Gaming mice usually have a few characteristics that are unique to the gaming mouse market. Things like higher DPI numbers, upgraded optical sensors, and in the case of the Roccat Leadr gaming mouse, loads of buttons. This is one chunky mouse, but paired with the charging dock, wireless capabilities and decent price makes the Leadr a pretty strong offering. Being a chunky bit of kit, the Roccat Leadr mouse needs to ideally be held with some form of palm grip. It’s comfortable to use for sure. There are a number vast number of buttons on either side of the mouse, but there’s no doubt that this is for right handers.

So what buttons do you have the choice of using? There’s left and right click, a middle mouse button/scroll wheel and a tilt switch for left and right movements just underneath. On top you have an extra four buttons. The two on the left are for switching DPI and the two on the right are custom, you can choose. By your thumb is a nice indent to rest it inside, but there are two thumb buttons, a second scroll which works faster than the top and also a small button at the very bottom of the thumb rest which acts as Roccat’s EasyShift[+] function between your different profiles. In total, 10 buttons and two scroll wheels.

Roccat Leadr Gaming Mouse

At first it feels a little intimidating, but after a few gaming sessions, I was quickly hitting the buttons accurately, including the DPI switch when focusing between sniping and hip fire in games like Battlefield V which we’ve just played. The biggest issue was the secondary thumb scroll and mishitting that from time to time when I was reaching for the thumb clicks. All the buttons can be disabled of course inside of games.

The actual performance of the Roccat Leadr was wonderful, and was extremely accurate to use. There is a PixArt Owl-Eye optical 12,000dpi sensor on bottom aiding with the accurate performance, and a number of profiles that can be customised inside the Roccat Swarm app to ensure your DPI count is where you need it to be.

One issue however is battery life. On the box we’re told 20 hours from full to dead. However this was definitely not the case. I was able to stretch the battery a day which I would count around 10-15 hours. Every night I would have to stick the mouse back on the dock. The dock is large, but sure does look good and would display the mouse wonderfully on your desk. There are also LEDs that show how much battery is remaining in the mouse. If you want to still use the mouse however, there is a dedicated microUSB input on the front so you can use it as a wired device.

Roccat Leadr Gaming Mouse

Overall the Roccat Leadr is a fine mouse, with the style, performance and functionality that really competes with any of the top competition. Sure the buttons take a while to get used to using, but the fact you have such heavy customisation options means you can easily switch off any of the features available. For more information on the Roccat Leadr, then head over to the Roccat website.