Gaming is a serious business and there are plenty of options out there for input devices - all sorts of keyboard, mouse and controller devices. What makes the MAD CATZ R.A.T 8+ ADV optical gaming mouse (R.A.T 8+ ADV from now on) so special in this context is the amount of customisation you can achieve with this device.
The MAD CATZ R.A.T 8+ ADV is easily one of the most customisable devices I've seen around. Out of the box, you can easily adjust the length of the palm rest (the top of the device) to fit your hand - it doesn't matter how you like to hold the mouse, if you use just the tip of your fingers or rest the whole hand on it, you can make it as short or as long as you want. You adjust it by pushing a lever on the side of the palm rest and sliding it over one of four different positions.
Inside the box, you also get two extra palm rest covers - one with slightly different design and a second one with an anti-slip rubber surface. To swap those covers you simply push the lever and pull out the cover, inserting the new one. Very easy and quick.
Under the palm rest you will find three removable weights. You can add or remove those to change the weight from 155 g to 172 g and in between (each metal weight is 5 g). These weights are held in place by a screw that also doubles as a hex key - which comes hand for the next customisations.
Using the hex key you can adjust the thumb rest position (left side of the mouse), which can be moved forwards and backwards, allowing you to set it so that you can comfortably reach the buttons on that side of the mouse.
And lastly, you can swap the right-side - again using the included hex key and with two different extra parts, one simply a different design and the second one with an actual pinkie rest so that when you move the mouse your whole hand can comfortably glide over the surface.
If those hardware customisations weren't enough, we then have some visuals too. Using the MAD CATZ software you can control the LEDs on the top and inside the device, selecting from any colour within the RGB palette (16.8 million colours). These can be static colours or you can create effects that cycle through different colours at set intervals.
The software also allows you to adjust any of the eleven buttons on the MAD CATZ R.A.T 8+ ADV. Every button has a default function but you can easily change that by selecting the button on the screen and assigning a shortcut, key or creating your custom command.
You will find left and right-click buttons, back and forward pair of buttons and a barrel scroll that lets you scroll the current window left-right - or depending on the game you can use it to lean side-to-side. There's also a clickable scroll wheel and two additional buttons of interest: the DPI Switch and Precision Aim.
The DPI switch by default does exactly that: you can program up to four different tracking resolutions from 50 DPI to 20000 DPI and cycle through them, depending on your needs, by pressing the DPI Switch up or down. The current selection is shown on the left side as a series of four red LEDs corresponding to each of the DPI you have configured.
The Precision Aim button, close to the tip of your thumb (hence why adjusting the thumb rest is important) will slow the custom movement speed when pressed - and the effect will be more noticeable the higher the current DPI setting is. The idea is to help you target in-game objects or enemies with a more fine precision without having to switch DPI frequently.
You can create different up to four different profiles as needed and select between them with the software.
The MAD CATZ R.A.T 8+ ADV gives you up to 20000 DPI with a 400 inch per second speed, with 2000 Hz (0.5 ms) polling rate. Both desktop and game usage is fantastic and you can easily adapt your handling style after a few minutes to get used to different speeds and feel.
The 1.8 m braided fibre cable gives you quite a lot of flexibility so it's easy to move around and won't tangle in a terrible mess like rubber cables do.
The MAD CATZ R.A.T 8+ ADV is available in New Zealand now.
