C18 Gaming Mouse with Joystick

It's finally over. After SO MUCH time, money, and effort spent on finding a mouse that does these things: - Vertical or Ergonomic (including track balls) - Gaming grade sensor with high polling rate (this one can be set to 125, 250, 500 or 1000). - Comfortable for small hands but maybe longer fingers? You name it I've tried it. Logitech Lift, GameBall, iClever "horseshoe", deluxe Seeker, Kensington Expert, etc. etc. All manner and varieties of ergonomic mice and trackballs. And lo and behold it's the $30 Amazon mouse that finally does it, unbelievable. This mouse feels really similar to a Logitech Lift in shape, with a key difference being the height difference. The zelotes mouse is slightly taller than the Logitech Lift, so in optimal use it elevates my hand off the mouse pad *just* enough. With the Lift I would constantly have my hand resting on the mouse pad which results in discomfort after long sessions of work or gaming due to friction. The polling rate is the real deal and verified through DeviceTests. The buttons are nice and clicky, with the switches not requiring too much actuating force (looking at you GameBall). A lot of ergonomic and vertical mice are sporting silent click buttons, which are perfectly fine but feel a bit mushy to me. I prefer a nice snappy click of the mouse. The feel of the mouse material is matte plastic, so if that is not your jam definitely avoid this one. Also, the side buttons (assigned by default to back and forward) are a bit out of reach for my thumb. Forward is easy to hit, back not so much. I also find the joystick to be lackluster if you are attempting to use it for movement. It's small, reminds me of the joystick from a Nintendo 3DS maybe. HOWEVER, you can rebind the joystick to whatever keys, macros or clicks you want. It's so much better to do this and rebind the buttons to emergency cooldown assignments in your game. You could also be really cool and rebind the joystick to your favorite four-letter word, one direction for each letter...then when you need to spam that word you just circle the joystick! The possibilities are endless. Hey here's a possibility, if you can't reach back button just assign it to a direction on the joystick or do what I've done and make it the default joystick click. Another negative here is that it would also be nice if this mouse were wireless, but at the end of the day I just need to work and need to be pain free. Maybe next iteration. Can't believe this ended up winning, but it's the truth. Everyone is different as far as hand shapes, sizes, and biomechanics, but just know that for one person out there this mouse is absolutely perfect. It could be you too? Edit: Two months into using this mouse and we're still going. There are a couple of negative issues with the mouse that have popped up since purchase, but I have fixed with a couple of tweaks. 1. The weight of the mouse is pretty heavy for first person shooters and low dpi gaming. What you'll want to do is peel back or remove the mouse skates completely, unscrew the little screws that are then revealed, and wedge open the bottom of the mouse from the top encasing. There is a metal weight near the palm side of the mouse that is glued into a plastic casing. With enough wiggling and prying this weight can be removed. Doing so will bring the mouse down to a usable 100g weight. 2. With those stock mouse skates removed, put on any aftermarket mouse skates you prefer. The mouse skates the device comes with are really lackluster, and it makes a world of difference to replace them. This thing feels like a completely new mouse. So with modification this mouse only has a few drawbacks remaining: 1. The forward button is unreachable for small hands. 2. The joystick is more of a novelty than functional. (I just don't need it.) 3. The software isn't the greatest, but allows for customizable poll rate, dpi, and lighting. It does the job and that's really all I personally need.

I bought this as temporary use while I waited for my razer mouse. The razer mouse is still in the box after about 1 year, and I'm still using this mouse instead. The LED lights look great, the joystick works great, the movement is very sensitive (for gaming i assume, I'm not a gamer), so the features work good, and it's still performing as if it were new. This is a much better deal than the Logitechs I've had in the past few years.

Tl;dr: Overall, fantastic for the price. Gave 4 stars due to many personal gripes with it, but the comfort/shape and sensor combo are unbeatable at ANY price, let alone ~30 USD. If you are looking into a vertical mouse for any reason, I would HIGHLY recommend this one. At ~⅓ the price of an MX Vertical with 10x the performance. Size is on the bigger side, but not big. Noticeably smaller than the MX Vertical. I love this mouse, even with the myriad of issues it has (many of which are related to its budget-conscious nature) Notes: - would not call this a large mouse, but it's not small. I'd say medium-large - "joystick" is actually a joystick-shaped directional pad. Only inputs 4 cardinal directions & the top-down click, but can input without being reset to neutral. May be disappointing for some, but good enough for my use, which only requires those extra inputs for macros. Comes preprogrammed to WASD. I used software (not the included one) to remap to arrow keys Positives: - great sensor (PixArt 3325). Not top-of-the-line, but can't get much better in a vertical mouse form-factor right now. As far as my research, only a couple other models compete. Don't know the exact ones, but I believe there are a couple DELUX mice, and a couple others. Haven't tried them. - shape is remarkably comfortable, and better than Logitech MX Vertical in terms of the curve it allows for the fingers. It seems the MX Lift has fixed this to some degree, but that's a different model made for smaller hands - satisfying clicks on mouse buttons 1, 2, 4, and 5. Could be better, but noticeable improvement over MX Vertical. Mouse button 3 is a bit mushy, but weighting is fairly usable - having 5 extra remappable buttons is fantastic for navigating webpage and moving around your computer without having to remove the hand to use the arrow/navigation keys Goes either way: - stock skates are alright, as in "not terrible". I replaced with Lexip ceramic dots. They are much better, but fit is a bit shoddy as there isn't much space on the bottom of the mouse to place your dots, and it doesn't appear anybody is making replacement skates specifically shaped for this model. Don't appear to be having sensor issues with the added replacement skates' height Negatives: - USB-A. Not acceptable in this day and age. At least the cable is long enough and seems durable enough. The huge connector area is a pain though. Sticks out in all directions far more than it needs to (and more than it would if it was USB-C). Appears to be the sort of "gaming mouse connector" designed in 2005 for those giant desktop replacement gaming laptops. Not much that can be done without disassembly as the cable is not removable (but I've seen people modify it online with some technical know-how) - low-quality scroll wheel and mouse button 3. I have doubts about long-term reliability - mapping software only windows-compatible. This means you will most likely have to live with the rainbow lighting, since unlike the buttons, this can't be easily remapped in other software. I don't mind it too much, and it's not distracting during use for me, but I'd strongly prefer it be a solid color rather than rainbow - mouse buttons 4 & 5 are placed somewhat low and far forward. This seems to be a common complaint with this mouse. It isn't much of a problem for me, but I do think a design placing them slightly further back or even above the thumb would be a great QoL improvement. I happen to have longer fingers, so with it being borderline for me, I assume more than half of people would have some complaint about the placement - didn't notice any noise - battery life isn't an issue obviously, but it would be really nice to be able to modify the lighting strip colors to maybe bump the power draw down a tad

Favorite mouse, fast enough for high fps gaming. Helped remove wrist pain completely.

The vertical "handshake" orientation is for sure better on our wrists. But this mouse doesn't hit the mark. The "joystick" is not actually a joystick, it's four inputs set to W, A, S, and D by default. It moves freely though, which I found to be the worst of both worlds. You can't use it as a 360 movement joystick, because it's really just 4 keybinds. But you can't use it as 4 extra keybinds, either, because it moves freely rather than being like a D-pad, so you won't consistently hit the precise joystick direction you intended. Finally, the two side buttons are too low on the mouse, forcing large thumb movement between the joystick and the side buttons. The software is tricky to figure out, but it is possible to remap keys and make macros. The DPI is adequate for gaming. If you just want to play FPS games and ignore the joystick and side buttons, this mouse will improve your wrist posture. What I have done instead for RPG gaming is use a traditional MMO mouse and a tilted mousepad. With a larger budget, I'd get something like the Cyborg Azeron. I would love to see a company offer a vertical mouse with actual ergonomic side buttons and more thought put into the design.

After my beloved 3rd Roccat Tyon finally gave out and I couldnt find one for less than $200, I decided to give this a shot since I wanted to try something different. While it might not be as "fancy" in regards to "features" as some top dollar gaming mice, it works just as well as anything else. After using this for a few months now its actually a little uncomfortable to use a regular, although thats likely due arthritis in joints from years if hard work. Either way, this mouse is very comfortable, very functional, and very capable.

Husband loves this mouse

This is a very high quality option for someone looking for an ergo mouse with more button options, which is hard to find. The mouse isn't too heavy, the main mouse buttons are clicky (but not too loud), and the joystick is easy to reach and has enough dead zone to avoid mistakes. The mouse software is also very good and allows for complete customization and different game profiles. A good compromise between ergo mouses and something like a G600.