Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Genius Navigator 535 Gaming Mouse


Are you a die-hard gamer? Are you looking for a high performing, unique gaming mouse? The Genius Navigator 535 might just put an end to your search. Genius has been seriously competing in the gaming mouse category with the Genius Ergo 520 and Ergo 525
The Genius Navigator 535 comes bundled with a quick guide and a software CD.

Design and Ergonomics

The Genius Navigator 535 has done away with the 'only right handers' design of the Ergo series and gone Genius Ergo 520 and Ergo 525. It is a sleek-looking mouse with a neat blend of two colors. The lightweight and symmetrically designed body makes it a mouse that's controlled more by wrist rather than moving the whole arm around. It allows both righties and lefties to play, unlike in G5 and Ergo 525, which have been designed only for righties. It has a rubber coating on the sides resulting in a better grip.

It has normal plastic feet, while not as smooth as Razer Copperhead; it was able to glide over both hard and cloth surface.

There are two buttons each on either side. However, at a time only two buttons can be practically used, i.e. a right-hander can use only left-sided buttons and vice versa.
The Laser Sensor

It uses a laser sensor for tracking purposes and has its advantage over LED-based sensors. The sensor used in the Navigator 535 is ADNS-6010 LaserStream, a second generation laser sensor developed by Avago Technology. Logitech's G5, Genius's Ergo 525, and Razer's Copperhead incorporate the same sensor.

This laser sensor works at 6.4 Megapixels/second and is able to process around 7080 frames per second that is currently the highest compared to all the mice. Its high performance architecture is capable of sensing high-speed mouse motion with resolution up to 2000 dpi, velocities up to 45 inches per second (ips), and acceleration up to 20g. This laser sensor is a perfect one for users who favor extreme high sensitivity. Besides that, it has the ability to downshift to 400 dpi, which makes sure that any person using anything from low sensitivity to high sensitivity is comfortable with the mouse.

Genius Navigator 535 also features 1000MHz Ultrapolling rate (USB Rate), which gives it a response time of 1ms. This gives it an edge over Logitech's G5, which supports only up to 500 reports per second (rps).

Software

If Razer's software is best, this one is even better. It has animated windows, which slides in and out in style. You can adjust every aspect of the mouse from the software, even the USB rps. You can even change the scrolling speed and the sensitivity of the mouse from X and Y-axis aspect.


This one was particularly very helpful, for me at least, for having a higher sensitivity in Y Axis, as it is difficult for me to flick the mouse upwards as fast as I can flick it sideways. You can also set a macro, continuous click, single click, or other functions into the seven mouse buttons including the four side buttons. You can even put a time limit between continuous clicks programmed in the macro.

Conclusion

The Genius Navigator 535 Gaming mouse sells for a street price of Rs. 2400/- with a three-year warranty. It is one of the best buys considering the state-of-the-art laser sensor technology and loads of features it offers. However, the only downside was that the finishing was imperfect with minor sharp edges sticking out. These edges certainly won't hurt anyone, but a little bit extra effort from Genius would have been appreciated.

Overall, it's one of the best and less pricey gaming mice that every gamer should possess.

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