Stylish and functional, the SteelSeries Rival 5 is a wired gaming mouse. Although it is quite lightweight, feels solid, and has an ergonomic right-handed design that is perfect for all types of grips, it is not well-suited for hands that are small or medium in size.
The left side of the device contains five side buttons, including a toggle switch with up/down inputs that doubles as two buttons, a silver sniper button in the front, and two regular side buttons. Additionally, it has a very short lift-off distance, a very low click latency, and a wide CPI range. Unfortunately, the onboard storage only has room for one profile and only saves certain parameters, and the CPI can only be adjusted in steps of 100.
The Rival 5 is a right-handed FPS mouse with nine buttons, despite Steelseries’ description of it as a wired multi-genre mouse. Two clicks, a scroll wheel, and a DPI cycling button are located at the top. A single, sizable up-down toggle switch protrudes slightly above the Back and Forward buttons on the left (thumb) side of the device. The toggle also functions well for more basic purposes like altering audio level and is especially helpful if you need a quick way to cycle through weapons in a game.
The mouse also has a sizable silver rectangular button that is located a little in advance of where the tip of your thumb should rest. A thumb button, often known as a sniper button, is used to temporarily reduce the DPI of your mouse to enable headshots in first-person shooter (FPS) games. Oddly, the Rival 5 does not allow you to configure the button to that purpose, but in my opinion, it is still an FPS mouse.
The Rival 5 has a design that prioritises comfort over speed, similar to other FPS mice. It is slightly longer, but only slightly, measuring 1.84 by 2.94 by 5.13 inches (HWD). It is heavier than Steelseries’ latest Prime esports mouse, including the Prime Wireless, weighing 3.10 ounces, yet it still glides swiftly and easily. Your hand is guided into a draped posture by the high-humped chassis, which is cosy to hold for extended periods of time.
There is a 2m braided USB cable included to connect it to your PC. Despite the fact that it could be softer, it is still rather flexible and has a good amount of length, making it easy to move around. SteelSeries TrueMove Air optical sensor with up to 18,000 DPI, 40G of acceleration, and 1,000kHz polling rate is used in the SteelSeries Rival 5.
No matter what kind of game you’re playing, the high-end sensor ensures accurate tracking with almost no dragging when using this mouse. The mouse feet, which are so smooth you feel as though you’re gliding across the mouse mat, complement that.