Mionix Naos 7000 review: comfortable and accurate

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Today we’re going to be looking at a high-end optical gaming mouse from Mionix, the Naos 7000. The Naos has a good range of features, including seven buttons, RGB LED lighting and powerful software. It’s also notable for including an optical rather than laser sensor, and not including mouse acceleration of any kind. That should make it a strong mouse for competitive gaming, so let’s take a look and see how it performs!

Specifications

  • ADNS – 3310 gaming grade IR-LED optical sensor
  • Up to 7000 DPI
  • No positive or negative hardware acceleration
  • 32bit ARM processor 32mhz
  • Ergonomic, right-handed gaming mouse.
  • Soft touch rubber coating
  • 7 fully programmable buttons
  • 3 steps in-game DPI adjustment
  • 2 integrated LEDs in 2 colour zones
  • Up to 16.8 Million LED colour options
  • Color shift, Solid, Blinking, Pulsating and Breathing effects
  • 128 kb built-in memory
  • Large PTFE mouse feet
  • Gold Plated, Full speed USB 2.0 connection with Plug and Play
  • Cable 2m long braided cable
  • 103 grams (w/o cable) / 147 grams (w/ cable)
  • 130.8 x 84.7 x 38.7mm

Unboxing

The Mionix Naos 7000 comes in a simple but well-made cardboard box, with the mouse pictured on one side and features on the other.

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Inside, you’ll find some literature, a large sticker and DELICIOUS silica gel.

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You’ll also find a mouse in that box. Let’s take a look at it, huh?

Design

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The Naos 7000 is a medium-sized mouse, designed with support for a palm grip but not so large as to make a claw grip untenable. The mouse has a curvy design, finished in with matte black rubber coating with LEDs integrated into the scroll wheel and logo.

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The top of the mouse has the left and right mouse buttons, as expected. Sandwiched between these is the scroll wheel, and two smaller buttons that adjust the mouse’s DPI setting by default. The remainder of the space is unadorned, save for the light-up Mionix logo we mentioned earlier.

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The left side of the mouse has two buttons, mapped by default to back and forward on Windows. These can be re-tasked in games; popular choices include activating voice chat, throwing grenades or reloading.

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The right hand side of the mouse has no buttons, but does include some space for palm and fingers to rest.

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The bottom of the mouse shows off the 7000 DPI optical sensor and four large skates.

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The mouse connects to your PC via a braided cable and a gold-plated USB plug. The quality here seems consistent with other premium gaming products.

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Overall, it’s an attractive package that doesn’t go too far in terms of flashing lights and weird looks. It’s obviously a gaming mouse, but it’s not one that you’d be embarrassed to use at work either.

Software

The Naos 7000 comes with a simple software centre, allowing customisation of the mouse’s lighting, performance, macros, profiles and more.

The lighting section allows the mouse’s LEDs to be set to your choice of colours, or to continually fade between colours at a slow rate. You can also choose to set the two LEDs separately. It’s nice to have these options, as you can easily customise the look of your mouse, or match it to your keyboard, headset or other peripherals.

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You can also reassign each of the buttons, choosing from acting as single keyboard buttons, triggering macros or other special functions. The polling rate is also adjustable here, and pointer acceleration can be enabled if you’re weird.

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The sensor performance panel is one you’ll definitely want to visit, as the default DPI settings are a bit high for some games (e.g. Counter-Strike). You can adjust the DPI settings at each of the three steps, turn on angle snapping (for drawing, not for gaming), set custom X and Y settings, adjust the pointer speed and lift distance.

Another interesting inclusion is the S.Q.A.T. – the Surface Quality Analyser Tool. This grades your gaming surface (whether that’s a table, a mouse pad or someone’s hilariously repurposed MacBook), rating its suitability for gaming use. This is a good sanity check, but all gaming surfaces I tried received the same “80%” rating.

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A final section of the software provides helpful links to various help and support features, as well as to download updated drivers. It’s nice to see this here, and there’s little reason not to include it.

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All in all, a sensibly arranged layout that puts many other mouse makers to shame.

Testing

In order to test the Naos 7000, we used it for two weeks while playing games, making photo edits in Photoshop and just generally navigating the web. Here’s what we found.

Gaming

The Naos 7000 has a nice optical sensor, free from acceleration and other gremlins that make excellent accuracy difficult to achieve. This, combined with the comforatble shape and clicky buttons, makes for a good gaming mouse. In RTS and MOBA titles, I found even long play sessions remained comfortable, and my accuracy was strong right from the get-go. In less frantic games, like Civilisation, comfort is more important than immediacy, and the Naos 7000 worked wonders.

One issue I generally have with wider mice like the Naos 7000  is that they are harder to pick up and deposit without jogging the sensor; which is required at low DPI settings when using fingertip or claw grips that are popular in games like Counter-Strike. I felt the QPAD 8K and Iridium 820 fell down a little here, with their shapes making my grip feel quite clumsy compared to smaller, lighter mice.

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What surprised me about the Naos 7000 was that my claw grip was still reasonably accommodated; the sides of the mouse provided enough grip to lift and re-deposit without issues. A slightly thinner shape and different materials make all the difference, it seems.

Overall then, the Naos 7000 was better than I expected for gaming, offering considerable comfort alongside enviable accuracy and clicky buttons.

Working

As with most gaming mice, the Naos 7000 is a great worker too. The precise optical sensor works great in Photoshop or when surfing the web, and with three DPI modes and two dedicated buttons it’s easy to switch to a higher setting when you need to. You can also set up macros if you feel inclined to automate some part of your work day. All in all, no complaints here!

Conclusion

The Mionix Naos 7000 surprised me. Although I tend to prefer thinner, lighter mice, the uniquely comfortable design and accurate sensor won me over. The software package is powerful and easy to use too, bypassing one of the common pitfalls of gaming mice. While claw or fingertip grips may prefer a mouse that’s smaller, they are still still well accommodated here. Great work Mionix!

Pros

  • Comfortable design for palm grips
  • Accurate optical sensor performs well
  • Clicky, sensibly arranged buttons
  • RGB lighting allows easy coordination
  • Excellent and intuitive software

Cons

  • Wider shape isn’t ideal for claw or fingertip grips

Score

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