Roccat Pyra Wired Mouse Impressions
I finally caved in and decided to
purchase a new mouse. My old trusty Logitech VX Revolution wireless
mouse for laptops has lasted me for 3 years, however it’s pretty much on
it’s last legs now.
The wireless aspect of it is still really
good, and works well, however the main left-click button has become
faulty and way too sensitive. Clicking it once will often initiate a
double-click, which can be extremely annoying when doing pretty much
anything. I therefore decided that my next purchase must be a mouse and
have been looking at quite a few.
I looked around quite a bit and finally
found one that fitted my requirements. I wanted a pretty portable mouse,
wired, nothing too fancy (certainly not one with too many buttons), and
nice aesthetics. I took a bit of a gamble of going for the Roccat Pyra
wired mouse, since I hadn’t actually tried it in person and just decided
to order it from Amazon.
The Roccat Pyra mouse is really compact, I
wasn’t expecting it to be so small at first. It’s a similar size to my
previous Logitech VX Revolution wireless mouse. The Logitech had a bit
more weight to it, however the Pyra doesn’t feel too light and flimsy.
I’ve read that the wireless version of the same mouse feels a bit too
weighted due to the battery, but I haven’t tried it myself.
I did try out two mice when I went to YoYo Tech last week. One was the Razer Abyssus,
which I was really tempted to buy if only it had a couple of side
buttons. The mouse literally just has left-click, right-click and the
mousewheel, so very simplified. However, the weight felt really good and
it definitely felt solid with a nice finish. The second mouse that I
was looking at was the ThermalTake eSports
mouse. This was a lot bigger than the Razer one, and did have a nice
finish. I didn’t like the feel of the mousewheel however – I like having
distinct clicks and not having the mousewheel be loose. This one
certainly felt that way.
I therefore decided to look online a bit
more. I had already seen the Roccat Pyra mouse, both wireless and wired,
and just decided to go for it. It came in pretty nice packaging and was
included with a quick start guide, driver mini-CD, and a carry pouch.
Since my Alienware M11x doesn’t have a CD drive, I downloaded the
software from Roccat’s website and installed it from there. The driver
has a nice control panel to customise button behaviour and sensitivity,
including toggling the DPI between 400, 800 and 1600. I left it on the
default 800dpi, as it felt pretty good for me.
The Roccat Pyra uses a button called
EasyShift. By keeping the button on your left thumb (side button)
pressed down, it allows you to then click another button for extra
functionality. This means you can program up to 6 additional button
behaviours. At the moment, I haven’t played around with this, but I can
see myself using different settings in different games. The control
panel allows saving different profiles, so I can easily set up a profile
for different games, e.g. one for Battlefield: Bad Company 2, and maybe
another for Team Fortress 2. It’s definitely useful and something I’ll
give a go at a later date.
I haven’t got much else to say, except that
I’m definitely happy with my purchase. Oh, the optical laser underneath
emits a blue light, and along the top, there is a slight line gap which
again, emits a pulsing blue light. The “Roccat” text is engraved on the
right hand of the face of the mouse with a glossy finish, however this
doesn’t get in the way of usage at all since usually my finger sits past
that right on the button.
Summing up, if you’re a laptop gamer, then
this is definitely a good purchase to go for. The mouse comes with a
carry case to take around with you, is extremely portable and still
delivers very good performance. Clicks are solid, mousewheel clicks are
extremely solid, and the control panel is useful to configure button
behaviour and set up profiles. At just over £30, it’s a very good deal.
