Hardware Bistro

Product: Ikari Laser
Manufacturer: SteelSeries
Supplied by: SteelSeries
Price: 104USD/RM377
Launch Date: NA

 

SteelSeries is one of the well known brands for gaming peripherals such as mouse pad, mouse, headset, keyboard and etc. Today we will review SteelSeries Ikari Laser mouse which is high end gaming mouse and featured with programmed macros for Real-time Strategy (RTS) and Massive Multiplayer Online (MMO); result of 15 months extensive research by SteelSeries.

 

Company Profile

SteelSeries is all about gaming. Our mission is to create performance enhancing gaming gear, created for and by leading professional gamers. We continuously strive to better ourselves, and work with leading professional gamers from 3 different continents to create our products.

Our staff is distributed throughout the world, working from offices in Europe, North America and Asia. The SteelSeries headquarters are located in Europe (Copenhagen, Denmark), and host the primary office facilities for the company. The headquarters handle all planning, production and partner coordination.

 

Features

- Programmable macro buttons with driverless plug-and-play feature
- 40.000 samples per second (SPS) for unbeatable tracking
- 1 - 3.200 CPI (changeable in increments of one)
- Built in LCD display to help set CPI values on-the-fly
- Chassis material and shape based on input from professional gamers

 

Specifications

- Samples per second: 40.000
- Inches per second: 50
- Counts per inch: 1 - 3.200 (one CPI Steps)
- Acceleration: 20 G
- Sensor data path: True 16 bit
- Lift distance: 1,8 mm (0,07 inch)
- Buttons: 5
- Cord: 2 m / 6,5 ft (braided to improve durability)
- Polling: 1000 Hz
- Gold-plated USB connector
- Measurements: 130 x 83 x 36 mm / 5,1 x 3,3 x 1,4 in
- CPI high/low indicator
- SteelSeries FreeMove Technology
- Large pressure points that reduce friction for optimized glide
- Driverless, plug-and-play feature for LAN gamers
- Operating systems: Win XP/Vista/Win 2000/Win 98/Win ME/Mac OS

 

Package & Contents

 

SteelSeries is using same type of packaging ID for Ikari Laser mouse which is good in term of customer royalty as it can be easily identified. SteelSeries Ikari Laser mouse is packed by a black packaging box with 3D layout so that the potential customers can physically feel its shape and decide whether it is suitable for him/her or not. As usual there are some basic information regarding SteelSeries and its product at the back of the packaging box.

 

High quality cardboard is used for SteelSeries Ikari Laser mouse packaging and on the left hand side, there is a rectangular box which is used to keep its cord; we would say it is a bit oversized for just keeping the cord with such big box. Product catalog, user's manual and Software CD are kept at the bottom of the Ikari mouse. No special accessory is bundled together but it is good for SteelSeries to include a mouse pouch for protection especially for Lan Party or gaming events.

 

The user's manual of SteelSeries Ikari Laser mouse is a small booklet but it contains a lot of information including software setup (software and user's manual can be downloaded from SteelSeries website). Besides that a SteelSeries logo sticker and product catalog are included; something nice to have.

 

SteelSeries Ikari Laser Mouse

 

Ikari Laser is one of the SteelSeries current selling mice besides Ikari Optical and World of Warcraft MMO mice. SteelSeries Ikari Laser has the identical layout design with Ikari Optical but both of them are created for different markets and needs. Of course the major differences between them is the sensor type where Ikari Laser is aiming high precision and high sensitivity gaming while IKari Optical is for FPS players (extremely high speed, low sensitivity). SteelSeries Ikari Laser is around 40USD more expensive than Ikari Optical.

 

As we mentioned before SteelSeries has spent 15 months in extensive research with gamers to finalize Ikari Laser; to ensure Ikari Laser is a great mouse in term of every aspect; ergonomics, advanced technology, comfortable shape, good motion, better hand grip and play styles. Besides all these features, SteelSeries Ikari Laser is also equipped with programmable macros for RTS and MMO gaming, and completely driverless where it able to remember its settings and macros even it is plugged in other systems.

 

No fancy stuff can be found on SteelSeries Ikari Laser like lightning so that the product cost can be brought down and more gamers can afford to get it. SteelSeries Ikari Laser has very unique shape and design layout for better hand grip as well as comfort especially for long hour usages. However due to this unique shape, SteelSeries Ikari Laser is only suitable for right hand side gamer. We found that SteelSeries Ikari Laser is extremely light weight as it is made by some sort of rubbery plastic material but its non slipping surface is good for gripping.

 

SteelSeries Ikari Laser is 5-button mouse; left, right, scroll, forward and backward buttons. Nothing special with 5-button as there are quite number of 7-buttons mouse in the market as well, however do we really need that many of buttons? We would say 5-button is really good enough for a gaming mouse and of course daily computer applications too. Both of the left and right buttons are extremely well constructed as only a small amount of pressure need to be applied on it. Above the scroll button, there is a triangle button which is the CPI toggle switch for high/low on-the-fly switching. 

 

Here are the forward and backward buttons of SteelSeries Ikari Laser which is well located and there is small distance between them and wrong click can be minimized. At the front left corner of SteelSeries Ikari Laser, there is a CPI high/low indicator; white LED will light up. This CFI indicator is a nice to have feature but no so useful in practical as there is huge speed difference between high and low setting so user can definitely know about its CFI setting without looking at this CPI indicator.

 

SteelSeries Ikari Laser is having 40.000 samples per second which is different than frames per second of Optical mouse; sample per second is having smaller processing image but more accuracy. Besides that SteelSeries Ikari Laser is having 50 inches per second, 20G acceleration, 1 - 3.2 (one CPI steps) counts per inches and true 16bit sensor data path. CPI (count per inch) is used rather than DPI (dots per inch) which is more common term for a mouse but CPI is the better term to define a mouse movement; DPI describes for one inch of distance that the mouse is moved on any surface which is equivalent number of counts that are sent to the PC. Some additional note for SteelSeries Ikari Laser is it is not compatible with glass surface mouse pad.

 

Besides all these features that we have talked about above, SteelSeries Ikari Laser still comes with another unique feature; a LCD display. This LCD display is reflecting the CPU values that are set in the mouse and this is very useful feature as real time CPI value can be set without go through any software; it can be changed on-the-fly. The default low CPI is 800 while high CPI is 3200. SteelSeries Ikari Laser comes with four large surface of Teflon pads (slippery material where additional glides are not required) at all four corners of the mouse to provide extremely great gliding experience with low friction.

SteelSeries Ikari Laser comes with gold-plated USB connector as it reports 1000Hz frequency rather than 125Hz of normal mouse. Hence it is recommended to connect SteelSeries Ikari Laser directly to system's USB port rather than USB hub if abnormal decreased performance is obvious. Besides that SteelSeries Ikari Laser's 2M cord is made by some cotton shield and it should be last longer than normal plastic cable shield.

 

Installation, Testing & Performance

 

Here are the CPI indicator and LCD display of SteelSeries Ikari Laser during its active status. Press & hold the CPI button allows user to change the CPI value by using the scroll button; very flexible and convenience feature.

 

Test Bed

Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E8300 @ 2.83GHz
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-EP45-DS3
Heatsink: Noctua NH-U9B
Memory: Kingston HyperX DDR2 6400/8500
Hard Drive: 250GB 7200RPM 8MB Seagate
Graphic Card: OEM Nvidia GeForce 9800GT 512MB
PSU: In Win Commander 750W
Router: TRENDnet TEW-639GR
Optical Drive: DVD RW HLDS
Monitor: Dell 22" Wide Screen LCD
Speaker: Edifier R501
Mouse: SteelSeries Ikari Laser
Mouse Pad: SteelSeries QcK+
HeadSet: SteelSeries 3H
Operating System: Microsoft XP Pro SP2
Benchmark Software: HDTech, CrystalDiskMark
Ambient Temperature: 27 Degree Celsius

Let us talk a bit about SteelSeries Ikari Laser software before we discuss its performance. Software installation is very simple and only takes couple of minutes for the whole installation process. For the first page of this SteelSeries Ikari Laser software, it allows users to set couple of profiles that consists of combinations of sensitivity and FreeMove settings which can be saved and loaded from local drive.

 

All the 5 buttons of SteelSeries Ikari Laser can be manually preprogramed to swap the functions among themselves and all these settings will be stored at Ikari Laser so the setup will not lost when it is plugged into different system. For marco setup, choose the specific macro from the dropdown menu then the "Rec" and "Edit" will become active. For marco recording, use the keyboard to type and mouse to click until the desired marco sequence is achieved.

Marco example: "CTRL[dn]{0}A[dn]{0}A[up]{0}CTRL[up]{0}B[dn]{0}B[up]"

Press Control + Key A together and release immediately then follow by pressing key B and release immediately as well

For the CPI setting, SteelSeries Ikari Laser allows two values to be set for both high and low CPI; default for high and low are 3200 and 800. For better accurary, SteelSeries ExactSens precise interval possible; 1 CPI. The last setting is SteelSeries FreeMove which offers users to correct the movement and there are seven steps for adjusting about how to control the movement.

 

During couple of days of testing the SteelSeries Ikari Laser mouse, we found that we love it so much and adapted with its great performance as well as its comfort for holding it especially for long hours of usage. We did some gaming (CS, WoW, Quake4) with Ikari Laser mouse and it is working very well in term of every aspects; accuracy, low friction which allows better gliding although this is not the first time we are using laser mouse but the performance is much different. Some of the games and applications do not really benefited by SteelSeries Ikari Laser mouse but for high precision and high sensitivity games/applications then user will able to distinguish its greater performance. Besides that the on-the-fly changing is able to save up some setup time without go through software.

 

Conclusion

Among all the computer hardware makers, SteelSeries is one of the quality producers where all of their products are come with high quality and well designs and this is same for Ikari Laser mouse too. SteelSeries Ikari Laser mouse is not only a well design and comfortable mouse but it also comes with quite number of features that are unique and hard to be found on other brands. Some of the great features are CPI indicator and LCD display which are working well with the on-the-fly CPI changing. Besides that the setting is stored inside the mouse so it can be used on other system without fine tune the setting again. Last but not least, for a 100USD mouse, SteelSeries Ikari Laser mouse seems expensive but it is still fall within the same range with other high end mouse so it is still worth to get it if you are serious in gaming or always chasing for perfectness else any mouse will do for your daily usages.

 

Pros:

* Comfortable hand grip
* Great performance especially for intensive gaming
* Customized CPI (1-3200) & on the-fly-changing
* CPI high/low indicator & LCD display
* Programmable marco buttons
* SteelSeries FreeMove technology
* Driverless plug & play feature
* Lightweight

 

Cons:
*A bit Pricey

 

Thanks to SteelSeries for providing this sample for us to review.

Only registered users may post a comment.

There are currently no user submitted comments.