Testing

Methodology

I find the best way to test a mouse is to use it for what it’s designed for. In most cases that means spending an afternoon playing games; what a tough life I have. For a mouse like this, focused on lower speed titles I tested it mostly with turn based and RTS titles but there was some FPS testing thrown in for good measure. Of course I also used it for several hours during general Windows based tasks.

The games used for testing were:

Magic the Gathering Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012
Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2
Warhammer Dark Omen
Various flash games

Results

General Usage

On a 1920×1080 display, the first thing I noticed was that the default DPI is too low for my taste. So the next step was to up it via the software free method – holding down left and right buttons and scrolling the wheel up – or by increasing the Windows sensitivity. Normally this latter method causes poor accuracy, but infact, a little tweaking doesn’t affect this mouse too much. Of course do both and you find yourself with said issue, but either or works perfectly well.

It’s still not the most sensitive mouse out there, and anyone that’s used to 2500+ DPI sensitivities will find the Mico a bit slow to start with, but you get used to it quick enough. From then on I had few issues with the Mico as far as general usage goes. It’s a good little mouse, accurate, sensitive enough and with its low lift off distance, if you do need to pick up and drag, you don’t need to lift far.

Gaming

Considering it’s not designed as a quick, high DPI mouse, the Mico did very well in Call of Duty MW2. It felt very smooth and accurate and even though the sensitivity is lower than what I’m used to, I didn’t really feel it that much when in-game. I would say that there must be some speed drop as I’m moving further to achieve the same results, but it wasn’t noticeable. However, some of this would be offset by how light the Mico is. This means it requires very little force to get it going and just as little to make it stop. It doesn’t weigh nothing – that would impact accuracy – but it’s light enough to keep it moving quickly.

As far as the other titles go, they are of course much slower paced and more akin to what this mouse is designed for. DPI in these cases is less of a problem but of course as with CoD, its sensitivity and accuracy wasn’t an issue at all. Something I really liked however was the click switch that Zowie have used for this mouse. While most gaming mice buttons depress slightly, maybe a milimetre or two before clicking and registering your action, this one was a bit different. With this mouse, it requires a mildly stronger press to initiate the click, but once you pass the threshold it clicks instantly. This should increase your clicking speed ever so slightly. There’s also a very definate and satisfying click that makes sure you know it’s been pressed fully.

I actually went into this review having to supress my distase at the lower sensitivity. Who needs 1600 DPI these days right? I want my 2500, 3200 etc. But the Mico won me round. For pure speed games, if you take your FPS seriously, I still think you might need some sort of faster or more sensitive mouse, but otherwise this a great gaming mouse.

Comfort

For a mouse with no soft rubber coating, no padding on the sides for finger grips and no ring and little finger rests, I was really impressed how comfortable this mouse was. I used it straight for several hours and had no real problems. The sides are smooth and don’t chafe your fingertips at all, but provide enough grip to keep your digits in place as you game away.

Also thanks to the low weight, you’ll have no issues with wrist ache and it would certainly aid to avoiding RSI or related wrist injuries. Of course since it’s a claw grip mouse it’s not as supportive as a palm grip one, but this type is my personal preference so I was more than happy with it.

The only noticeable downside to the plastic shell is that in tense games that cause sweating, it doesn’t really have anywhere to go so there is some perspiration build up.

One note on comfort though is that I do have small hands. I think larger hands might not find this mouse as comfortable as it is pretty small. You don’t want to be curling your hand into a weird shape to grip it correctly; which is something I think you’d need to do if you have giant mits.

Cost

There’s no UK based retailers at the moment, but taking their 35 euro price and converting it, we come in at around £30. This isn’t too expensive as we’ve reviewed some mice in the past that would hit £70.