Mad Catz RAT 1. Ultralight transformer

The idea of ​​transformers is no longer new and is gradually gaining momentum, and not only Mad Catz is working in this direction. However, in the latest generation, Mad Catz are taking the right steps towards users: they reduce the mass of devices, make them more friendly, translate into more advanced stuffing - they install the usual optical sensors that just work. In general, work towards simplification.

The new line of mice includes various models, including a model with interchangeable sensors, there is also just a light model on a good and proven optical sensor time, and there is a new model that is the most budget-friendly in the line, yet it has a set of interesting characteristics and the smallest mass of all known to me gaming mice in nature.
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For details, dive under cat.

Anboxing and content

Not very often in previous reviews I focused on the box, so here I will not - I quickly go through the main points and go directly to the mouse.

The box is simple, made of PET plastic, quite compact - it is easy to clasp it with one hand. Running a little ahead, I will say that it is disposable. Because the second time to put the mouse there as well, as it was packed there initially, will not work. There is no configuration for the mouse as such - only pieces of paper and the mouse itself, but there is useful information on the cardboard insert in the box.



Here is a rather useful quair code. Having scanned it, you will be taken to the link to the site where you can download the case models for subsequent printing on a 3D printer. Thus, the mouse can be remade by itself, making these or other parts more convenient. Of course, it is preferable that at least some interchangeable panels be included, but this is a mouse from the budget price segment, so that all improvements are made by the user. But there is variability.

There is nothing more to look at, go to the device itself.

Mouse and modular design

The mouse itself, as was said, is modular, and it consists of three parts - the base of the body, the back and the front, which contains all the stuffing of the mouse, including the sensor, switches, wheel and lever with two buttons for surfing the web. The front end is also connected to the wire; non-removable wire. The front part of the print on a 3D-printer and replace will not work, but the back cover and body frame are quietly replaced.



Externally, the mouse looks attractive - it looks like a sports car. In the sale will go two models with different colors. One of them is bright green with dark gray and black details, the other is red and white with black details. Both look very nice, but I did not see a live red and white model.



The mouse is very light, almost weightless. This provides a number of advantages, but this solution also turned out to have disadvantages (details will be described in the "Testing" section). According to the official website, the mouse weight is only 50 grams without cable. With cable - 65 grams. Very, very good indicator. Its mass and size are comparable with notebook mice, but the stuffing here is much more perfect, especially in terms of the sensor, and the possibilities of the rodent are richer.



Mouse materials - rough plastic and gloss. And the latter is much more. Rough plastic is contained on the back of the mouse and on its entire front, and it is on the surface. The side of the main unit, on which the mouse buttons, the wheel and the web navigation lever are installed, is also made of gloss. The back cover has holes that carry one simple function - weight reduction.



On the front block, on the sides of the main keys, there are “wings” installed, which make the mouse look more aggressive, besides you can catch hold of them with your fingers. The fingers from the main keys do not slide off and are generally far away from these “wings”, so the role of the finger lock on the main buttons clearly does not suit them, but, nevertheless, with the help of a non-standard grip, these “wings” can help. I did not use them because my grip is more or less standard.



In addition to the main buttons and the wheel, which is pressed and scrolled back and forth, behind the wheel there is another interesting control element - a two-button lever. It replaces the side keys on ordinary mice. That is, it performs the same function. Both in Windows Explorer and in the browser. And although this lever is located in an unusual place, it is quite comfortable to use it.



Now, about the grip and about its features. The mouse is unlikely to fully hold the whole palm, because it is symmetrical and quite compact. The length of my palm from its beginning to the tip of the middle finger is 18.5 cm. Most of all, the mouse fits the claw grip and finger grip. Also, by moving the back panel a little back (the back panel has two places for mounting on the case, one of which makes the mouse a little shorter, and the other a little more stretched), the mouse can quite comfortably hold the palm-claw grip. But the mouse is also inconvenient to hold the mouse with the palm rest. All fingers, except for a little finger, conveniently settle down. The little finger must be either pressed or protruded to the side. In any case, the finger remains hanging in the air, which is also unusual at first. But, given the weight of the mouse, the grip from this does not deteriorate.



Further, the grip itself was different from the grip of all the other mice - the ergonomics of the structure affect. It is really necessary to get used to the mouse, which I managed to do in a couple of days. But still, the mouse has one drawback, which is not eliminated. With any grip, the thumb rests on the green frame on the left side, and the ring finger on the right side, and it turns out that the mouse slips a little in the hand on the glossy inserts, which is especially felt during prolonged use.



But what particularly liked it was the clicks and the wheel. Clicks at the mouse, probably one of the best that I have ever met. Very clear, elastic, with almost no idle speed, while tactile feedback is well felt, and accidental pressing is also eliminated. They are neither tough nor soft - moderate. In a word - informative clicks. With such buttons, you can very quickly click, while not losing either in speed or in the rate of click.

What switches are located under the main buttons - is unknown. They feel heavier than the standard Omron switches, which are placed in all the top mice, but easier than the same Huano switches that can be found in the Zowie mice.

I also liked the wheel. It doesn’t have the clearest cut-offs, it turns around easily, but at the same time it doesn’t have any plastic bounce, which is often found even in the mice of the upper price segment. That is, the wheel has an easy and uniform scrolling, and therefore scrolling on it is a pleasure. The mechanical encoder, firm - is unknown, the encoder is located on the left side, the switch for the wheel (middle mouse button) - on the right.



The main buttons do not have tangible backlashes - only with light tapping you can hear a barely noticeable plastic bounce from the contact of the plates, which is absolutely not critical and is not, in fact, a backlash. To the wheel no complaints. But the lever, replacing the side buttons on a normal mouse, noticeably backlash when you pull it back and forth. In principle, this can hardly be called a disadvantage, since in normal use it does not interfere. But still this moment could have been worked out better, tightening the lever more tightly in the proper position.

The wire at the mouse, as I said earlier, is fixed, without a fabric braid, and it is very light. But the most important thing is how he shows himself. It is relatively thin, a little stiff, and at the same time perfectly preserves the shape given. Therefore, it is very easy to set the necessary shape for the cable, which then does not have to be corrected. This is a nice feature.



Bottom on the mouse is already six Teflon legs of various shapes and sizes. Three of them are located on the main unit, three more - on the green frame. The largest of them - the rear leg. There are no replaceable sets on sale, and it will be somewhat problematic to cut such legs yourself, so it is advisable not to use them with plastic carpets.



Pixart's optical infrared LED sensor Pixart PMW3320 is installed in the mouse. This is the sensor of the average price segment, which, in terms of resolution and characteristics, is inferior to the same Pixart PMW3310, which is used in many modern mice. But, on the other hand, the mouse itself is positioned as a budget solution, and therefore it is a very good option for this manipulator. The sensor window is rotated 90 degrees, the window itself is located just to the right of the horizontal axis, and much higher than the vertical one. Such an arrangement of the sensor also makes its own adjustments to the control of the device.

But about all of this will be discussed below.

Software

The mouse has very good software. To begin with, it is generally available, because at first I assumed that the sensitivity values ​​on the mouse are fixed and are switched by that lever. As it turned out, no, all buttons except the main one can be programmed.

The Russian language is present, but I managed without it, since everything in English is completely understandable. The default is English.

Mad Catz software is simple, visually tidy, easy to set up, and also has all the necessary features for a wide range of mouse settings. Software is downloaded on the official site. To do this, select Support> Drivers & Software, then select the OS version, product (in my case - RAT 1) and click the Download button. There was a little surprise waiting for me. For some reason, Mad Catz software is divided into Driver and Software, that is, you should download both. But the visual shell, apparently, comes just from Software. I don’t know what is the reason for the separation, but I installed both programs and everything worked fine.



The first window contains all the options for customizing the buttons. By default, everything is standard - the left and right buttons, scrolling up and down, clicking on the wheel, as well as a lever that allows you to switch tabs in the browser or folders in the explorer. All this can be configured and changed, and also quickly dropped to the default settings by clicking the "Reset" button. However, I missed one point: the left mouse button cannot be reprogrammed at all. At the same time, any other button can be set to “Right Click” and “Left Click”. And if you need to change your hand, the assignment of standard keys change through the usual mouse settings in Windows.



On the left in the window there is a slideout menu where you can create and select profiles. I was the only one - by default.



The software has the ability to record macros, to do this, click the "Custom" button and record any set of commands. Simple, understandable, obvious.



In the second window there are two most important functions - setting the sensitivity of the mouse and setting the polling frequency.

The sensitivity of the mouse is nonstandard by all standards, and this is due to the new sensor installed in it (although, of course, it was possible to work with this to bring the values ​​to more or less familiar ones, but for some reason, this did not do).

Values ​​are selected from 250 to 3500 dpi in increments of ... 250 dpi. That is, there are no standard 450/1150/2300 or 400/800/1600/3200 and the like. There are 250/500/1000/1500 and so on. Given the weight of the mouse, I set 1500 dpi, and even that turned out to be a bit much - the mouse simply flew around the screen. More precisely, the cursor flew, not the mouse. But I got used to this almost immediately, as soon as I had to work it a little.



Setting the frequency is quite standard, like everyone else. From 125 Hz to 1000 Hz. Additionally, the mode setting is accompanied by a clear and illustrative picture of the polling frequency. And there are no more settings here. Below there are keys to go to the Windows settings, but this can be done without installing software. There is no setting for separation from the surface and other interesting things.



The last window is help and support. Everything is standard. Links to all relevant resources, including Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, as well as additional support for those who have not figured out the software. There are also driver versions and software versions (they are shown on all other tabs). The standard support section, where there is everything you need, but I did not have the need to use any of this.

So the software doesn’t stand out for anything special, but it has all the functions for setting up the mouse, besides, they are made to last and it’s easy to understand them.

This is a good and thoughtful working software. More and not necessary.

Testing

And now the most interesting section. Only text, no pictures.

First, about the features of ergonomics. In long runs, whether it be games or active work (in a graphic editor, for example), the glossy sides of the mouse slip into your fingers. If it were not for this (what was it worth making the same rough plastic as on the buttons?), It would be very comfortable to hold the mouse. And so, despite the quite normal grip, which you quickly get used to, the mouse still escapes. Not much, but it is felt.

The second point related to ergonomics: wire. The mouse is lightweight, and the cable, as I said, is harsh. And if he does not immediately get a normal form (or the cable length on the table turns out to be small), he will pull the mouse along. If the mouse had a slightly larger mass, it would not be critical. And so raises questions. One simple and practical advice - use the wire holder. With him, this problem is reduced to zero, and the mouse is controlled easily and pleasantly.

Now about the work of the sensor. First, about its location: it had to specifically get used to it. All the time, until I got used to a couple of days spent on this mouse, I felt that the cursor moves somehow wrong. Not along the usual trajectory, when the sensor is exactly in the center of the mouse (and usually it is exactly in the center of all mice, plus or minus a couple of millimeters does not play a special role), but for some of its own, special. In conjunction with a small mass of the mouse and with non-standard values ​​of sensitivity, this caused me many questions. But they disappeared by themselves. Because it adapted. So after that, other mice seemed unusual to me, but with this, everything went as it should.

And the last, about the technical performance of the sensor. Initially, the mouse has an optimal separation distance from the surface - not very high and not very low. When the arm with the mouse was torn off, the sensor did not continue to read the movement, and when it returned to the carpet, the sensor continued to work from the place where I stopped or from the place where I raised my hand. Everything is very good.

According to the characteristics, this is probably not the best sensor, but it very adequately showed itself in shooters, where maximum accuracy is required, to say nothing of other toys. Its speed and acceleration was enough to make sharp jerks and not feel any interference or delays, and if for some reason they happened, they were invisible - the mouse was light, moved easily, so there are no complaints about the sensor none

On the carpet, in general, also no questions, although there is one point that should be noted. The sensor works almost any carpets: plastic and aluminum takes on time - there are no questions, but with rag carpets there is one nuance. The sensor takes both black and colored carpets, but if they are smooth enough. On highly textured carpets, the sensor behaved somewhat inadequately — it was slightly shaking, which meant incomplete reading of the surface. And this is most likely due to a moderately low separation distance from the surface. So if you do not use heavily textured control-carpets, then there is nothing to worry about, everything will work fine.

And we are gradually coming to an end.

Overall impression

First, about the most vital - the price of the device. The mouse in retail will cost 2500 rubles, which is very good with the current dollar rate. You get a transforming mouse with a normal sensor and interesting customization options. But still you should paint all the features.

In general, the mouse left quite mixed, but interesting impressions: it looks nice, it is very light, it has pleasant and informative clicks, it is quite easy to control, despite the features in the grip. In a word - she has her own character.

But with detailed familiarization it becomes clear that it has its drawbacks. One and the most important of them - glossy plastic. It is too much, especially in places where the mouse is captured. If it were not for this factor, everything else could not pay attention. And the second factor, which is also very, very important: familiarity. Man is such a creature that adapts to everything, it is known. But not everyone will be ready to change their habits to new ones, especially if it concerns such a familiar device - a mouse. It should be understood that in this mouse a lot of things will have to get used to. Especially at first.

The idea of ​​transformer itself is very good, but it is unlikely to be in demand among a wide range of users. On the other hand, with a relatively low price of a mouse, you get the opportunity to remake it for yourself, having everything you need at hand (models and the ability to print them on a 3D printer), and therefore you can end up with a device customized specifically for your own needs. . This is undoubtedly a great advantage.

pros

• Assembly and execution
• Weight
• Customization
• Simple software
• Appearance

Minuses

• Glossy materials
• Unusual grip
• Sensor location

Special features

• The form
• Ergonomics