SteelSeries Rival 600

A Rival with no real rival.

Balance, as we all know, is vitally important. Without it, we wouldn’t have Segway polo, giant Jenga, or standing up. Does the world of mousing really need a big emphasis on balance, though? Does it need 256 possible levels of side-toside balance adjustment?

Science has not advanced far enough to tell, but that’s what SteelSeries is offering with the Rival 600: a series of eight 4g weights, with eight possible positions to place them, four on each lateral edge of the mouse. Pull them all out, and the mouse is light and skippy; stuff them all below the detachable side panels, and it’s, predictably, 32g heavier, with a weightier glide.

We preferred the Rival 600 fully loaded, because it’s not only made for balance; it’s meant to be ultraaccurate, too. Tracking error when even slightly lifted is basically zero, thanks to the combination of the same TrueMove 3 sensor we’ve seen in SteelSeries’s Sensei mouse and a secondary lift sensor, which can be set to trigger at a custom height. It’s remarkable and a little unnerving, but there’s no cursor drift whatsoever. If you end up pointing at something you didn’t want to point at, that’s on you.

SteelSeries has not forgotten the aesthetic side of things. There’s a good swathe of RGB lighting, compatible with SteelSeries’s excellent Prism lighting system. . Everything’s beautifully coated in that greasemagnet soft plastic finish that tends to wear away and get sticky after a few years’ solid use (so bear that in mind). The cable’s not braided, but it’s replaceable, so we won’t dock it any points.