Robi_G
New member
Cooler Master Xornet Review
I've recently bought the Cooler Master Xornet for £17 as a replacement for a cheap wireless mouse that froze up whenever anything was being transmitted over Wifi. I first tried a Corsair Raptor M4 which was absolutely massive and really uncomfortable and not worth the £40 it sold for.
So with the competition so low let's get on with the review.
Packaging:
The Xornet comes in a very thick walled box with a striking picture of the mouse on the front and some basic stats on the back. The extra colour and design on the box is wasted on a product bought online but it's nice to know they put the effort in. For what it's worth the box is quite weighty too, and thankfully easy to get into.
The front of the box is velcro'd shut and opens up to reveal the mouse body so you can get a rough feel of the mouse before you buy it if it's in a shop. There are more stats on the other side of the box cover pointing out the sensor, DPI buttons, the rubberised grips and the Omeron micro-switches.
Paperwork in the box is a warranty card and a leaflet with some marketing spiel and (YET AGAIN!) labels pointing out the mouse features.
The Mouse Appearance:
Now the mouse itself. It is easy to get out of the packaging with only a single twist tie in the way. With reviews saying this is a small mouse I was somewhat surprised at how big it was. Now don't get me wrong it is by no means massive, just slightly bigger than expected. You may also have grasped that my previous mouse history is a bit crap from the introduction.
The mouse strikes a balance between brash and understated with the unlit black body and logos, but that said, does it really matter what a mouse looks like?
The USB port has the CMStorm logo on it which means the job of taking it out from the back of your pc is slightly easier. The underside of the Xornet has the sensor slightly offset from the centre of the mouse and two large feet (one at each end).
Mouse Setup:
The mouse at stock will read on a fair few surfaces, including my bare desk which isn't the most mouse friendly of places, with even my chosen firmware not working on some more scratched parts of it (luckily these patches are all over to the left so it's a non-issue).
Cooler Master has several firmware versions on their website (along with the warning of bricking the mouse if you change it) and a program that finds the firmware currently running on the mouse.
The mouse comes preloaded with version 70, the LOD is very high on this version, at least for me it was. There are two 'series' of firmware, the 5x and the 7x it doesn't matter which you use as far as I'm aware from testing different ones. Just for the record, v72 meant the mouse didn't respond (and I thought I'd bricked it as it was the first I tried), v75 and v55 are very jumpy, especially at low speed but this might be down to the surface used. I settled on v52 which sorted the LOD and wasn't jumpy at all.
Mouse performance and feel:
The mouse sits very comfortably in my hand , I use a mix of palm grip and claw grip depending on what I'm doing on the PC (office stuff / gaming) and in both it is nice to use. The ring finger rest is also a nice touch and much better than that on the Raptor M4 by not feeling like an extra mouse button.
The DPI settings are ok in an office environment, the 2000dpi is a tad high and the 1000dpi is a tad low (500 is just stupidly slow for office work), this was on 6/11 on the windows mouse sensitivity settings. But after a while you get used to them and the DPI buttons are very handy indeed, as well as easy to get to on the fly.
All buttons feel nice to press and don't feel cheap either, the +dpi button is a bit wobbly but you don't notice that during general use and as I say it is only a bit. As mentioned in a couple of forums, the back, side button can be clicked if you push the rubber grip near it too hard but if you press it that hard without trying then there's something wrong with how hard you grip a mouse. The scroll wheel is nice and grippy and light, with a definite click between each actuation.
During some Crysis 1 game play the mouse is brilliant and really comes into its own, the DPI buttons are the most useful thing I have ever come across in a mouse and the 3 presets that felt a bit off earlier are now perfect and well adjusted. The two buttons on the side also played a part as binoculars and suit toggle, the newfound accuracy I had with this mouse was amazing. Of course this could all be down to the fact that I've never had a decent mouse, but this thing is unreal, it sits in your hand so well, it's easy to pick up and reposition it moves so easily across surfaces.
Here's the Xornet next to my old mouse, it may explain why I thought the Xornet was a bit large as I've got used to the small cheap thing next to it.
Conclusion:
I'll compare the Xornet to the Logik mouse and the Raptor M4 for a bit before settling on a conclusion.
Compared to the Raptor, the Xornet is of similar material quality in the places that matter (buttons, side grips) and near it with others (the main body of the mouse), The buttons are nicer, especially the side ones which felt like a rattly afterthought on the Raptor, it is infinitely more comfortable but that may just be a hand size issue.
Compared to the Logic mouse there's really no competition, the fact that the middle click works is good enough a victory (the Logic one broke), but the fact that the scroll itself is so much easier and smoother really rubs it in. During office work there isn't much difference to be perfectly honest but in gaming (which after all is what this mouse is marketed as and when the mouse performance really matters) the Xornet destroys the Logik.
So to conclude the Cooler Master Xornet is well made, comfortable and precise, and for the price of £17 off Amazon (free shipping) it's a very good deal. I will say that it would be nice to have some sort of DPI indicator, a less picky sensor and some customisable LED lighting but these aren't big problems and all would add to the cost. A great mouse at a great price, I would recommend it to almost anyone. All that's left now is a new keyboard to finish the experience
Price: 10
Performance: 9
Customisation: 3
Presentation: 7
//edit// I'm using firmware v50 now as it turned out my desc had to be absolutely spotless for 52 to work, LOD is slightly better than v70 though (I'd say about 2-3mm roughly) and it now works consistently on my desc, the other firmwares are most likely made for people with proper mouse mats.
I've recently bought the Cooler Master Xornet for £17 as a replacement for a cheap wireless mouse that froze up whenever anything was being transmitted over Wifi. I first tried a Corsair Raptor M4 which was absolutely massive and really uncomfortable and not worth the £40 it sold for.
So with the competition so low let's get on with the review.
Packaging:
The Xornet comes in a very thick walled box with a striking picture of the mouse on the front and some basic stats on the back. The extra colour and design on the box is wasted on a product bought online but it's nice to know they put the effort in. For what it's worth the box is quite weighty too, and thankfully easy to get into.
The front of the box is velcro'd shut and opens up to reveal the mouse body so you can get a rough feel of the mouse before you buy it if it's in a shop. There are more stats on the other side of the box cover pointing out the sensor, DPI buttons, the rubberised grips and the Omeron micro-switches.
Paperwork in the box is a warranty card and a leaflet with some marketing spiel and (YET AGAIN!) labels pointing out the mouse features.
The Mouse Appearance:
Now the mouse itself. It is easy to get out of the packaging with only a single twist tie in the way. With reviews saying this is a small mouse I was somewhat surprised at how big it was. Now don't get me wrong it is by no means massive, just slightly bigger than expected. You may also have grasped that my previous mouse history is a bit crap from the introduction.
The mouse strikes a balance between brash and understated with the unlit black body and logos, but that said, does it really matter what a mouse looks like?
The USB port has the CMStorm logo on it which means the job of taking it out from the back of your pc is slightly easier. The underside of the Xornet has the sensor slightly offset from the centre of the mouse and two large feet (one at each end).
Mouse Setup:
The mouse at stock will read on a fair few surfaces, including my bare desk which isn't the most mouse friendly of places, with even my chosen firmware not working on some more scratched parts of it (luckily these patches are all over to the left so it's a non-issue).
Cooler Master has several firmware versions on their website (along with the warning of bricking the mouse if you change it) and a program that finds the firmware currently running on the mouse.
The mouse comes preloaded with version 70, the LOD is very high on this version, at least for me it was. There are two 'series' of firmware, the 5x and the 7x it doesn't matter which you use as far as I'm aware from testing different ones. Just for the record, v72 meant the mouse didn't respond (and I thought I'd bricked it as it was the first I tried), v75 and v55 are very jumpy, especially at low speed but this might be down to the surface used. I settled on v52 which sorted the LOD and wasn't jumpy at all.
Mouse performance and feel:
The mouse sits very comfortably in my hand , I use a mix of palm grip and claw grip depending on what I'm doing on the PC (office stuff / gaming) and in both it is nice to use. The ring finger rest is also a nice touch and much better than that on the Raptor M4 by not feeling like an extra mouse button.
The DPI settings are ok in an office environment, the 2000dpi is a tad high and the 1000dpi is a tad low (500 is just stupidly slow for office work), this was on 6/11 on the windows mouse sensitivity settings. But after a while you get used to them and the DPI buttons are very handy indeed, as well as easy to get to on the fly.
All buttons feel nice to press and don't feel cheap either, the +dpi button is a bit wobbly but you don't notice that during general use and as I say it is only a bit. As mentioned in a couple of forums, the back, side button can be clicked if you push the rubber grip near it too hard but if you press it that hard without trying then there's something wrong with how hard you grip a mouse. The scroll wheel is nice and grippy and light, with a definite click between each actuation.
During some Crysis 1 game play the mouse is brilliant and really comes into its own, the DPI buttons are the most useful thing I have ever come across in a mouse and the 3 presets that felt a bit off earlier are now perfect and well adjusted. The two buttons on the side also played a part as binoculars and suit toggle, the newfound accuracy I had with this mouse was amazing. Of course this could all be down to the fact that I've never had a decent mouse, but this thing is unreal, it sits in your hand so well, it's easy to pick up and reposition it moves so easily across surfaces.
Here's the Xornet next to my old mouse, it may explain why I thought the Xornet was a bit large as I've got used to the small cheap thing next to it.
Conclusion:
I'll compare the Xornet to the Logik mouse and the Raptor M4 for a bit before settling on a conclusion.
Compared to the Raptor, the Xornet is of similar material quality in the places that matter (buttons, side grips) and near it with others (the main body of the mouse), The buttons are nicer, especially the side ones which felt like a rattly afterthought on the Raptor, it is infinitely more comfortable but that may just be a hand size issue.
Compared to the Logic mouse there's really no competition, the fact that the middle click works is good enough a victory (the Logic one broke), but the fact that the scroll itself is so much easier and smoother really rubs it in. During office work there isn't much difference to be perfectly honest but in gaming (which after all is what this mouse is marketed as and when the mouse performance really matters) the Xornet destroys the Logik.
So to conclude the Cooler Master Xornet is well made, comfortable and precise, and for the price of £17 off Amazon (free shipping) it's a very good deal. I will say that it would be nice to have some sort of DPI indicator, a less picky sensor and some customisable LED lighting but these aren't big problems and all would add to the cost. A great mouse at a great price, I would recommend it to almost anyone. All that's left now is a new keyboard to finish the experience
Price: 10
Performance: 9
Customisation: 3
Presentation: 7
//edit// I'm using firmware v50 now as it turned out my desc had to be absolutely spotless for 52 to work, LOD is slightly better than v70 though (I'd say about 2-3mm roughly) and it now works consistently on my desc, the other firmwares are most likely made for people with proper mouse mats.
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