Microsoft Sidewinder X5

Posted 08/29/2008 at 12:00pm | by Will Smith

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Sporting an ever-so-slightly trimmed-down shape compared to the original Sidewinder gaming mouse, along with a stripped down featureset, the Sidewinder X5 delivers great performance at a very reasonable price. Like the original Sidewinder, the design works great for gamers who use either a claw or a standard grip (or who like to change between them), but it’s not particularly comfortable for people with small- to medium-size hands. After a couple of hours of play using a standard grip, our hands cramped.

While its height seems trimmed down a little, the Sidewinder X5 is still designed for a large hand.

Missing from this updated Sidewinder are the original mouse’s adjustable weighting system, the interchangeable foot pads, the sensitivity display, and the weighted cable anchor. While we especially miss the cable anchor, extra features (like the one that have been omitted) aren’t something we’d expect in a mouse that costs $60.

The Sidewinder X5 mouse retains the killer high-and-low thumb button studs, which make it easy to tell precisely which thumb button you’re hitting, regardless of the grip you use on the mouse. We’re also pleased to say that Microsoft has improved the scroll wheel with much better tactile response. And, when it comes to the sensor, the X5’s 2000DPI laser sensor is simply as good as any other gaming mouse sensor we’ve tested.

We typically test mice using a mixture of fast action games—think Team Fortress 2 and Quake Live—as well as slow-movement challenges, such as the sniper mission in Call of Duty 4. At the fast sensitivity setting, the X5’s sensor was pixel accurate even at extreme speeds. When sniping, we cranked the sensitivity down for smoother movement and got similarly accurate results.

We’re not fans of Microsoft’s mouse software. While it lets you customize each of the three sensitivity settings to your personal taste, we wish that it let you establish more than just three different sensitivities. As for the Sidewinder button, which launches the Intellipoint software on XP and the Games Explorer on Vista, it ably fulfills Microsoft’s “weird proprietary button” rule.  (In our experience, there’s always one odd proprietary button on every Microsoft Hardware product. Always.)

All told, this “budget” gaming mouse is an improvement on the more expensive Sidewinder original, but there are still cheaper, more comfortable budget mice out there. We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: If you can’t palm a basketball, your hand is probably too small to comfortably use a Sidewinder.

Microsoft Sidewinder X5

Index

Sensor is super-accurate. Top-and-bottom thumb buttons kick ass. Love the three button sensitivity adjustment.

Pinky

Still too honkin’ big. No reason to install the software, unless you want to make sensitivity adjustments. Sidewinder button is useless.

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