I’m not much of a gamer, but it didn’t stop me from getting excited about reviewing the NZXT Avatar Gaming Mouse. Part of my excitement was the anticipation of trying out lots of features I, a non-gamer, may never use again, but I was also excited because I love beautiful tech products.
OK. It’s a thing of beauty, and we’ll get back to that, but gaming mice don’t make it on looks, alone.
A Comfortable Power Mouse
I decided to use this mouse for a while for gaming and everything else I do on my computer. I wanted to put it to the test for a week. You know what they say about time and flying. I’ve been using the Avatar mouse for an average of 10 hours a day for much longer than a week and I’m loving almost everything about it. I say “almost” because I was annoyed at first. I dove in and started using it right out of the box, disregarding the install CD. Out of the box, the side buttons already perform various actions and are so conveniently situated for clicking that I found myself doing unexpected things with unintended side button clicks. Of course, for gaming, you’ll want to pop in the CD and program all seven buttons to your liking right after you plug it in. The other item of annoyance is the rubber grip on the sides, most specifically that it seems to collect dirt quickly. I’m thinking a simple wash cloth will remedy this.
The rubber grip was also one of the things I really liked about the Avatar mouse. Fast-paced gaming for any notable period of time generates palm sweat and even a little bit makes most mice slippery. Try dodging baddies when the mouse slips. The traction provided gets you to safety quickly. The ergonomic design makes it almost cuddle right up into your hand, so getting to feel right at home with it is a quick process. What I hadn’t planned on using longer than for the review quickly planted its flag on my desktop, even though I sometimes feel like I’m taking a Ferrari to grocery shop.
Features And Specs
When you pay about $60+ for a mouse, you want features. It’s priced well for a gaming mouse as long as it delivers and the Avatar’s features fully justify the price.
With seven programmable buttons, Avatar does all the work while you just have to remember which button does what. In addition, you can customize some of the more common mouse functions like the scroll wheel and the optical sensor. Let’s talk about that sensor for a second. I comes in at a crazy 2600 DPI for precision accuracy. Not only that, but the 4 Speed DPI switch enables you to go from slow sniper movement to quick attack movement in a matter of seconds and the LED lights on the side show you the current DPI. And you thought the lights were just to look cool.
For the fans of the numbers, here’s the specs: Max Speed
– 40 Inches/Second Max Acceleration
– 15g Max Frame Rate
– 6469 Frames/Second Resolution
– 650-2600 DPI Image Processing
– 5.8 Mega Pixels/Second USB Reports
– Up to 1000 Reports/Second Buttons
– 7 Buttons, 5 Million Clicks
Did I Say Beautiful?
I’ve mentioned it already, but I’ll say it again… This is one sexy piece of hardware, especially for something as normally mundane and boring as a mouse. The best part is that most of what makes it look better also makes it work better. From the sleek ergonomics to the Tron-like DPI LEDs, the Avatar mouse catches the attention of everyone who’s near my desk for more than a minute.
And just look at it in with the lights off. ‘Nuff said.
Should You Buy It?
I can go on and on about how neat a product may be, but it really comes down to weighing the value against the price and factoring in “neat” last. That said, this is not a mouse I would personally buy normally. Given how rarely I play any games that require this level of sophistication, its coolness alone doesn’t squeeze it into my budget (not that I would dare part with it now that it’s on my desk). Avid gamers, on the other hand, should take a second look as this is a smart mouse that would look great with any desktop setup and just might give your kill count a boost.
This is for the hardware geeks. The other day, I found this image seemingly from sonic84.com. It’s a chart of computer hardware, with images and detail right down to some pin and voltage information. It might serve as a handy chart or it might be just fun to look at. Either way, I thought I’d share it with you.
Bonus points if you can guess (or just know) how many of these I have tattooed on my body.
If, like me, you jailbreak your iphone a lot, the name geohot may sound familiar. It’s an online alias for George Hotz, who has been a regular contributor to efforts to jailbreak the iPhone. In 2010, he hacked the PS3, releasing a jailbreak for it, much to the dismay of Sony. Eventually, Sony sent a team of lawyers after geohot, seeking a Temporary Restraining Order and asking for his hard drive to be handed over. And their wish was granted.
Unhappy with the ruling, geohot posted the following rap to his YouTube channel this weekend, dissing Sony in a style that would make Eminem proud.
The video ends with “Exhibit this in the court room. Go on, do it. I dare you.” In the video’s description, among links and other information, George taunted:
“Sony you got some rappers signed, right? Come at me bro”
If I ever meet George Hotz in person, I’m buying him a drink. Not that I dislike Sony, but his response to their law suit is drink-worthy.
Personally, I think Sony is unnecessarily bullying Hotz. Sure, people will pirate games for the PS3, but going after Hotz isn’t going to stop it and ordering him to hand over his hard drive and other personal hardware is just wrong. We had the same problem with Apple at first. They didn’t want people controlling the software on the iPhone and people like me argued, “I bought it, so let me install whatever I want on it.” I hope Sony takes a step back and asks themselves what they’ll really have accomplished when the dust settles.
Once in a while I come across something that is not only worthy of a positive review, but also gentle on your wallet. At about $20 for a cool little electronic toy, this is one of those products.
What you’re looking at is the Skitterbot by Desk Pets. It’s a little remote controlled critter that is a lot of fun without being too complicated.
Skitterbot Features
The picture above makes Skitterbot look a little more sleek than it does in person. Up close, it just looks like a little plastic toy but what it lacks in style it makes up in fun. When activated, the Skitterbot moves it’s six tiny legs incredibly fast. This moves the little guy around at about a foot a second. The included five button remote gives you the control to move it in any direction. Plug the remote in to charge your Skitterbot for 30 minutes and you get about 15 minutes of play. The ratio of charging time to play time has room for improvement, but 15 minutes is probably fine for a toy of this nature. The four different color choices also have different frequencies so you can make them interact and create Bug Battle 2011.
How Skitterbot Works
Out of the box, the Skitterbot needs to be charged before the fun can begin. Unfortunately, it didn’t charge over a USB cable I had plugged into my computer, but if you plug it in directly it charges quickly. In fact, it seemed to charge much faster than the advertised 30 minutes. The USB connector pops out of the remote when you need to charge it up and retracts when you don’t. The remote also includes a cable to plug into the Skitterbot so it will charge up.
To move the Skitterbot around, you just press any of the five buttons on the remote. Four are for directions and the fifth is to make it stop. The controls have memory, so you can just hit a directional button once instead of holding it to keep it going in that direction. To get a better idea of it, take a look at the video below.
I took my green Skitterbot over to my nephew to play with and he and everyone else loved it.
Win A Skitterbot
If you want a Skitterbot of your own, you’re in luck. I have a red Skitterbot waiting for one lucky winner and it’s easy to enter. Any of the following will earn you an entry:
- Tweet “Retweet to win a @deskpets Skitterbot from @JoeTech : http://lnk.gd/skitterbots” (You must be following @joetech and post a link here to your tweet to win)
- Post “Win a DeskPets Skitterbot from JoeTech.com : http://lnk.gd/skitterbots” on Facebook (You must post a link here to your facebook update to win)
- Comment on this post, telling us what you will do with your Skitterbot if you win.
Entries will be accepted until 02.19.2011. Winner will be chosen at random and announced here. Contest is open to residents of U.S. and Canada only.
