Cooler Master Storm Recon Gaming Mouse Review

There are a lot of new PC games coming out for the Christmas season this year, and that means that you (or your favorite PC enthusiast) need a really good gaming mouse.  The problem with many good gaming peripherals is that they are rather expensive.  On the flip side, the few inexpensive ones barely have enough features to be considered “gaming grade”.  Cooler Master wants to change that by delivering a good gaming mouse with lots of features without spending a lot of money.

The Cooler Master Storm line of PC gaming products has a decent lineup of gear, and their latest is the Storm Recon Gaming Mouse.  It features the same Avago 3090 optical sensor used in the Razer DeathAdder 3.5G, has on-the-fly tuning, has three lighting zones, and claims to be fully programmable.

Features

• Avago 3090 optical sensor with 800-4000 dpi
• On-The-Fly Lift-Off-Distance adjustments
• On-The-Fly DPI adjustments
• On-The Fly USB polling rate adjustments
• Up to 1.5m/s or 60”/s tracking speed and 20G of acceleration
• Highest grade Japanese Omron micro switches
• Extra wide 16-bit USB data path
• 1000 Hz polling rate / 1ms response time
• Super Grip coated ambidextrous mousebody
• Ultra swift mouse feet
• Flexible 1.8 meter or 78.6 inch long cable
• Dimensions (W x H x D): 64.4 x 116.4 x 42 mm/ 2.53 x 4.58 x 1.65 inches
• Multicolor Mousewheel light to identify Profiles

On the next page we rip open the packaging…

The box is a typical rectangular packaging that many gaming mice feature today.  There is a top cover that opens like a book, revealing the mouse encased in plastic, like a little Han Solo just waiting to be released from its Carbonite.  Of course there are specifications and other marketing information all over the box detailing why it’s so awesome.

Inside the box is the mouse itself and a small manual.  No software disc is included and must be downloaded from the Cooler Master Storm website.  The software is not linked on the Cooler Master main web page, and it actually took a bit of searching just to find it.

The mouse itself feels very light and has textured plastic, the face of which has been rubberized.  One immediately takes note of the ambidextrous design, which will be good news for those who prefer their left hand.

There are a total of nine buttons on the mouse, all of which are fully programmable.  Of course there’s the left mouse button, right mouse button, and center (wheel) mouse button.  There are two thumb buttons on both the left and right side, adding another four buttons.  Lastly there are two buttons below the scroll wheel, and although they are programmable, most people will use these to switch DPI or profiles.  While the first thumb button is easy to press, the secondary thumb button requires a bit of a stretch, depending on your grip.

Many gaming mice are considered enthusiast items, and usually some some extra bells and whistles.  The Storm Recon’s mouse cord is just a plain plastic cord without any fancy cloth braiding.   The USB connector is gold-plated, however (or appears to be).

There are three different LED lighting zones to this mouse, and each can be configured a different color within the software.  The LEDs under the large mouse wheel, the profile-switching buttons, and the Cooler Master logo can all have their own colors, allowing your rodent to “taste the rainbow”.

How does it work?  We play with it on the next page…

When we first placed the Cooler Master Storm Recon mouse in our hands, we noticed how extremely light it was.  Gamers that frequently have to pick up their mouse will delight in its weight.  The balance is also evenly distributed, which again aids when having to re-position the mouse.

The scroll wheel is very comfortable and easy to use, especially if you use the claw grip.  The third mouse button is also very easy to use without accidentally scrolling (which usually switches weapons in first-person shooters).  Many people have this button assigned to grenades, and an overly sensitive mouse wheel can cause your weapon to switch before throwing the grenade.

One complaint that we have of most ambidextrous mice is also retained on the Storm Recon.  The alternate thumb buttons (buttons 7 and 8) register accidental clicks with one’s pinky.  We tried several different grips (palm grip, fingertip grip, and claw grip), but we kept registering accidental clicks.  The Claw Grip helped prevent accidental thumb-button clicks, but was traded off by accidental right-button clicks, as the main mouse buttons take very little effort to click.

Like most mice with “mirrored button” designs, you will probably have to disable two of the mirrored thumb buttons, which negates some of the functionality of the peripheral.

On the next page we configure the Recon with software…

You can use the mouse out of the box, but to get the most out of it you need to use Cooler Master’s software to configure the mouse.  Unfortunately no software CD is included, but it can be downloaded over the internet.  If you don’t have the slip of paper that came with the mouse then the drivers can be really hard to find.

If you go to Cooler Master’s main website you will not be able to find the software for the Storm Recon. You have to go to Cooler Master’s Storm website to find them.  A Google search for drivers is not very helpful, either.

Drivers: http://www.cmstorm.com/en/products/peripherals/Recon/

The window to configure the Recon mouse is laid out with a tab of functions along the top, the content of each tab in the center, and along the bottom are five profile slots along with an “Apply” button.  You can not see any of your changes in real time and must click Apply before you can test the features on the mouse.

The software is not the most intuitive thing to use, and I found it rather difficult to program this mouse.  Most of the functions do not support tooltips like most other software does, so get no definition or any context whatsoever about what some of the features do.  For example, it took me a minute to figure out that “LOD” is “Lift Off Distance”, and a helpful tooltip would have been most welcome.  You do get a popup balloon when selecting Playback Options when selecting a mouse function, which provides you with repeat options.

We customize the buttons on the next page…

Button tab

You can assign each of the eight mouse buttons to one of many functions.

• Default (left click right click, middle click, IE forward, IE back, DPI+ or DPI-)
• Mouse function (left click, right click, middle click, IE forward, IE back, scroll up, scroll down, scroll left, scroll right).  Also supports playback options
• Keyboard key (assign any mouse button to a key on your keyboard)
• Macro (select from a dropdown list of macros defined in the Macro tab).  Supports Playback Options
• Advanced (volume up, volume down, profile up, profile down, play/pause, mute, stop, next track, previous track, dpi up, dpi down)
• Disable

Sensor tab

The sensor tab allows you to configure up to four pre-determined levels of DPI sensitivity for each profile (800dpi, 1600dpi, 3200dpi, and 4000dpi).  The software does not allow any level in between, so you cannot set a DPI of 2000, for example.

You don’t have to use all four DPI levels.  You can select any number of DPI levels, as I have one profile that has only one, another that has only two (so I can toggle between high and low mode without having to switch in-between), and other profiles that use all four.  It would be really handy if the software supported a “toggle DPI levels” so that if you were at the highest DPI setting it would cycle through them back at the bottom… that way I could press only one button to switch between high and low, as the SteelSeries Ikari does.

You can also set a Lift Off Distance (LOD) and USB poll rate for each DPI level.  When testing, we really couldn’t tell much of a difference between an LOD of 1 and an LOD of 5, as the mouse would still track about 1/8^th of an inch above our mousepad.

You can also set DS Sensitivity between 1 and 11, which appears to operate similarly to how “mouse acceleration” works.   One of the reasons to use a highly sensitive mouse is so you can turn mouse acceleration off, so no movements are interpolated.

You can also set the double-click speed and button response time.  The button response can be between 250 micro-seconds and 32 milli-seconds.

We got your Glow on the next page…

Glow tab

The Glow area lets you set one of 10 pre-defined colors (red, orange, yellow, light green, teal, aqua, blue, navy, purple and pink) to each of the three LED areas of the mouse (mouse wheel, buttons 5/6, and the Coolermaster logo).   Each LED zone can have its own color, so you could have a multi-toned mouse depending on your preference.

You can also enter in your own color by modifying RGB values, so it’s possible to create white, but most other colors probably won’t show up as well as the pre-defined colors.  You can also set each color’s intensity, so you can make each color very dim or very bright.

The default profile changes each of the LEDs with the DPI level, but I’ve had a hard time duplicating this in any custom profile.  It would be very handy to change the logo color for each profile, and the mouse-wheel color for each DPI level, but it doesn’t appear to be possible with the current version of the software.

The LED mods can be set to Continuous, Flash on Profile Switch, or Rapid Fire.  Rapid fire causes the LEDs to “flash” upon each button click, which provides a nice visual feedback that many gamers will like.

Macros tab

The Macros tab allows you to create any number of macros, which can then be assigned to any button via the Buttons tab.  The Macro screen is actually one of the easiest I’ve seen to create and edit macros.  You can set a default delay between actions (no delay, Record actual delay, 16ms, 32ms, 64ms, 100ms, 250ms and 500milliseconds).

Just press the record button and start pushing away keys or mouse clicks and  the macro window shows your display.  It records all key presses and releases, so it’s possible to hold down keys while pressing others.  You can record up to 100 different actions, and a percentage bar fills up as you record.

There doesn’t appear to be a way to edit any individual event, so if you mess up you pretty much have to scrap it and start over.   You can change the order of the events, and can start recording in the middle of a list of events, but if you need to edit the delay or any other editing then you pretty much have to scrap the whole thing and start over.

On the next page we set some Profiles…

Profiles tab

This allows you to create and manage additional profiles.  You can move mouse profiles from the bottom of the screen to the main content area using the arrow buttons on the bottom-right of the screen.  This way you can have more than 5 profiles and then copy them to your mouse whenever you like.  Double-clicking on the name of any profile makes it editable so you can set a custom name.

Unfortunately, you have to add them in the order you want them to appear in your mouse.  The first time you drag a profile down, it fills the next profile slot.  If you want a particular profile to be in position 1, then you have to move all of your profiles to the save area, and then move the profile you want back to the mouse so it will take the first profile position.

Support tab

The support tab has a link to the driver page and hardware information about the mouse.

While you can assign buttons to change the profile, there is not a “profile toggle” option, which means you have to use two buttons to cycle through all of the profiles.  As it stands, if you press the “profile +” button then you are stuck there unless you press the “profile –“ button.

It is very easy to get stuck in a profile unless you have the software installed, which kind of defeats the purpose of having onboard memory.  Unless you assign a “profile +” and “profile –“ on each profile then you can very easily lock yourself into a profile.

On the next page we render our verdict…

Cooler Master’s Storm Recon is a very capable and comfortable mouse, but can be frustrating to customize.  You cannot set any DPI levels between the four presets, and the multiple LED zones cannot be configured to be useful other than looking pretty.

While the mouse supports configurable lift-off-distance, the sensor continues to track even when lifting the mouse 1/8″ in the air at any setting.  This basically negates any LOD configurability, and will certainly annoy those who lift their mouse while gaming.

The mouse’s buttons can be configured to switch profiles, but most people will use the buttons to switch DPI setting.  Assigning any function, even those rarely used to the alternate thumb buttons will certainly ruin your game, and really should be disabled.

While the mouse can be used out of the box, switching profiles via a button just isn’t feasible.  If you did, then every profile should have the same button assigned to profile switch or else the mouse will become stuck in that profile.

The mouse does not support cycling through the DPI or profile settings, which would make this peripheral much more useful.  If this were supported, then the mouse could have a “high/low DPI toggle”, and have only one button assigned for profile switches.   As it stands you must assign two buttons for resolution(DPI+, DPI -), and two for profiles (Profile +, Profile -).

While the customizable LED colors are useful when determining a profile, there is no way to indicate the selected DPI level unless you are on the default profile.  If you don’t know which sensitivity setting you have, then you might press “DPI +” when you are already on the highest setting, which will result in nothing happening.  Every second counts in an online game and if you waste time then you die.

Left-handers will find this one of the more capable gaming mice that suits them, but the mirrored buttons are too easy to click on accident using a traditional grip.  Those that prefer the claw grip will find this one of the better mice to use.

While I spent a good deal of time picking nits with some of its features, the Storm Recon is a far cry better than other gaming mice in its price range ($39.99).  It is light, has a comfortable grip, and if you don’t mind disabling the mirrored buttons then it will serve you well.  And it looks cool as hell.