Steelseries Kinzu - Review

[neverlast74]

:sad:

Steelseries Kinzu Review:

Quite often I see reviews on keyboards on this board so I also want to share my view of the following mouse .. to give something back to the community...

As I am lefthanded there are not that many mouse (gaming) that I can use. So as my Razer Diamondback's (1600 optical) buttons are pressed too easy/undeliberately after many years of use - AND my Deathadder is great but also large and my MS IntelliOptical has only 400 dpi - I tried the Kinzu. I am a finger grip player & 7,8 inch long hand - high sensi player - now here my experience:

1. Surface:slippery feeling on the slicky top coating (even though I have dry fingers) where index and middle finger is resting (can be changed with steelseries grip stickers) I miss a grip feeling there.
2. Surface: slippery also on the sides, where thumb and ring finger is holding/moving mouse (steelseries grip stickers might help again)
3. Shape: Button areas where 2 fingers are resting has a decline/slope to the left (left mousebutton) and right (right mouse button) - so pressing the left button down makes my index fingers keep going to the side
4. Indirect mouse buttons:  there is a little bit of space when bending the button before the click happens - which also does a little noise (the noise is not really the problem)
5. Buttons are rather hard (might change in the future)
6. Gliding on a mousepad? No, sticky feeling - I have a steelseries matt and one from hama a funcsync... - the tephlon feet are good - but its edges are too sharp - thus a scratching feeling and no "gliding".

Sticky feet - and slippery coating is a bad combo!
If you have a small hand this might be the right mouse for you - but I do not spend 35 euros and then need new feet + grip stickers + open the mouse to fix the button spacing and then have a mouse with a firmware from 2009 - hello?
I will have to send it back.

[Mith]

I agree on all of those except slipperiness. But you didn't meantion the acceleration at all, you don't have it?

I mean it's so f***ing bad that I just cannot use that mouse. Not even for office work. I gave it to my friend and he couldn't use it either.

(E: I'm small left-handed high dpi player)

[Chobopants]

I'm also a left handed high sensitivity player. How funny!

[squarebox]

My experience with the kinzu is a horrible one.

I RMA it 2 twice and both times the sensor is jumpy at 1800dpi and the scroll wheel failed in 2 weeks.
After that they upgraded me to a Xai :X



I have to admit I love the shape and size of the kinzu alot but the sensor and mouse feet are the worst of any mouse I have ever used.

[neverlast74]

@Mith
I gave the mouse to my girlfriend and she has rather small hands and she does not have the problem of sliding off left and right (as her fingers rest on the vertical part of the mouse ears). so maybe it is just that my fingers are simply too long and I touch the buttons where a lot of slope in 2 directions are ... It is slippery on the side parts no matter what.

Sensor problems: I did not test how the mouse is in a FPS game because if I can't hold the mouse - I do not care how the sensor does. (did not want to spoil another driver in my system) I did see reports on youtube where the positive acceleration kicked in (3parts here 1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGZZhM6furs) where this is shown in detail. Not sure if this would be a problem for me - as I am a high sensi player so I do not move my mouse more than 10 centimeters / ~4inches.

However sad this is also not a candidate for my hand (very personal statement) and I got to stick with my Deathadder.

[vun]

@Mith
I gave the mouse to my girlfriend and she has rather small hands and she does not have the problem of sliding off left and right (as her fingers rest on the vertical part of the mouse ears). so maybe it is just that my fingers are simply too long and I touch the buttons where a lot of slope in 2 directions are ... It is slippery on the side parts no matter what.

I did the same as she needed a new mouse, seems to be a lot better for her than it was for me.

Also, IdrA stated that the reason he used the Kinzu was "because I have small girly hands", so I'd say the Kinzu might not be a good choice unless you have small hands. Still a decent toy though.

[Arc'xer]

I agree on all of those except slipperiness. But you didn't meantion the acceleration at all, you don't have it?

I mean it's so f***ing bad that I just cannot use that mouse. Not even for office work. I gave it to my friend and he couldn't use it either.

(E: I'm small left-handed high dpi player)

What part of built-in hardware acceleration did you not read?

The mouse was built with mouse acceleration in mind. They were trying to emulate the acceleration that is in quake using cl_mouseacceloffset and cl_mouseaccel.

Basically in quake you can set up the accel to activate at a specific speed of your mouse so that when you flick the mouse hard enough it activates. In soldier of fortune 2 , you could even setup a couple of rudimentary acceleration deltas to fine tune acceleration.

Remember when you use mouse acceleration with high DPI you multiply the acceleration even further. In some ways DPI was also created to get people off of using acceleration and maintain a linear 1:1 speed rather than a variable speed of acceleration.

There's nothing wrong with using acceleration in fact it's a very interesting subject but the problem is companies don't bother to have anything but a rudimentary acceleration system and nothing can be fine-tuned. Plus many people don't even bother reading up on the commands so it would just create even more headaches for your average gamer.

[squarebox]

Here's the sensor problem I faced

[neverlast74]

@squarebox
that looks bad ;(

just one idea maybe it is useless - I have seen fabric mousepads that have some lint/fuss on the surface due to heavy use/or they are old - and this "distractes" the sensor. Does you pad show tiny little surface "hairs" ?

EDIT just realized you have no fabric but hard plastic...

[Bullveyr]

The mouse was built with mouse acceleration in mind. They were trying to emulate the acceleration that is in quake using cl_mouseacceloffset and cl_mouseaccel.

That's only how their marketing department now wants to put it.

[noodles256]

I tend to stay away from Steelseries. I bought a Xai and was severely disappointed in it's quality.

[J888www]

I purchased one, used it for a Week, then binned it. Greatly disappointed with this SteelSeries product, will avoid other SS products forever for fear of further disappointments.

[Battou62]

I have been thoroughly enjoying my Xai I got from Best Buy for ~45$. I remember reading that you are supposed to toggle the cpi switch twice after changing the cpi setting. This should get rid of any skipping.

[killy]

I think the Kinzu is great. I use 800 dpi and simply change the sens ingame.

The feet are polyethylene and are a great deal tougher than teflon feet, which tend to get abraded away very easily unless you use it on a soft cloth pad. On a cloth pad these PE feet work just fine; I can see it having problems on a stiff mousepad though.

I don't think the coating is slippery at all. And the mouse is not intended for all hands. I grip my pseudo-palm, with my fingers arced to instead of laying flat against the mouse.

Also, I don't know why you think having older firmware is bad. This mouse is a simple optical mouse with no additional frills. Why would it need more firmware updates?

[Mith]

The mouse was built with mouse acceleration in mind.

--

There's nothing wrong with using acceleration in fact it's a very interesting subject but the problem is companies don't bother to have anything but a rudimentary acceleration system and nothing can be fine-tuned.

Ok, I suppose low sens (read: FPS) players need to move mouse faster sometimes, isn't that what DPI switching is for? Why would they want to accelerate those speeds instead of steady but higher DPI?

I use high DPI and the maximum horizontal movement with my hand is about 1.3 centimeters. That's roughly the width of one normal key in my Filco.

[Bullveyr]

If somebody likes the shape but obviously hates the mouse for its sensor you could buy a Kinzuadder for 65€ + shipping (modded Kinzu with Deathadder internals):

http://www.esreality.com/?a=post&id=2074650

[Bilbin]

Only thing Kinzu has going for it is it's shape.