Right on the heels of our coverage of the Xenon 770 MMO mouse, we have another plus-sized mouse, the Tarios from Speedlink. This German company has produced some excellent gaming rodents over the years, including the recent lightweight Orios, so let’s see how this larger and more feature-rich gaming rodent compares.
Specs & Features
- 12 programmable buttons including DPI switch and rapid-fire button
- Pixart 3360 gaming sensor (up to 12,000 DPI)
- Weight-tuning system, with 3x 3.33g weights
- Rubber coating for maximum grip
- Dimensions: 124×73× 43mm
- Weight: 148g (incl. cable)
Design
The Tarios is an unusual shape, with the mouse slimmest at the back and getting steadily wider towards the front. This allows the rodent to accommodate a large number of buttons, with an extra button left of the primary mouse button and four additional buttons beneath the usual two side buttons. That brings the total of programmable buttons up to twelve, including the two DPI adjust buttons below the mouse wheel.
(There’s also an odd circular element alongside buttons four and five, which has no discernible purpose – I tried pressing it in, but it doesn’t seem to move.)
The additional weights are found in the bottom of the mouse. This system doesn’t appear to have been well designed, as rotating the cover counter-clockwise loosens it, but doesn’t actually cause it to fall out until you bang the mouse on the table. This reveals the extra weights, tucked into a small puck of foam, but you’re still not done. The puck doesn’t fall out by itself and resists being pulled out, so you need to bang the mouse onto a flat surface several more times to actually shake them loose. When other manufacturers are doing clever things with magnets, failing to implement even the most basic screwed removable weight system is embarrassing.
The Tarios is relatively tall, with the hump sitting towards the middle of the body. This makes it a good choice for palm grips, while the relatively high weight (148 grams) means that it’s a little tricky to use effectively for other grip styles even with all added weights removed.
Overall, it’s a mixed bag at best, but Speedlink can still put out a solid recommendation based on the software experience and our actual in-gameplay testing. Let’s move on.
Software
Speedlink normally provide a good software experience, but they’ve dropped the ball somewhat here. The button assignments use Roman numerals for some reason, and the second screen (“Advanced”) doesn’t seem to allow an arbitrary DPI value to be set. I like to set my first two levels to 400 DPI and 800 DPI, but this was impossible in the software.
The program would only let me set a value of 500 DPI or 1000 DPI, nothing in between, no matter how precisely I clicked between these values. Given how common 800 DPI is amongst the gaming community, this seems like a rather obvious oversight.
Even apart from the missing values, clicking along a line that has to range from 400 DPI to 12,000 feels more than a little inelegant, with every value I did successfully set requiring several attempts to get right. If they want to stick with this interface, then adding the ability to type in a chosen DPI setting would be much appreciated. 
The lighting and macro screens were thankfully better put together, with no obvious deficiencies to point out.
Testing
In fast-paced FPS games, like Counter-Strike and Apex Legends, I found the Tarios a little difficult to use. The number of buttons on the left side of the mouse means that there’s precious little space to actually grip the mouse, making it hard to quickly flick left or right to attack a previously unknown enemy. The high weight of the mouse and its relatively inflexible cable also hindered my performance; ultra-light mice have really changed the industry and even smaller companies like Speedlink need to keep up. (The PixArt 3360 sensor did perform well, so no worries there.)
I found that the Tarios fared better in slower games where I could better take advantage of those extra buttons. For example, using the mouse in Cities Skylines was a pleasure, with the options for zones, roads and other building tools within easy reach at all times – it was even possible to play the early game using only the mouse.
For content creation, the Tarios was also a reasonable choice. The wide shape of the mouse makes it quite comfortable for long periods, although the relatively high weight meant that I stuck to a slightly higher DPI setting to compensate for the extra force needed to shift the mouse between two screens.
Wrapping up
The Speedlink Tarios is not the best mouse produced by the company – the recently released Orios remains my favourite – but if you want a high number of buttons without going for a full-on MMO mouse then it is a decent choice at its current price point. Hopefully, later price drops and software upgrades will make this an easier mouse to recommend.
