XSReviews

Today we’re looking at the Xenon 770, a MMO-focused gaming mouse from Polish outfit Genesis. With a recent optical sensor, the choice of four detachable wings and RGB lighting, this gaming rodent ticks the boxes we expect while also looking better put together than most budget options on Amazon. The Xenon 770 costs €39 in total, placing it between these budget options and MMO mice from more established brands like Logitech, Razer and Corsair. Let’s see how well it performs in this rapid fire review.

Specs

• Sensor: PixArt 3327 optical
• Resolution: Up to 10200 DPI / 1000Hz
• Buttons: 14 (programmable)
• Weight: 110 grams
• Dimensions: 128x69x39mm

Design

The Xenon 770 is an attractive mouse out of the box, with a slightly rough matte texture which grips well in the hand (at least in dry conditions). There are no comfort curves in the buttons, as the buttons are part of the overall shell rather than being separate pieces. The overall shape feels quite safe and comfortable.

As an MMO mouse, the focus here is on the side buttons, which number nine in total and are laid out in a three by three grid. These manage to provide the kind of tactile feel you’d associate with a more expensive mouse, with slightly different clicks depending on which button you’re pressing in.

The Xenon can also adapt to other game genres where you don’t need quite so many side buttons, with a three-button wing which can be popped on when needed. There’s also a replacement right wing which makes the mouse wider, adding to its weight but making it a bit more comfortable for some grip styles.

There’s RGB lighting along a thin tail light along the back side of the mouse, plus single colour lighting for the guitar pick logo and mouse wheel. Together, you have plenty of options for customisation. Speaking of which…

Software

The software provided with the Xenon 770 is basic but functional, with all of the options you need laid out on a single screen. You can adjust the mouse’s DPI setting from 200 DPI to 10,200 DPI in steps of 100, choosing a different setting for up to six profiles each with their own colour to be shown on the mouse wheel and logo. Weirdly, the colour picker here seems a bit broken, as every time I clicked on one of the default colours or within the wider colour spectrum I got white, grey or black. However, typing in RGB values manually did work – odd.

There are ten lighting effects, including off, for the tail light, and speed and direction of the effect can be set where relevant. Windows mouse settings can be set here as well (but we recommend keeping everything on their default options to prevent interpolation). Finally, polling rate can be adjusted but again the default value of 1000Hz should be ideal.

Testing

The Xenon 770 performed well in our testing, providing easy access to a wide range of abilities in Control and building tools in Cities: Skylines.

We also used the mouse in Photoshop, with the different buttons bound to functions like crop, select, eraser and so on. If you have the patience to memorise the location of each button – perhaps starting with the top three buttons and slowly working up from there – there’s no question that you can definitely work and game more efficiently.

The Xenon felt solid in the hand too, while being comfortable over extended play sessions.

The mouse’s medium weight also meant that it worked well enough in shooters and other more fast-paced games, especially with the more usual three side-button wing attached.

Wrapping up

The Xenon 770 doesn’t do anything particularly new, but it does successfully deliver on the core MMO mouse experience with plenty of tactile buttons and a comfortable feel without the tacky appearance of many of the top budget options on Amazon. Build quality and software are better than expected, and the optical sensor worked well in our testing too. If you’re after a solid MMO mouse and you can’t justify the expense of a Razer Naga Trinity or Corsair Scimitar, this is a great cheaper alternative.