Corsair is well renowned in the consumer electronics field, with it’s excellent, competition-decimating Dominator line of products, and the Corsair Gaming sub-brand is already becoming a stiff competitor in the crowded gaming peripherals section, with the excellent M65 mouse and the K-series mechanical keyboards. And now they have gained an edge on the other manufacturers with it’s Chroma line of products which feature 16.8 million colour lighting which can be configured to show a plethora of what is known in the scientific community as “wicked awesome” lighting effects, which takes gamers in specific and mankind in general one step closer to impersonating a fabulous chameleon.
Don’t take our word for it, see for yourselves:
Design and Build Quality
The first thing you notice when you take the mouse out of the plastic form-fitting housing is the soft to touch rubberised coating on the entire mouse. This is especially…umm, handy for our world renowned Indian summers and the resulting sweaty hands. The scroll wheel is nice and chunky, with a deep grooved texture and metallic trim. The buttons are all Omron Micro switches, and hence have a satisfying travel distance and long lifespan (at least twenty million guaranteed clicks).
The body of the mouse feels rock solid and is contoured for right handed use, with two custom-remappable large-ish buttons where your right hand’s thumb sits. The DPI Switching buttons sit left of the left click button, where it’s easy to hit on purpose and hard by accident, and there is an un-mapped button below the scroll wheel.
It has a nice, 1.8 metre long braided cable that ends in a funky yellow and black connector that’s conspicuous enough stand out in a mess of other connectors, but small enough to not render neighbouring USB plus unusable.
Features
Buttons: The mouse has three usable buttons if you want to use on-the-fly DPI Switching, and five if you don’t. The buttons are nice chunky clicky things and feel solid.
Sensor: The sensor can make or break the gaming mouse, regardless of all other features, and hence we are very happy to report that the Sabre RGB passes this test with flying colours. It utilises the Avago ADNS S3988, a very highly regarded optical sensor, and arguably one of the best ones on the market, with very low pixel skips and tracking error margins. Rest assured, multiplayer shooter fans, this mouse will not make you miss any headshots.
Sniper Button: There is an unused button below the scroll wheel, which I bound to the Sniper function, which is a Corsair specific function that lowers the DPI on holding it. (For precision shots using sniper scopes), and it’s handy as fudgebiscuits!
RGB Lighting: This is the major draw of the mouse, and rightfully so: I had the mouse logo pulsating from neon pink to purple to crimson every 8 seconds, the “Headlight” and scroll wheel glowing white. ‘Nuff said.
Software: The mouse is configured with Corsair Utility Engine, and it is a very, very in-depth customisation tool. So much so that it comes with a 140 page manual, in which 30 or so pages are dedicated to lighting. It is not the most user friendly software in the world to use, and has odd bugs that get fixed on re-installing the software, but after fiddling about for a day or two, I got the custom lights, game specific key bindings, lighting and button mappings, macros, and DPI levels set to an insanely tailored degree.
As for the User Interface, Corsair are working on improving it as we speak, and each update makes the software better and easier to use.
Tech Specs
Optical sensor: Avago ADNS S3988
Sensitivitiy: 50 DPI – 6400 DPI
Mouse Backlighting: 4 Zone RGB
Programmable Buttons: 8 (Including the Left and Right Click buttons and the Scroll Wheel)
Polling Rate: 1000Hz/500Hz/250Hz/125Hz
On-board Memory: Yes
Weight: 100g
Mouse Feet: Extra Large PTFE (unbranded Teflon)
Cable: 1.8m Braided Fiber
Dimensions: 124mm x 80mm x 38mm
Warranty: Two years
Verdict
The Corsair Sabre RGB is a very usable mouse, both as a gaming mouse and a daily driver, and while the software has odd kinks and difficulties, it’s also one of the most extensive ones you can get. And the RGB Lighting sweetens the deal further. It is a recommended buy from us.
