CM STORM Sentinel Advance Review
Closer Look
I believe that a new standard in gaming has been set. The Sentinel Advance is a true masterpiece and lacks virtually nothing. There are a total of eight buttons. The locations of the left and right click buttons are exactly where you would expect them. Separating them of course, is the clickable mouse wheel.
The mouse wheel, which functions as button number three, is a bit stiff and hard to click at times, depending on how you hold the mouse. Pressing it from an angle takes a bit of getting used to but pressing from directly above the button is okay, it is just a bit stiffer than what you would normally expect. It is not entirely a bad thing however, as this lends itself to avoiding unwanted presses and also speaks of the durability of the device. The wheel itself is rubber coated with grips notched in and it scrolls freely. It would have been nice however, to see horizontal scrolling implemented.
Next up are buttons four and five. They are located just above the thumb rest on the mouse’s left side. The comfortable rubber grip allows the user to hold the mouse in such a way that accessing these buttons are a walk in the park. These rubber coated buttons are easy to find and press and have adequate spacing between them to easily differentiate without looking.
Buttons number six and seven can be found between the mouse wheel and the OLED display area. The leftmost of the two (button six), has a small bump on top for easy differentiation without taking your eyes off the action on-screen. Although customizable, this button is set by default to increase the DPI setting while the one on the right (button seven) is to decrease it. These values are set in the profiles from inside the CM Storm control software; a bit more on that later in the review.
Speaking of profiles, that brings us to the eighth and final button on the device. This is found towards the front edge of the mouse, in front of the mouse wheel and is the only button that is not customizable in the four user-created profiles. It is strictly for switching your mouse profile. However, in the standard profile, it is the only button that is customizable.
hmm, so i wonder will my logitech g5 be de-throned. we’ll see…
Personally, I think it has already been dethroned. This mouse is so impressive!!
Although die-hard Logitech fans will say that the G5 set the stage for many that came after it. That is also true.
bimmerboy79, the logitech g5 was dethroned before it even hit the market. First gen lasers were horrible for gaming. the mx518, mx500, mx 300, g1 and every Razer optical mouse all clearly outperform the g5 in terms of precision and clipping speeds… http://esreality.hexus.net/?a=longpost&id=1300293&page=5
There is a site and they have benchmarks for mice. The methodology is listed in the pages before the one I sent.
You should do some research before making uneducated comments. First gen lasers were not suitable for gaming, except for very casual. It did nothing except maybe introduce weights and make a lot of innocent people waste their hard earned cash.
This mouse looks awesome as it is comparably inexpensive for all the features it offers and is built by a reputable company. Thank you for the review. P.S. people actually like sideways scrolling?
Good points there stalin1g.
Some persons like horizontal scrolling but I think that it is more of an asset to those with smaller resolutions. With larger resolutions, there is really little or no need for it.