Pros: The mouse worked out of the box with no real issues. Windows installed it without any problems and it was usable from that point. If you want the extra functionality of the software you can install that.

The software gives you options to set up different profiles for the mouse depending on what environment you're using it in and that can be rather useful. The software also lets you update the firmware rather easily although I did have an issue with that which I'll talk about later in the review

Overall the mouse fits in my hand well and is pretty comfortable for extended periods of use.

I had no issues using it for several hours while gaming or working on the computer.

Cons: The in-software based firmware update gave me issues several times. It kept saying that the mouse was not detected and the update failed. It took 4 attempts for the firmware to finally update and I was a bit nervous doing it at that point given that a bad update might brick the mouse. That is really my only issue with the mouse. In doing something like a firmware update I want the software to be rather stable given the finality of a firmware update.

Other Thoughts: Mouse is great. I like the feel of it and it functions great in game and out of game.

My only hesitation with it is the iffy in software firmware updates.

Pros: First let me say I'm a big guy - 7'1" tall - so I've got really big hands. I've been using a Logitech G9 on my primary machine since 2007 and have replaced the skates on it several times. I've really grown accustomed to that mouse and every other mouse I've tried just doesn't feel right to me. As soon as I touched this mouse I went "Oh, yeah." It just fit my hand perfectly.

The RGB lights are fun to play with and match up to the Siberia Elite headset I have quite well.
The buttons have good feedback and are heavy enough to press that my big hands don't accidentally click.
Two buttons on the side are all I ever use while gaming for fast weapon switching, but the small button in the middle can be reconfigured from a profile change to anything you want.
Great sensitivity with adjustable acceleration mapping is really awesome

Cons: First thing is the cable. I understand this is a cheaper mouse for the gaming world, but I bought a cheap $25 Perixx mouse to travel with years ago that had a braided cable that feels much more sturdy.
The sensor is very, very good but on some surfaces my laser mice work much better. Again, even the $25 Perixx MX-2000 uses a laser sensor that works better on glossier surfaces than the Rival. (I realize this is contrary to what many people say - that a standard LED optical mouse is better than laser, but in my experience a laser mouse works better on a much wider variety of surfaces)

Other Thoughts: If you're looking for a new gaming mouse and aren't looking to break the bank, this is a great choice. While I like the laser sensor of the cheaper Perixx mouse I talked about above and my old Logitech G9 for flexibility, an overwhelming majority of the time there is less difference between the illumination type as there is between the actual sensor reading the surface. This mouse is incredibly comfortable and accurate. I dropped right into some games and was immediately comfortable with accuracy, no adjustment period at all.

I really like the acceleration so I can slow it down a lot for small and slow mouse movements like when using a sniper rifle but then at normal movement speeds have a linear acceleration. This one setting alone has improved my stats quite dramatically as I'm no longer trying to quickly switch sensitivity profiles.

Oh, and it's really REALLY comfortable. I mean it.

Pros: Comfortable - I was worried about this mouse being big enough to fit my monstrous man hands… but there’s no problem there. It fills the entire hand comfortably… it makes regular office mice look like children's toys… won’t induce hand / finger cramps with long use.

Grippy Sides - I like the textured sides… makes it so this won’t be slipping out of your hand when things get tense.

User Defined CPI - The ability to choose the CPI (setting #1 and setting #2) (counts per inch, commonly referred to as DPI (dots per inch)) and change it on the fly is excellent.

Cons: RGB LED's don't reproduce accurate colors - Perhaps the most frustrating thing about the Rival 300 when using the SteelSeries Engine to configure the color of the LED’s in the scroll wheel and the SteelSeries logo is color misrepresentation. You can pick colors within the color spectrum, even dial them in by RGB or HEX code… but what actually comes out on the mouse is something completely different. In my experience, this usually indicates LEDs that are not up-to-snuff (cheap) with truly representing whatever colors you pick. I’m going to file this under the “my hand is going to be covering the mouse while I’m using it anyway, so who cares”… but it’s going to bug the ever-loving stuffing out of me that I’ll probably never be able to match the red LED color of my Corsair K70 keyboard to the red LED color of the SteelSeries Rival 300 mouse (the Rival 300 “red” 255,0,0 looks orange when sitting next to my Corsair keyboard). It’s just an aesthetic feature any who and if it really bugs the you-know-what out of me… I’ll just turn them off. Still disappointing that whatever color you choose in the utility does not actually come out the same on the LEDs on the Rival 300 mouse.

No optional weights - One feature missing from the Rival 300 is the ability to customize the weight of the mouse itself. Similar gaming mice (sometimes more affordable as well) come with small weights to customize the weight and balance… something missing from the Rival 300.

Other Thoughts: Packaging and Un-boxing - Comes in a small cardboard box covered by an outer sleeve. Inside, the mouse is protected by a custom-sculpted foam. Included is the following:
SteelSeries Rival 300 gaming mouse
Rival 300 Quick Start Guide
SteelSeries stickers


Utility Install / Firmware Update - Before we get going… you’ve got to head over to the SteelSeries website and download their “SteelSeries Engine 3” utility to be able to configure all of the what-have-you about the Rival 300. It’s an 80.5 MB download and takes about a minute to install. Once finished… the SteelSeries Engine 3 utility launches and instructs you to plug in a device to get started. I plugged the mouse in and it is immediately recognized as a Rival 300. AND of course it needs a “critical firmware update” right off the bat. Click on the firmware update notification and away it goes. The whole process takes less than a minute (the Rival 300 blinks blue a few times) and then instructs you that the firmware update is complete… unplug your device and plug it back in to complete the process. Unplug and re-plug later and we’re back up and running… that was quite painless.

Wrap-Up - All-in-all, this mouse is for those who desire top-notch performance from their gear. Even with the RGB LED’s not being able to accurately recreate user defined colors (more of a “gimmick feature” anyway)… the adjustable CPI, programmable buttons, polling rate, angle snapping, acceleration and deceleration, overall comfort, and grippy sides more than make up for it. Pick one up and be done with it.

Pros: First impressions: This mouse is very lightweight for its size. The teflon pads on bottom are very slick. Maybe my other mice are getting old, but I was surprised at how slippery this mouse felt on a wood veneer keyboard tray or on a cloth mouse pad. The cord is over six feet long, which makes it easy to route from the keyboard tray through the desk to a floor-standing tower case.

It has an optical sensor, which is less finicky than a laser. The pointer motion was smooth whether it was used with or without a mouse pad.

The software needs to be downloaded directly from SteelSeries. This configuration software is very good, and it presents the configuration options with a clear and attractive interface.

You can remap any button and the scroll wheel to any button, scroll up/down, or a macro. There are two sensitivity levels which are toggled by button 6 (by default, this is the small center button below the scroll wheel). Sensitivity levels between 100 and 6500 CPI (counts per inch) are supported; I chose 400 CPI for general use and 1600 CPI for detail work. There are separate fine-grained controls for acceleration and deceleration.

There are two types of macros, text and keypress. A text macro behaves similar to a paste from the clipboard. A keypress macro replays any sequence of mouse button up/down events, keyboard key presses, and time intervals.

The two LEDs can be configured independently to any color (solid or "breathing") or to one of four preprogrammed "ColorShift" patterns. This was fun to play with, but I found the changing patterns to be distracting, so I ended up setting both LEDs to a solid color.

All of the above setttings can be saved to a named configuration, which can be automatically selected when an application is launched. However, you have to find and select the actual executable file in your filesystem; it would be more user-friendly if it allowed you to select a program from the Windows Start menu. Here I found a practical use for the programmable LEDs, using color to indicate which configuration was in use.

I used this mouse on two computers through a KVM switch, one with the SteelSeries software, one without. Without the software, it worked fine as a standard mouse with sane defaults; the side buttons mapped to "back" and "forward" and the two CPI levels were reasonable.

The matte finish showed no fingerprints or signs of wear after a week of use.

Cons: The left and right mouse buttons (1 and 2) require a little more force to press than I'd like. I didn't notice this right away, but after a few hours of heavy use I noticed an increase in muscle fatigue compared to my previous mouse.

The middle button (button 3, pressing on the scroll wheel) requires a lot of force. This is unfortunately common among mice that use the scroll wheel as the middle button.

There is no left-right scroll ability on the scroll wheel, which I expected at this price point. Some mice allow you to push the scroll wheel to the left or right and send that as a horizontal scroll.

The otherwise excellent software has no built-in help that I could find. The user manual on the SteelSeries web site is very good but it's a little out of date. For example, the user manual only covers "macros" (now named "keypress macros") and does not mention the presumably new text macros.

The angle snapping feature, which helps guide the mouse along a horizontal or vertical line, is a good idea but I found the implementation to be flawed. In my tests, any setting other than none (i.e. slider full left, no angle snapping) resulted in the mouse pointer continually forced toward horizontal or vertical motion, making small diagonal movements frustratingly difficult.

The LEDs do not have enough brightness levels to smoothly display breathing or ColorShift patterns. The ColorShift patterns in particular are unpleasantly quantized.

Other Thoughts: This mouse is physically large. I can easily press S and Enter with one hand on a standard desktop keyboard (A and Enter is a bit of a stretch), and this mouse is a very comfortable size for me. Watching my wife use this mouse, I got the feeling that it would not be a good fit for smaller hands. Compared to a Gigabyte M6800, this mouse is longer but not wider. It also operates a little more smoothly, and offers some very flexible customization options, particularly CPI control and multiple configuration profiles.

Pros: For those that prefer a wired mouse and zero latency issues this is the way to go! No need to worry about charging or replacing batteries!

The USB cable is long measuring just over 6.5 feet, so you should have plenty of options for routing the wires pretty much anywhere within range of your machine.

If you’re into color scheming this mouse will give you an incredible amount of options for any color you could imagine. Looks super sharp with breathe (pulsating) or steady lighting options. The size of this mouse might be to large for small hands, but medium to large hands will fit comfortably.

Custom configurations can be set to run automatically whenever you use a specific game or application. Add any number of applications/games to your library and SteelSeries Engine 3 will seamlessly change the configurations of your devices as you switch between them.

Another great feature is Angle Snapping which corrects minor imperfections when you try to move your mouse in straight horizontal or vertical paths. This can increase precision if you are simultaneously turning and shooting in a first person shooter or drawing lines in a graphics editing application.

Also offers a Macro Editor with the software for setting up the buttons to do just about anything you could think of!

3D printable Nameplate models can be downloaded from their website for this mouse! You just pry off the existing nameplate and put in your own from your 3D printer!

Cons: Non that I could find!

Other Thoughts: Be sure to download the newest version of SteelSeries engine 3 which is currently version # 3.6.4 for 32/64 bit Windows 7 or newer OS.

Software downloads also available for MAC OSX 10.8 or newer!

Pros: Software integration with all Steel Series Products
Form factor is excellent for large hands
Selectable Tracking Rate
Supporting Macro software has no glaring faults
Switches and wheel appear to be very high quality

Cons: Costs as much for the Fallout 4 Variant Rival 300 I’ve been coveting
Fewer buttons then my current mouse
Connecting cord does not have a braided cover
No Weight Adjustment
Shorter Warranty then some competitors
Difficulty tracking on light colored surface

Other Thoughts: Mice are a very personal item, much like keyboards and headphones

I’ve been using a gaming mouse from Roswill since my last build, and was pretty happy with it, but who isn’t looking for the next best thing?

There are a few things hardcore gamers will certainly like about the Rival 300 cosmetics, mainly the LED color coordination possible between the items supported in the Steel Series Lineup. I actually found a good use for this software outside of the macro ability. The macros are simple to setup and edit, unlike my current mouse which has a killer bug running on a dual monitor setup.

The Steel Series software allows some presets (for example, the color scheme) which are dependent on which application has the focus and while selecting a very specific color is pretty much a hit or miss based on the ability of the software color map to translate to the LED lighting, you can get it set up after some minor hair pulling. For fully supported games using the “Gamesense” api, your mouse and headphones (and Steel Series Keyboards as well) can relate game data such as health, armor or ammo status during play. This would enhance the gaming experience if playing in a group.

My current setup has my headphones and mice turning red if I am on a Voice IP call or have my word processor or spreadsheet open..the message is “ stay away..I’m busy”. If I am listening to music or browsing the web, the headphone and mice turn green….that message is..”sure you can come tap on my shoulder”
The steel engine handles all of this in the background. It also handles firmware updates as needed. Right out of the box, this mouse was updated. Good functional planning on the Steel Software with only one annoyance. You cannot switch off the nag for updating to a new version. I guess I can go thru the trouble to block it on my firewall, but no reason for that not to be a checkbox.

The software sees very regular updates, I’ve been thru perhaps five in the last year (I have Steel Series 7.1 Gaming Headphones)
Cosmetics aside the Rival has two nicely positioned button on the left side (this is NOT a mouse for left handed people..sorry) My current mouse has three on the left side. Two buttons can still do it for me.

A button to control mouse tracking speed on top (my other gaming mouse has an indicator to show which tracking speed is selected the Rival 300 does not).

As mentioned by the other reviews, this mouse seems to need some sort of mousepad as I could not get it to track on my white Formica desk. The spectral response of the led needs some tweaking. Not a deal breaker for most, but consider it if your work surface is light colored. No problem at all on my wife’s oak desk.
The physical attributes of the Rival are good for me. I have big hands with long fingers, again, these personal items are very hard to buy without trying, but if you have large hands and you’ve been feeling cramped, this might be for you. The clicks feel good and the wheel has just enough detent.

Gaming mice are abused. Consider the length of warranty when making a purchase, the warranty on the Rival 300 is one year, the warranty on other mice in the field are up to 3 years. Of course if your mouse is constantly crapping out, the three year warranty only softens the punch to the nose. I like a product that lasts; warranties are a problem to deal with at times. You can always add a three year contract, but I expect in three years, handheld mice will be obsolete and out Bluetooth dental implants will deal with all computer interfacing. ( who ever thought a mouse would have more than one button anyhow?)

While I would have certainly purchased the Fallout 4 version of this mouse to go with all my other Fallout-ish gaming gear, I’d rate this 4 egg product if you don’t want a dozen programmable buttons.

Losing an egg for a gaming mouse without weight adjustment and the tracking problem I encountered on light colored surfaces. I’d perhaps nuke an egg for the lower grade connecting cord (compared to my current mouse), but I was too busy exploring the excellent software to worry about that too much.

There are lots of choices in gaming mice. The Rival certainly deserves some consideration, but the field is chock full of contenders at lower price points. Taking a look at the current transformerish™ offerings by a dozen vendors it’s going to be a tough call when time comes for a replacement mouse if your primary focus is gaming.

Read the reviews, read them again and make your list.

I’d say the Rival 300 is like a tried and true .38 snub gets the job done without being too flashy (ok..a chrome plated .38 snub). While some other gaming mice on market have the appearance and functions of Judge Dredd’s Lawgiver with a dash of transformer, it’s all up to you, both will deliver a killshot in the right hand.

Pros: + This is one of the bigger mice that’s offered by SteelSeries and is much better suited to bigger hands.

+ The finishes on the mouse, even though basic, will prolong durability as opposed to other mice that feature a top rubberized coating and other coatings susceptible to scuffs and scratches.

+ Plenty of configuration options for every button that are leaps and bounds over what non-gaming mice are able to offer.

+ Configurable sensitivity ranges from 100 to 6500 CPI. The sensitivity can be toggled between two previously configured settings via a dedicated CPI toggle switch on top of the mouse.

+ Configurable polling rate between 125 and 1000hz.

+ Acceleration and Deceleration of the mouse pointer can be preconfigured in order to achieve further fine tuning.

+ Led backlit SteelSeries logo and scroll wheel. Each can be assigned a different backlight color.

+ RGB backlighting effects range from steady on, to single color fading, to colorshift.

+ 3D Printable nameplate can be made and replace the one that ships with the mouse. The nameplate 3D Model files can be downloaded from the SteelSeries website. Unfortunately there’s no LED backlighting for the nameplate.

Cons: - Unlike the Sensei line of SteelSeries mice, the Rival series seems to be designed for right hand orientation vs. left/right on the Sensei.

- Lack of left-right scrolling on the scroll wheel. As on other mice, the left-right scrolling function could be further customized per user’s needs.

- Only three additional customizable buttons in addition to the standard left/right click, scroll wheel buttons.

- There isn’t much weight the mouse and no options to add additional weights.

- Angle snapping feature didn’t seem to work, even though there was an option to configure it. On other SteelSeries mice, the feature aids in snapping the cursor to a perfectly horizontal left-right movement when the software thinks the user is trying to keep left-right movements perfectly level.

- As on other SteelSeries products, the 16.8 million color claim that you can choose from is incorrect. Reproduction of colors is relatively poor when trying to mix and match the Red-Green-Blue values.

Other Thoughts: One of the bigger selling points of this mouse is that it’s geared towards gamers that are looking for a larger high precision gaming mouse as opposed to the more common medium sized mice. Also, the 3D printable name plate is an interesting touch not seen on other mice.

Pros: This mouse seems to have a pretty high quality build, as you would expect at this price. The weight is decent, but I would have preferred it to be slightly heavier.

The performance of the mouse is very nice. Even before installing the SteelSeries Engine software, the sensitivity was just about right.

The buttons feel solid, and produce a noticeable feel when they are actuated.

Once the SteelSeries Engine software is installed, the sky is the limit to the customization options. Each button can be programmed to application specific tasks, as can the sensitivity and colors.

Cons: Note that this a right-hand only mouse. That does not apply only to the left side buttons, but to the whole grip of the mouse. A lefty will find this mouse very uncomfortable.

This mouse is also designed for very large hands. My wife refers to my hands as shovels, and I am unable to comfortably use the front left button. I must adjust to a much less comfortable grip to access the button, or stretch to reach it. Unfortunately, the mouse naturally moves back when I stretch to reach it, so if you were using it in a game as a trigger, your aim will be affected by this unwanted movement.

The mouse has raised texture sides, and while I can see that some people may like the extra grip, the mouse is not heavy enough to need it and I can see the area getting caked with crud in no time.

All of the buttons emit a much louder than average clicking sound when actuated. The track wheel button is quiet, but the wheel itself is rather loud and quite abrupt when rolling.

This is likely caused by a problem on my main computer, but I was not able to get this mouse to function on it. When I connected it, I would get the normal New Hardware popup and it would attempt to install drivers (even though I already had an older version of SteelSeries Engine 3 installed). It would then fail to install 2 of the 5 drivers and the mouse would not function. Both lights would be on, however. I upgraded and even removed and reinstalled the Engine 3 software, but neither helped. I also tried several other USB ports, rebooted, and even removed my existing mouse, all to no avail. I finally gave up and tried my work laptop. The mouse was immediately recognized. I installed the Engine 3 software and began testing.

When I first started the Engine 3 software, a line under the Rival 300 device appeared saying "CRITICAL UPDATE: Click to install new firmware." I clicked this, and immediately after acknowledging the next warning not to disconnect the mouse during the upgrade, the mouse stopped working. I assumed this was a normal result of the upgrade in progress. After several minutes, a dialog appears informing me that "An error occurred that prevented the successful completion of the firmware update." The mouse was still non-functional at this point. I disconnected the mouse, then reconnected it and it came back online. I tested the update again, with the same result.

Other Thoughts: I am sure some people will like the feel of this mouse, but for me, it's just not a good fit. And while I am disappointed that it will not work at all on my non-ancient Z77 based computer for some unknown reason (their SENSEI wireless mouse works fine), I am more concerned that it also has problems on my brand new work laptop. Perhaps I got a bum unit to evaluate, but from this experience, I would have to say this mouse is not quite ready for prime time.

Pros: - Bigger size fits my hand well, its personal preference but I like the larger size which leads to less strain for me.
- Lightweight yet solid feeling with smooth tracking across the mousepad.
- Configurable colors/buttons/CPI through the SteelSeries Engine software
- Dual CPI settings switchable via the button under scroll wheel
- Textured "grips" on either side aid in keeping the mouse in-hand and during longer, sweatier sessions.
- Wheel has solid "clicks" to be felt (not actual clicks) to each degree of rotation making precision scrolling easier.

Cons: - No wired/wireless option ( I may have been spoiled by the Sensei by SteelSeries but I liked this feature when using with my laptop.
- SteelSeries Engine software was not starting correctly on my Macbook or Windows (probably because of previous installs). On windows a uninstall/reinstall fixed the problem but on Mac I was unable to get the software to start up.

Other Thoughts: I was impressed by the feel and ergonomics of this mouse. After a few 8hr sessions with it I easily adjusted to the weight as its much lighter than my other wired mouse (Naga) or my wireless (Sensei) mice. The textured grips and high quality buttons are a nice feature in a rather basic no-frills mouse.
The customization software is optional and not required to use the basic functions of the mouse, however I did encounter some problems on Mac (OS X 10.11.3) when trying to get the Engine software to start the Icon would appear up top but nothing else would load, this could possibly be because i also have used the software to configure the Sensei by SteelSeries but I feel that its simply a software bug that should be worked out shortly and doesn't detract from the usability of the product so I did not dock any eggs for this.
If you are in the market for a wired gaming mouse with solid buttons and a nice feel (personal preference) then look no further than the Rival 300.

Pros: The SteelSeries Rival 300 Gamin Mouse is a pretty cool wired gaming mouse. Included in the box is the Quick Start guide, the mouse, and a pair of SteelSeries stickers. To make full use of the Rival 300 you need to install the software located at steelseries.com/engine. This software (version 3.6.4 as of this review) allows you to make custom setting changes to your mouse including changing the illumination color, change some lighting effects, configure sensitivity, and customize all 6 buttons including macro programming. There is also an option to save custom configurations so you can have a normal mouse for say word processing use, then switch to your high performance mode for gaming use. The Rival 300 Gaming mouse is highly responsive and will take a little bit for me to get used to it. Some other options in the SteelSeries Engine 3 are custom colors for supported games. For example you can setup your scroll wheel color to change based on your characters health or the logo to change colors based on another feature. I’m not sure how well that was thought out as your hand will be covering the logo while you are playing. Last but not least you can also customize what the mouse buttons do in different apps. I highly recommend this mouse if you want an edge while PC gaming.

Cons: If I had to find a con it would be the weight. It feels very light which makes it hard to control. I may just need to get used to the weight.

Other Thoughts: The model I received was due for a firmware update out of the box. The update was easy to install with the SteelSeries Engine software and took about 30 seconds to install.