It’s been a long time since I’ve had a bulky mouse on my desk, and I’m excited about the Speedlink Vades gaming mouse for that exact reason. It’s a chunky mouse, that enables me to get back to my preferred palm grip. Speedlink area budget gaming brand too, and this mouse can be found on their website for 19.99€. Let’s see how it performs.

The Speedlink Vades is primarily made from plastic and feels pretty robust. It’s heavy, as it’s a larger mouse, but that to me isn’t a bad thing. The red section on top feels very soft, and almost rubber-like while the black areas on the side is textured for added grip.

The right side of the mouse has a ledge that you can rest your fingers on when using the mouse. However, the left, where you would rest your thumb doesn’t. Instead, I had to hover my thumb round by the side buttons. There are grooves which help with slipping, but they seem to be there more for aesthetic reasons.

The mouse is presented as a five-button mouse which equates to two on top, the scroll wheel click and two side buttons. However, it’s also advertised as having a “rapid fire” button, which is positioned on the edge of the left click. I never really found much use for this button though, and found it a bit of a stretch to get to, especially if I needed to be quick in a game. There’s also the DPI switch button in the middle under the mouse clicks.

speedlink vades gaming mouse

Buttons feel responsive enough, and single fire weapons inside of Battlefield 5 could be fired quite quickly thanks to the return rate although force actuation could be better. It’s a heavy mouse, and has heavy clicks that require a bit of pressure. I didn’t find it too much of a problem, but I know some gamers, especially those in the competitive scene would want ultra-light mouse clicks.

There is a driver that can be downloaded with the Speedlink Vades gaming mouse which will allow you to set things like DPI sensitivity, create macros for MMO games, and change the scroll speed and pointer precision. You can also set the LED effects too, which are pretty subtle with the logo, mouse wheel and edge lighting, though I coiuldn’t find a way to change the colour. I could only change how fast the breating effect was. It automatically cycled through the colours. And when I say colours, I mean red, purple and blue. No RGB here. One thing I noticed, and one that’ll put a lot of gamers off is the fact that the DPI sensitivity goes up from 200 to 4800 in 200 incriments. Once it gets to 1200, it goes up in 400 incriments. You can’t pinpoint your chosen DPI. Secondly you can set a reative command in milliseconds for the rapid fire button. This ranges from 50 to 300ms.

speedlink vades driver

But in reality, I couldn’t find too much wrong with using this mouse in real time. Most of the time I play slower games like Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, Red Dead Redemption 2 and I’ve just finished off Black Mesa. In each scenario I didn’t find much wrong with the mouse. It was comfortable to hold, and reactive enough for my movements. The only real issue I had was with the scroll wheel. For the most part it’s smooth, and switching weapons can be a little difficult, and quite easy to over rotate to get to what you want. This was evident in Black Mesa where you have to cycle the entire weapon wheel to get to what you want. Going from the revolver to the machine gun, which would usually take a click on a mousewheel found me hitting the crossbow or even the rocket launcher.

speedlink vades gaming mouse

The pads on the base are large and plentiful, and really aided with the glide on my desk. I rarely use a mouse pad, instead opting for my wooden desktop. The laser still tracked the desk very well, and I never found the mouse slipping and stopping suddenly because it loses track of a surface. I also couldn’t find anywhere what sensor was being used in the mouse. I did find when I first plugged it in, the mouse would just stop after five to 10 seconds of constant movement. Very annoying if you’re playing something like Heroes of the Storm or similar MOBA type title. I restarted my PC, and it was fixed. Not sure what it was but it was strange.

Lastly, the cable is housed in rubber, comes with a cable management velcro strap which is a nice touch and is a little on the larger side. However, don’t be put off. I never once had it snag on the rear of my desk. It was completely fine.

speedlink vades gaming mouse

The Speedlink Vades gaming mouse is a nice addition to the budget market, although has features I know gamers would love missing completely. Not sure how much it would take to change those DPI sliders so you can pinpoint your own sensitivity, but it definitely should be focus going forward. The moue is comfortable to use for long periods of gameplay and the driver, although a little basic, is alright to get entry level competitive gamers introduced to different settings. It’ll no way compete with the big boys like Razer, Steelseries and Roccat, but that doesn’t seem to be its market. If you want a cool looking gaming mouse, with a few flashy lights and an interesting colour scheme then Speedlink has you covered with their Vades. For more information, head over to the Speedlink website.