Steelseries Rival 700 Gaming Mouse Review

Final Thoughts

Price

The SteelSeries Rival 700 Optical Gaming Mouse is available from almost all major retailers with a price of around £80. We found it in stock at Amazon for £59.99, which isn’t cheap, but given the range of features on offer, it’s a bit of bargain as you’ll struggle to find many mice with this level of customisation and anything better than it under £100.

Overview

SteelSeries has a long history of creating high-performance and excellent quality peripherals for the gaming masses. It’s no wonder they’re often the weapon of choice of many pro gaming teams around the world. Their latest mouse, the Rival 700, certainly seems more focused towards gaming consumers with its crazy amount of features, as many pros will often favor something simple, fewer features means there are less things that could go wrong mid-tournament. That being said, there isn’t a single feature on here that I don’t like, and while many of them seem purely aesthetic, they certainly have practical applications.

The visual and tactile feedback on offer from the Rival 700 really adds an interesting dynamic to your gaming. From having countdown timers, K/D ratios, and much more right on the side of the mouse, to a little nudge from the mouse to tell you you’re low on ammo, these things all add up to a more unique and involving gaming experience. Are they essential? No, are they nice things to have? Absolutely.

The quality of the mouse is top notch too, and it’s clear that a lot of thought has gone into the components used, the design and the general feel of the mouse. I love the fact that you can swap out the sensor too,with the Laser 9800 Module available from SteelSeries for a very reasonable 29.99 EUR, which offers 8200 CPI, 150 IPS, 30g Acceleration force, Zero hardware Acceleration.

I’ve tested a lot of mice here at eTeknix, and it’s safe to say that the Rival 700 is one of the best we’ve ever seen. The sensor is perfect, there’s a huge amount of customisation options, it looks great, solid build quality and it has a few cool gimmicks on top that are sure to put a smile on your face, yet they don’t detract from the overall performance on offer either.

Pros

• Great build quality
• Stylish design
• Customisable OLED display
• Tactile feedback
• RGB lighting
• Flawless sensor performance
• Powerful macro engine
• Detachable cables
• Swappable sensor
• Competitive price

Cons

• None

Neutral

• Maybe a little over-engineered to appeal to high-end competitive gamers

“Innovation is rare in the peripherals market these days, but the Rival 700 has brought some new dynamics to PC gaming that we’re certain we’ll be seeing again. Flawless performance and design backed up by a vast amount of customisation options make the SteelSeries Rival 700 one of the coolest mice to own and use today.”