Steelseries has got a pretty good lineup of gaming mice at the moment, and with the Rival 310 gaming mouse following suit of the previous Sensai 310, it’s already shaping up to be a pretty good mouse to use while gaming.

Packaged fairly well, the Steelseries Rival 310 comes in a box that’s been designed using the funky design we’ve come to love from Steelseries. It’s bold, bright, and gives off a great aesthetic. Inside however is basically the mouse, housed inside some cardboard tray. Not very well protected if it’s going to be in transit.

But as soon as you get the mouse out, you start to recognise the quality that  goes into a Steelseries product. Okay so the whole thing is made from plastic, but it still feels pretty good in the hand, as long as they’re large. This mouse is by no means small, and using claw grips is out of the question.

Everything here feels pretty chunky, but the good news with that is the fact that buttons are very easy to locate. Like the thumb buttons for example, they stretch across the top of the all silicon side. Smaller hands though means your thumb probably won’t reach the front button.

The opposite side is again covered in silicon, but acts as a rest for the right hand side of your hand. All in all, using this mouse I found it quite comfortable, and easy to rest across every single button.

One issue with the size and stretch of my fingers was trying to get to the DPI switch which is located just underneath the scroll wheel. It was increasingly hard to switch during intense moments in FPS games. The nice thing though is it is a switcher, which only has two preset channels. So I tend to have one profile high and one low for when I’m sniping.

What I’m not a fan of. is the cable not being braided like some of their other products. It doesn’t feel weak, I just think braided cables offer a bit more in terms of protection when it’s rubbing against the back of your desk. It could become weak after a long while.

And again, the driver software here is alright. The Steelseries Rival 310 follows suit and uses the Engine 3 software which we’ve looked at before. It’s incredibly laid out and easy to understand when you want to change things like DPI profiles and polling rates. You’ll need to have a play around with these settings to get an optimal preset for certain games, but that’s a purely personal venture.

RGB is pretty bright here, with the scroll wheel and logo on the rear of the mouse to light up. Some apps let you display things like health and ammo as an easy to see guide to how much is left in-game. These are pretty useful in games like CS:GO or DOTA 2.

So there’s a new sensor in town this time round, called the TrueMove 3.  It claims an impressive 1:1 tracking up to 3,500 DPI which is wonderful, and when put to practical use, works really well.

The Steelseries Rival 310 gaming mouse is my opinion is in a whole class of its own. Okay it’s not made from premium materials, but it definitely has everything you would ever need from a gaming mouse. Plus it’s super comfortable to use. The OMRON switches under the left and right click make the feedback received incredibly tactile, and button placement are easy to reach. All this for £60. Great deal for a great mouse.