Gamers everywhere obsess over having more control. More responsive keyboard, higher refresh rates, higher DPI for mouse clicks, and reduced lag. But what about if you wanted more movement precision?
A mouse called the Lexip purports to be "the most accurate and versatile gaming mouse ever" according to its Kickstarter page. The credentials that allow the designers to make this claim? Two integrated joysticks in the mouse: one for your thumb, and one that's the entire shell of the mouse itself.
Yes, the entire mouse rocks around on its base and acts as a joystick. Here's what that looks like:
The mouse offers +/- 20 degrees in both horizontal and vertical movements, but the base actually turns left and right too. Lexip's makers also say that the mouse will register over 300,000 joystick positions to its internal CPU.
The second joystick is on the side of the mouse where your thumb rests for further control. The thumbstick offers +/- 30-degrees in all directions. This all sounds good right? Not really.
The problem with having the mouse rest on a pivoting platform is that it moves when you click. Left click, it moves. Right click, it moves in another direction. This mouse just doesn't stop pivoting and rocking around. And if you want to move the mouse as an entire joystick, you can't do it without accidentally clicking the left or right mouse buttons unless you move your fingers forward and rest them on the front area of the mouse. Annoying.
The front area of the mouse is also a problem. It takes up a lot of area where your fingers expect the mouse buttons to be. So unless you claw your mouse, you're not clicking anything. I can see why the mouse has lots of non functioning space in front of the buttons, making them short: because a normal hand position gets in the way of the selling point of the mouse. The left and right paddles are also way too stiff and require too much force to register a click. If you're looking for response rate, this mouse isn't it.
There are two side buttons for your thumb, but they're positioned awkwardly in relation to the thumb stick. You have to move your thumb back a lot to click the rear side button. When I try to click the rear button, I have to contort my thumb as if I'm thumb battling with the mouse.
While general use is more frustrating than it's worth, we imagine there must be a use-case for these additional forms of control. The pivot could be useful in 3D modeling, for example, but we haven't had a chance to try that yet. The thing is, Lexip bills this as a mouse for gamers. We haven't had a chance to test this in many games yet (look for a full review incorporating that later), but at first touch we can't imagine the extra forms of control will outweigh how bad it feels to use.
