Cougar Sport Orange 300M Optical Gaming Mouse Review

Introduction

The latest Cougar gaming mouse is here at last! We’ve already reviewed a few Cougar peripherals here at eTeknix, such as the 600M mouse, 200k mouse and keyboard combo, 600K and 700K keyboard reviews. With so many products in the last year alone, I’m happy to say that Cougar is quickly becoming one of my favourite peripheral manufacturers and that’s a trend I hope to see continue with our review of their latest product, the 300M optical gaming mouse.

The packaging is nice and tidy, showing a good image of the mouse as well as a quick rundown of the main hardware specifications.

Around the back, you’ll find details of the UIX system and buttons, but we’ll take a closer look at each of those in a few minutes.

There’s pretty much nothing extra included in the box, just a hard-wired mouse and the user manual; not that you need much else of course.

The cable comes with a durable black braided cable, which looks great and should improve overall lifespan of the cable.

The 300M is really nicely designed, although that’s hardly much credit to Cougar, as the IntelliMouse shape is something we’ve seen virtually ever manufacturer copy over the years. This is no bad thing of course, it’s a good size and shape to compliment most people’s hands and that’s exactly what you want.

The black and orange looks pretty cool in my opinion, others may disagree. There’s a pair of switches down the left side of the mouse, with long buttons to make them easy to access with your thumb.

The finish on the 300M is pretty slick, with a soft grippy rubber that provides excellent grip, despite the fact it looks and feels silky smooth. This kind of finish is also great for maintenance, as it’s easy to clean and difficult to scratch.

There’s a nice rubber-gripped scroll wheel which colour matches the side panels of the mouse, as well as a programmable button which is set to DPI toggle by default.

As you can see, the 300M ergonomics are designed for right-hand use.

The base of the mouse has two absolutely massive slipmats, that’s a better finished that most other mice. This means that the 300K glides like a cloud in a breeze on virtually any gaming surface, especially so thanks to the lightweight design of the mouse in general.

The seventh mouse button is tucked away on the base, perfect for using as a profile toggle, or DPI changer for those who don’t like having such a button within accidental pressing range mid-game.

Performance

Powered up, the Cougar 300K has two small LEDs on the top, which can be tuned to 16.8 million colours; it’s not what I would call great customization given the limited lights, but it’s always nice to have customisation for a profile indicator.

Sensor performance is pretty decent on this mouse, very little jitter, no angle correction and a nice and low lift-off height; pretty much what you want from a gaming mouse. There’s a tiny bit of jitter at the higher DPI settings, but the mouse does a great job of keeping it in line and you’re never going to use such a high-speed for pixel perfect accuracy anyway.

Gaming performance on this mouse is exactly where I expected it to be. The 300M is a light and nimble mouse, with all the standard buttons you could hope for, so it’s pretty versatile when it comes to playing your favourite games, or even just doing day-to-day work. The ergonomics of the mouse lend themselves very well to palm-rest and claw-grip play styles. While the grippy finish allows you to use a lift-off technique if you feel the need; this certainly comes in handy if you game with low DPI settings.

The UIX software is great, it allows quick and easy customisation of every button on the mouse, giving you access to shortcuts, macros, DPI settings and more. There’s also a sniper button option that can be set to any button, but it’s limited to the 400 DPI minimum of the mouse, I’d have liked it to drop as far as 50 DPI to be really practical, but it’s better than nothing.

FPS, RPG, MOBA, it doesn’t matter what your poison is, the 300M is a great addition to your setup. I’ve had as much fun gaming with it as I have with using it for daily work and Photoshop; can’t beat a smooth optical sensor for desktop use!

Final Thoughts

Price

The Cougar 300M Optical Gaming Mouse is available from Overclockers UK in Orange or Yellow themes for just £27.95. Readers in the US can pick one up from Newegg for just $39.99.

Overview

Given that I’ve tested some impressive products from Cougar already, I had high expectations of the 300M. Of course, I wasn’t expecting it to be the best mouse in the world, it is pretty budget friendly after all, but the overall quality of what I’ve seen today is nothing short of amazing for this price range. The 300M is priced just above the lesser known gaming brands, but cheaper than virtual all other brand names such as Corsair, Cooler Master, ASUS, etc. This makes the Cougar 300M a very attractive product for those on a tighter budget, that still want a great looking and performing product. Of course, you’re going to get even better performance from a pro gaming optical mouse, which will cost you North of £50, but for most at-home PC gamers, you’ll be just as happy with what Cougar has to offer.

Build quality is very good overall, as the 300M feels durable, nicely finished and has good quality components, such as the Omron switches. It also manages to stay nice and light, making it feel fast and nimble while gaming. The rubber grip coating is easy to maintain and it certainly looks funky; if you can tolerate a bright orange mouse that is.

Cougar may still be a relatively new player in some markets, but the 300M is another prime example that they’re chasing down their competition relentlessly. Let’s hope the next Cougar product we review is just as impressive.

Pros

• Comfortable ergonomics
• Braided cable
• UIX software
• Good build quality
• Lightweight
• Good sensor performance (for this price range)
• Very competitive price

Cons

• Only available in orange/yellow

“The Cougar 300X is a very competitive gaming mouse. It performs great, looks cool and its affordable price tag won’t leave a big hole in your wallet, making it a worthy addition to any gaming setup.”

Cougar Sport Orange 300M Optical Gaming Mouse Review

Thank you Cougar for providing us with this sample.