberpunk 2077 decently well on it), it's not stupid loud nor hot like my old HP was, the keyboard is great, the screen is still pretty good and I love the form factor. I'm really surprised to see how well the 4900HS and RTX 2060 still perform, especially after spending so much time on my desktop (7800X3D / 7900XT). My only (small) complaint would be the rather small trackpad, but I got used to that kinda quick and it's a high quality trackpad otherwise.

I'm really happy with this thing, it's so hard to find reliable, smaller gaming laptops. Before that, the only options that weren't fully plastic were Razer Blades 14 and 13 models which have some cooling and reliability issues.

• Total budget (in local currency) and country of purchase. France, as low as possible, but preferably under 450€
• Are you open to refurbs/used? yes, shopping exclusively used
• How would you prioritize form factor (ultrabook, 2-in-1, etc.), build quality, performance, and battery life? build quality and looks are kind of important, build quality that feels not plastcky would be nice
• How important is weight and thinness to you? quite important, not searching for a behemoth.
• Do you have a preferred screen size? If indifferent, put N/A. 15.6" and under
• Are you doing any CAD/video editing/photo editing/gaming? List which programs/games you desire to run. Photo editing would probably be done on this laptop.
• If you're gaming, do you have certain games you want to play? At what settings and FPS do you want? Not set in stone yet. Some intereste expressed in CYberpunk and The Witcher.
• Any specific requirements such as good keyboard, reliable build quality, touch-screen, finger-print reader, optical drive or good input devices (keyboard/touchpad)? Not really
• Leave any finishing thoughts here that you may feel are necessary and beneficial to the discussion. So, basically : I have a gaming laptop of my own, but in recent months my gf has presented a bigger and bigger interest in video games, especially as we could do "game dates" because we're long distance. Initially, the game she wanted to play was Minecraft, and I thought "no problem", even her laptop can run that (not well, but it can still run it). Thing is, since then she has developped interest for other games as well, especially single player narrative games or RPGs, and clearly her laptop cannot run those (as it only has an intel UHS 620 for graphics). She was interested by Skyrim, but also Cyberpunk and The Witcher games. I have been able to make Cyberpunk work fine on an old laptop with a 1650 in it, so I'm not targeting anything lower performing than this.

I have a spare computer at home, but that's an SFF desktop, she would need to buy a screen, and her desk is absolutely tiny, to the point that she really doesn't have room for anything bigger than a 15" laptop or so. + She has a pretty nice setup for her 14" laptop already and would want to keep it relatively clean, no cables everywhere so getting her a laptop makes the most sense (even if financially, a screen + giving her my computer would be cheaper).

I was browsing some used listings, and I have short listed some options, but I really don't know what is the best value here, especially as some of those are a little bit old and I have no idea if there are specific problems with those models (especially regarding cooling. I know they will all sound like a jet engine under load). If the laptop doesn't look like an eye sore that's a plus too.

Option 1 : HP Omen 15 - i7 8750H - 24GB RAM - RTX 2070 - HDD 500GB / SSD 256GB - 144Hz screen, listed at 380€.

This one has the best GPU of all, but the storage config isn't ideal, and the laptop itself I know doesn't have the best cooling int he world (used to have the exact same chassis with a GTX 1650 in it and it was meh cooling wise already). Value wise it seems to be decent, but awating opinions from y'all

Option 2 : ROG Flow X13 - R9 5900HS - GTX 1650 - 16GB - 512GB SSD - no info on refresh rate, but it's a touch screen, listed at 480€

The chassis size would be ideal, it would be an instant drop-in her current setup, + it would be easy to travel with. Config is not as good, but I'm sure a 1650 would be "fine" initially. I don't know about the cooling though.

Option 3 : Razer Blade Stealth 13" - i7 1065G7 - GTX 1650Ti - 16GB - 512GB SSD - 60Hz screen, listed at 475€

A little classier than the X13, similar size, similar specs, but I'm worried that intel chip would be a nightmare to deal with when it comes to heat, especially as Blades don't have the best rep for cooling and noise.

Option 4 : Asus ROG Zephyrus - i7 9750H - RTX 2060 - 16GB RAM - 512GB SSD, no idea about the screen. Battery just got changed on it, listed at 400€

This one is kind of in-between. It's not as "gamery" looking as the Omen, and it's larger than both the Blade Stealth and X13, and specs wise it's right in between as well. I have a vague rememberance of bad cooling on those older Zephyrus laptops though, so that's something to consider as well.

Option 5 : HP Victus 15 - Ryzen 5 5600H - GTX 1650 - 8GB RAM - no storage listed, no other specs listed at 250€

This is the cheapskate option. Worse config by far, but it's also substantially cheaper and it would still perform to a similar level as the X13 or Blade Stealth, maybe with slightly better cooling. I would need to add a RAM stick but that's no biggie.

So, out of those 5 options, which one would you pick and why? Because right now I have strong arguments in my head that would justify the money for all of them, but I can't really buy them all to test them out lol

[note : there is most likely some wiggle room when it comes to the price for all options]