31 Jan

TteSPORTS is a division of Thermaltake that creates products for competitive gaming, while maintaining Thermaltake’s long standing tradition of implementing unique design styles.The Level 10 M mouse was designed by TteSPORTS with a BMW group, DesignWorksUSA.I am reviewing the iron white model of this mouse which also comes in diamond black, blazing red, and military green.

I have tested this mouse for 10 days of competitive CS:GO matchmaking, as well as general computer use.In the packaging you will find your Level 10 M mouse along with its manual, the install disc, a travel pouch, and a tool for making adjustments to the mouse itself.

This mouse is made with a solid aluminum base to increase its durability and length of life, and most likely accounts for the weight, which comes close to half a pound.

There are a plethora of macro mappable buttons on this mouse. on the left side you have buttons A, B, and Z. the Z button works like a four direction d-pad, but can also be pushed in like a joystick. by default, some of the Z button functions are mapped to switching profiles and changing DPI settings. On the right side you have the C and D buttons. Finally you have your clickable mouse wheel, and your left and right click buttons. With my claw grip, my thumb rests between the A and B buttons. My pinky finger rests in the same place on the opposite side between the C and D buttons. The lack of pressure required to press the C and D buttons as well as their placement on the mouse make them unreliable for me in a use in an FPS game.The Z button is also a bit too far from my thumb for comfortable use, and after pressing the D button a  thousand times, i was forced to disable it

The 3D Axis movement feature allows you to adjust the height and angle of the mouse  by +-5 millimeters with the hex tool that comes packaged. My smaller hand was uncomfortable with the height of this mouse but after adjusting the size down it became a snug fit. i also found adjusting the x-axis to my preference gave me better control with my right hand.

The laser sensor is an Avago ADNS 9800 which, according to Avago, is a high performance gaming sensor. This same sensor can also be found in popular gaming mice from other companies such as CoolerMaster’s Storm Sentinel Advanced 2, and Steelseries Sensei Pro MLG edition

There are four lights on this mouse, three of which are individually customizable with seven different color options, which i’ll cover shortly.

The 10 M gaming mouse has a unique air ventilation system. the area below the palm grip on the ouse is essentially hollow, and there is a honeycomb pattern of holes on top. The idea is that this will help disperse heat, and keep your hand from getting slick with sweat during a long match. In my experience so far, this system has been pretty successful. The cable is 1.8 meters with a braided shield and uses usb 2.0. It took a few days for the cable to loosen up, but once it did the cable was no impediment to the movement of the mouse.

The mouse management software looks hastily put together, but you can manage your profiles in profile management, create and assign macros in macro key, change your led lighting effects in light options, and edit your DPI and polling settings in performance. Under performance, you can select your polling rate, manually enter your desired dpi up to 8200, and adjust the speed setting for double clicks, cursor, and scroll. Do not set the liftoff adjust to 0, it disables movement of the cursor all together (a setting which seems odd to include in the first place).

Macro key lets you create new macros or edit existing ones. Counter Strike GO did not pick up the Z buttons, so we created macros for them so we could quickly switch between grenades. You can also create a macro with a set of predefined windows commands like copy or paste.

Launch program will let you open a program of your choosing with a selected mouse button. Here we set the C button to launch CS:GO.

The light options include seven different colors you can assign to three lights. in the main menu you can switch between battle and normal for each profile. Battle mode will change the lighting effects when you are rapidly clicking away in a firefight. In normal mode, the color scheme will simply fade in and out. The four LEDs on the right mouse button tells you the currently selected sensitivity level.

Now lets move on to the pros and cons:

The level 10 M mouse from thermaltake has an undeniably awesome design and some pretty sweet LED lighting options.

The passive air ventilation and 3D axis movement systems both work pretty well.

On top of it all it has a very precise laser sensor

For me, the biggest downfall of this mouse is its button placement. I simply cannot comfortably reach some of these buttons because they are placed too far back and spread too far apart.

After just a couple of days the scroll wheel started squeaking on me. Others have experienced the same problem with the left click button. I solved my squeaky wheel problem with rubbing alcohol, so you should remember that this mouse may require maintenance

My personal opinion on the software that comes with this mouse is that it is quite ugly.

Due to these faults, the 100 dollar price tag on this mouse is just too high

The Level 10 M mouse looks great, is highly functional, and customizable. The unique design of this mouse sets it apart, and will draw the attention of gamers and non-gamers alike. The laser sensor makes it very reliable for aiming in game. The simple Windows commands you can map make it very useful outside of gaming as well. The software, while it works, is a strain on the eyes and you can tell whoever developed it went for style before simplicity and ease of use.

However many buttons this mouse has, I am only able to comfortably use buttons A and B while gaming, but this may not be the case for you. For its hefty price tag and player-specific comfort level, I would not recommend buying this 100 dollar mouse without finding a way to try it out first.