Strategy Informer  

Introduction
Have had this mouse for my M11x for a month now, and here are my impressions of it.

The Pyra still performs well when it comes to tracking and the wireless functions. This makes it a bit awkward to rate this mouse. It is a mouse that is both good and still leaving loads to be desirable. It’s good sides are the drivers that works easily, they can change rather much and gives you plenty of options for a portable device like this. Also, the tracking, the attachable USB cord all works nicely. On the bad side we find the choices of making complete shell-buttons, only one thumb button for a gaming mouse. The design of the mouse being left and right coming with obvious pro’s and cons, and the Easy Shift+ feature. I think it is better to start breaking it down.

Ergonomics/feel
This area is perhaps the Pyra’s least strong suite. The mouse is small - but we knew that from being a portable choice for portable gaming. Still it is a gaming mouse - or so it claims. The left and right-handed design makes the mouse uniform in design, and the mouse is the same on the left and right side. Sporting 4 buttons and a press-able scroll-wheel - it is coming in short for buttons for a gamer. When used, I find it disturbingly easy to press both the left and right buttons at the same time making a left button press. This leads of course to undesirable effects when surfing and gaming. My hand tires a bit after a while - I need to have a wrist support for this mouse (I need that for almost all mouses that I use due to having fucked up my hand a decade or so ago…).

Quality/value
Here the Pyra gets back a bit into the game. The mouse is well made. Only a bit rickety. The scroll wheel is big and firm, giving distinct scrolling effects. The mouse has a small compartment for the dongle for easy storing when moving it about and it is not in the computer. There is a USB cord that makes the mouse into a corded mouse, no need for batteries - and this is also the way to charge the re-chargeable batteries that comes included. The skatez are OK, not great and a bit too small for that great glide - but OK. The tracking and reading of surfaces however is really great. The wireless tracking and snappy feedback is really good. Quality and Value is high - too bad that the design makes a flaw otherwise - it is a build that promises a lot. The over-all button and shell in the same piece is still a huge drawback.

Handling
How does it handle then? Hmm, as mentioned above in the ergonomics part - the mouse is tricky getting a good grip on. It is small but have a rather high-profile - making it more suitable with a wrist support. It is easy to get two buttons pressed down and once and the thumb button is too thin to be easily and securely used. Since the Roccat only has one thumb button (even on both sides…) the Shift+ is essential to make the thumb 4 and thumb 5 work, but pressing the thumb button that is now to activate the Shift+ (which gives every other button a second functionality) is too hard to press down and activate with - making the Shift+ a redundant function. Would have been better to have two mouse buttons even though you can make the scroll wheel work in two modes. i have mine set on Shift+ to toggle the DPI setting. The DPI, yes, we have three options here, 400, 800 and 1600. The size and square design makes it sometimes hard to get a firm grip - and the wight that is made up with the two batteries makes this small mouse heavier then some of my full-sized mouses.

Drivers/Functionality
Drivers are good. Simply as that, however - drivers are also needed to get the mouse working in the first place. The dongle needs to be found and installed (worked flawlessly with Win 7) and then install drivers for mouse and then you can go. So if you are tagging it along, and want to use it just like that with any computer - don’t count on it. This is the same problem with all Roccat’s it seems. A poor choice in my opinion. Some basic function should be had with just plug and play. The functionality comes back to the Shift+. This is the only feature that we have par from several profiles being programmable into the software. Right - software - not mouse. Many modern mouses have this function to save profiles and settings into the mouse internal memory - not so with Roccat. So there is a mixed bag here as well. Some good and some bad. The mouse has lots of functions, but you only get them when on your preferred installed computer - kind of makes the portable solution a bit toothless.

Conclusion
The mouse have many options that would appeal to a gamer - but the most important feature a gamer would look for in my opinion is that the basics work - all the time. With Pyra we have some not so great basics, like the design, choice of buttons and the style of buttons making it a bit hard to feel sure what you have pressed down. This in conjunction with have a great options in drivers and loads of set-ups - but they are too hard to actually get to via the everyday to-day handling and playing. I like the Pyra - but I hae a hard time recommend it without adding a huge “BUT!” while mentioning it. It handles well, it tracks great, it is small and easy to bring along, rechargeable batteries etc - but a bit unwieldy and poor design choices. Still - many other portable gaming mouses out there - well that’s the problem right? There aren’t that many portable gaming mouses out there… My recommendation is that if you feel you must have a small portable mouse for gaming - check this out - you don’t need a small one - buy a regular gaming mouse, even a wireless one. Please mind that I value this mouse in accordance to its claims: a wireless portable gaming mouse - as such - it has a lot to live up to - and my final view is that it barely reaches all the above claims, and none with a big bravo except the drivers and quality. Furthermore - you may want to look into getting some other batteries - the included ones didn't give this one a long life - but that may also be mine acting up.