SteelSeries Rival

Affordable, solid construction. 1,000-Hz polling rate. No-frills design and assembly. High-quality braided cable on wired model. Smooth feet glide across most surfaces.

Wireless model uses AAA batteries and has no programmable lighting.

Understated design ; Tons of lighting options ; Comfortable design (for righties)

Only six buttons ; 6500CPI sensor might not be high enough for your needs ; Thumb buttons too far forward for claw- and fingertip grippers

The Rival is perfect if you just want a comfortable, bare-bones mouse instead of a 15-button behemoth.

budget friendly; great battery life complimented by replaceable batteries; comfortable form factor; can be used with single AAA battery

on the heavier side, especially with two AAA batteries; no wired connectivity; bottom toggle is a bit tricky to use

In the era of lightweight and high DPI gaming mice, SteelSeries has decided to upgrade its relatively heavy Rival 3 series with the Rival 3 Wireless Gen 2, which is also relatively heavy. This extra weight comes from the AAA batteries that eliminate...

Excellent build quality, comfortable symmetrical shape, superb raw performance

Heavier than most recent dedicated fps mice

Comfortable design with excellent grips ; Smart button layout ; Comprehensive software

No DPI indicator ; Weak illumination ; Nothing to set it apart from other mice

The SteelSeries Rival gaming mouse is comfortable to use and comes with attractive software, but the device doesn't really stand out.

As it turns out, the SteelSeries Rival's biggest rival may all boil down to the firmware it runs on, and the software it runs with. Now don't get me wrong -- the SteelSeries Rival is undoubtedly excellent hardware -- there is not a whole lot of...

SteelSeries have long been established as one of the major players for enthusiast gaming peripherals. When we reviewed their Sensei mouse a while back we found it to be one of the best gaming mice around and they had huge success with their World of...