It may seem passe or even Internet 1.0 but are LAN parties out of date? When is the last time you attended or even hosted a LAN party? Remember back in the day epic Quake death matches? Warcraft II battles on the college network? Or even good old Starcraft (damn those zerg!). The recent news that Blizzard does not plan on supporting LAN play for the upcoming Starcraft 2 release has hardcore fans up in arms. Perhaps old school multiplayer strategy games have caught up to with the times. Free LAN play is not a money maker (as Blizzard has discovered) the real money is in monthly subscription models like the World of Warcraft. Citing reasons such as piracy and touting the upgraded Battlenet infrastructure players will be forced online if they want multiplayer contests.
Officially LAN parties (for Starcraft 2) will be over but I’m sure some hacker will find a work around. So I guess in the meantime (while we wait for the actual release) we’ll just have to rant about the lack of LAN support and shake our fists angrily. I’m sure the thousands of net-cafe’s are furiously working on a solution as we speak.
Product specs: 40mm speaker size, 20Hz – 20kHz response frequency, 100Hz – 8kHz microphone frequency response, 9.5′ cable, 3.5″ gold plated plugs.
First thoughts: these are really nice looking and feeling headset. Plastic packaging is huge and is real waste, plus I hate getting my hands cut/scratched up with the sharp edges.
It has a wired frame that goes over your head and then a second cushion foam band which sits on your head. The foam band is spring loaded to adjust to your head to ensure that the earpiece sits comfortably on your ears. This might become an issue if you have big hair or have a small head. For me the fit was fine.
The microphone swivels down smoothly and firmly stays in place. I found the distance between my mouth and the microphone just right. Not too close, not too far. I didn’t get a chance to hear myself to judge the mic audio quality but others said that it was “ok” and I sounded “fine”.
What I like: earphone/build quality, controls, mic location, price.
If you’re as click happy as I am you’ve probably gone through a few mice. Going through a cheap $10 mouse within a couple of months convinced me to go with a relatively expensive one. For the longest time I was a Microsoft mouse user. I liked the large white intellimouse, it was comfortable for people with big hands. Then I went through a few in a short period and swore them off. Switched to Logitech. I’ve gone through a few over the last 3 years and recently on the weekend I spotted a replacement which seemed promising.
Enter the 
If you’re a gamer you know that in stressful situations your hands get a little sweaty. The rubber grips on the side help keep you in control. The scroll wheel is textured to again getting a good grip is less of a problem. My old mouse had a slick smooth scroll wheel which sometimes was hard to get a grip on. The DPI switch comes in handy when you tend to get a little lazier in long games and mouse sensitivity adjustments are required. It let’s you toggle between 800 and 1600 settings. It’s a good sized mouse so that when I palm the mouse I don’t feel like my fingers drag against the mouse pad. I have no idea how people use those tiny notebook sized mice.
I only have a few issues to nitpick. The length of the cable is a problem. I like long cables because I tend to place my pc relatively far from my monitor and mouse surface. So length of cable comes into play all the time and I just plain don’t like wireless devices. I used a 1.5 USB cable extension to solve the problem. My old Logitech MX-400 was a comfortable 6 feet in length with was enough for my uses. The weight takes a bit of getting used to. I don’t know if it’s really a 100 grams but it does feel a bit heavier than my old mouse. Once you get comfortable with a certain mouse sensitivity, change is never a welcome thing.
The 4th and 5th buttons are up by the knuckle of my thumb. It’s kind of awkward to reach back with my thumb to click the buttons. Thankfully I don’t need to click them that often. Pricing is minor issue. To me, the brand names in keyboard and mice is Microsoft and Logitech, which I’m content to pay more for given their reputation. Without a reputation for building a quality mouse, I felt that GigaByte should have priced this a little less. I could have bought my old Logitech mouse for the same price.
Overall it’s a good mouse. It’s definitely a more than adequate replacement for my Logitech mouse. A very familiar feeling quality and some nice features to boot. If your mouse has recently broken and you’re looking for a replacement brand named other than “Microsoft” or “Logitech” you should give it a try. Now if I could just find a bigger mouse pad to match it.
