MadCatz Cyborg R.A.T. 7: Looks That Can Kill
For all you gamers out there, revolutionary strides are being made on your behalf just so you can spend more of your day with your hand comfortably wrapped around your electronic equipment. Note: we aren’t judging, gaming is great, and we’re solidly behind new and interesting peripherals that serve multiple functions. That being said, having today’s mouse on your desk for use simply surfing the internet and using iTunes would be a terrible waste.
Mad Catz regularly surprises us with innovative accessories. That’s precisely why we were excited to get our grubby little paws on the MadCatz Cyborg R.A. T. 7 Mouse.
“Cyborg is best known for ergonomic and fully adjustable flight sticks, gaming mice and keyboards. The new mouse range incorporates the same market leading design principles and applies them to gaming mice. For the first time ever on a mouse, the key points of contact between the gamer’s hand and the mouse are fully adjustable allowing it to be customized for any grip preference,” commented, Darren Richardson, President and CEO of Mad Catz. “The Cyborg mouse range was developed entirely in house and I believe they are the most comfortable gaming mice you’ll ever use. Besides, they just look cool!”
For starters, the futuristic look, from packing on to the crazy construction of the mouse itself had us discombobulated. From first glance, you feel like you are in 2020, or a pretty awesome dystopia. The R.A.T. has a 5600 DPI laser sensor that can toggle between four sensitivity levels. We easily could tell which mode we were in as a red LED meter let us know. But that’s just for starters.
We are all for customization and when in hand, the R.A.T 7 doesn’t disappoint. It articulates styling that is adjustable and allows you to swap out parts like the palm rest and pinkie grip to make sure it fits your hand perfectly. As someone that has smaller hands, I can appreciate that sentiment. You can choose between 3 different options for your palm grip: slick black, elevated slick black, and a grippy rubber. If you feel the distance is a bit too much between your palm rest and the buttons, you can adjust with a lever that changes the mouse from as short as 4 ¼” or as long as 5”. The included pinkie grips feature two regular side-panels (one matte and one grippy) and an oversize wing-style grip that makes the mouse look like an-out-of-this-world spaceship.
We personally liked the wing grip as our pinkie was able to take control of the mouse in a more fluid movement. The feet on this mouse slid easily with no hesitation about going into a war zone at all. Our only real point of concern was the metal frame. We wish it would have been covered a bit on the bottom as last time we checked, metal can cause some damage in the form of scratches to your mousing surface or area.
The mouse itself is sturdy and durable. If you so desire, you can add weights that are slotted into the back of the mouse for extra bulk. We tended to go on the lighter side, but personalization is once again key here. Mac users, though, are a bit left out, as there is no OSX support.
The left-side panel, which contains three of the mouse buttons, is also conformable by merely sliding the whole panel forward and backward, allowing you to position the buttons impeccably under your thumb. The tool placement for the mouse might not suit some smaller-handed individuals though. Another feature is the profile button- we could switch between 3 different profiles, though the primary changes are fairly limited (tracking speed and the like).
There’s even a ‘sniper button’, a non-configurable button on the thumb panel that helped reduce our mouse sensitivity for as long as we liked (or held down the button). The sniper button was a welcome change to gaming of the past as it’s quite easy to get frustrated messing with DPI settings while trying to zoom in for the headshot.
But for all the options you have with the hardware, our pet peeve was the slightly underpowered software. There are some options, including a fairly easy-to-use macro builder, but it’s really the physical mouse that sells this package. The hardware is drool-worthy, offering more interesting features and fun options that anyone probably needs.
The R.A.T. 7 has moved gaming precision to another level in our minds. We were able to purchase from Amazon for around $100 (though it appears to be a lengthy wait at many retailers). For those wishing for a wireless model, the R.A.T. 9 is exactly the same mouse, only without a tail (but with a $30 higher pricetag).
