Ride or Die OCA4LIFE!
Log In:
Overclockaholics Forums » Reviews » Thermaltake Tt eSports Theron Gaming mouse

Notices

Reviews Hardware/Software Reviews

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #1  
Old 09-29-2012
Neuromancer's Avatar
Neuromancer Neuromancer is offline
OCA Gladiator
 
Join Date: Jun 2009
Location: South Jersey, USA
Posts: 5,645
Rep Power: 21
Neuromancer might just be on to something hereNeuromancer might just be on to something here
Default Thermaltake Tt eSports Theron Gaming mouse

Just got this new mouse and am going to do a little write up about it, hope you enjoy the read.

I am trying to keep this brief enough for a forum post article, as such I have not included 100 pictures of everything, you can get all the details and nice photoshop images of the Theron at the Tt eSports website. I will just cover the basics.

Also note, that although I call it Charlize, The Tt eSports Theron is a Battle Dragon and not a Hot Blonde Actress from South Africa, which explains the graffiti style dragon logo on the mouse instead of a movie reel logo.

All kidding aside The Theron is a mouse designed for gamers and is designed for RTS players wit hthe capability to appease features for many types of gamers. Here is a screenshot of the specifications page from their website.



The package is fairly standard and includes a travel bag for LAN parties. I was actually expecting a mouse pad of some nature when I first opened it, but the bag is an interesting touch. It really drives home the portability of the mouse. The wire wrap, bag and on board memory means this mouse is not content to just sit on a desktop, it wants to go with you… Not something one normally thinks of with pointing devices. There are a couple stickers driver CD etc in the box as well.



The mouse is designed for functionality. The soft-touch rubber coating feels great, but shows wear very quickly. With only 1 week of use the mouse buttons are shiny, and there is even a small amount of wear above the flashing dragon logo (This does not show up in the picture). This seems to be popular among gaming mouses any more, so must be in demand. The 5’ long braided cable is very slender but stiff, and has a built in Velcro wire tie for wrapping up the wire for transport or desktop wire management.

The mouse itself is a middle size, which is nice enough for those with large hands, and still usuable for those with less meaty grips. With all the weights installed is quite beefy. For marathon gamers accustomed to using standard desktop mice, this may cause some issue initially. The heavy mouse feels very good but is not something that should be jumped right into. Starting empty and adding weights periodically might be beneficial. For those already used to a heavier mouse it will not be an issue.

(After a marathon 8 hour RPG session, I did develop some hand cramping due to the new grip style and weight, I have not had another marathon since but removing the weights and adding one back every other day has improved the comfort level significantly).

Instead of using a number of small feet on the bottom of the mouse, 2 large pads are used. This design works really well and moves smoother than my older mouse that uses five mini feet. There are buttons for controlling polling rate and manually selecting profiles as well as a small door for adding or removing the extra weights. The switch is to lock the onboard memory and prevent profiles from being changed.

The left side of the mouse has two side buttons (by default back and forward browser buttons), a right side pinky button, the two standard buttons, a light scroll wheel textured with horse shoes, and two more buttons for setting DPI on the fly up or down. These buttons can be reprogrammed though, and it is a good idea too. The dragon logo is lighted, and next to it is an dual LED indicator to show what level DPI you are at (off is level on, first lit level 2 only second is level 3 and both is level 4).



Before anything else I downloaded the latest software from eSports website, and saw there was a firmware update utility as well. It will display whether an update is needed or not, so I ran it an updated before using the mouse at all. There is also a small utility for selecting the button response of the mouse.





Installing the main software is going to be done at least once, to create and save your profiles. If you feel the need you can uninstall it later, but had no effect on performance on even a low power AMD dual core setup. It also shows up some graphics when you hit the various buttons.

For instance the back browser button shows this graphic.



The Mouse has adjustable illumination. From the dragon logo and mouse wheel to a ground effects kit and sensitivity indicator, they are universally adjustable to one of seven colors or just turn them off (so 8 colors?) there is also the ability to set battle mode in the software. This changes the colors based on frequency of button clicks.

I initially set blue, but for some reason, kept thinking I was getting texts on my phone (which is weird my phone lets up green and yellow) so settled on the default red. It looks good on my busted up red mouse pad anyway.



With five profiles stored in memory, one can assign a different color to each profile to make recognizing whether you are an FPS profile, MMORPG, RTS, generally web browsing or even photo editing or art creation setup.

The software allows one to program every button, assign colors save up to 5 profiles and includes a built in macro recorder. Up to 40 macros can be saved to the various buttons.

Performance is adjustable via a few standard presets. There are 4 default DPI levels one can set quickly or adjust the meter on the left side of the screen for fine tuning your DPI level. Up to 5600 DPI can be selected. Every button is programmable to either single key, or repeat key presses in a number of fashions. Honestly, this was way outside my mouse needs. COD lets you set mouse buttons to actions so I did not experiment with the software in this fashion. Still as I get more games tested with this mouse, I am looking forward to playing with the Macro settings.



I did play around with the DPI settings, and if you want to run max DPI, you should really increase the USB polling rate as well. On a stock clocked AMD 235e x2 1000Hz was simply too much for it. CPU spikes hit 20%, so I cut it in half, settled on a 3200 DPI and slightly reduced cursor speed and that seemed to work well for me. Most games are not CPU limited anymore even for low power CPUs. Mouse movements are now about 1-1.5” side to side to cover the whole monitor. Obviously every person is going to be different. Some may want the full DPI settings and only need .1” of lateral movement. It made my head spin just how fast that made the mouse cursor though.

My main gamer is up on blocks right now because of a bad board, so maxing the polling rate and DPI might have been easier on the 4 GHz X79 platform with 580 GTX, with the larger screen resolution, higher DPI settings would have been used as well. I am personally rather new to “mouse tweaking” but it something I am going to pay more attention to in the future. I am looking forward to unloading all of my titles on the mouse once I get a replacement for my main gamer.

The Theron is now my dedicated gaming mouse, replacing a Logitech MX510 that is still going strong after about 5 years of use. After a week of use and learning the settings, I have pulled all the weights out, it is still pretty beefy, and fine tuned the performance settings to exactly where I like them. Now my only issue is, my HP keyboard and shredded mouse pad look terrible next to it. Time for more upgrades!
__________________
"Don't You understand? This is Greek to me! Except I spek Greek, this is like Aramaic to me, and not the Western Dialect I can read a little." - Dr. Walter Bishop

Special relativity is not "Eat Two Big Macs."
Reply With Quote
  #2  
Old 09-29-2012
Kal-EL's Avatar
Kal-EL Kal-EL is offline
Superenthusiast
 
Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: Krypton, Hawaii
Posts: 11,027
Rep Power: 10
Kal-EL is on a distinguished road
Default

Rich you have large hands to go with that large.......get a photo of the mouse in your hand?
__________________
What kind of community do you intend to re-build?
tell me your sins and I'll sharpen my knife...(Take me to church)
Reply With Quote
  #3  
Old 09-30-2012
MaadDaawg's Avatar
MaadDaawg MaadDaawg is offline
Beyond Help
 
Join Date: Jun 2009
Location: Chicago
Posts: 4,040
Rep Power: 19
MaadDaawg is on a distinguished road
Default

good review Rich
__________________

www.maaddaawg.com
Reply With Quote
  #4  
Old 10-01-2012
Witchdoctor's Avatar
Witchdoctor Witchdoctor is offline
OCA Gladiator
 
Join Date: Nov 2009
Posts: 6,039
Rep Power: 21
Witchdoctor will become famous soon enough
Default

Wow Rich, you are good at this riview stuff............

Nice read bro.

As luck would have it I broke my dam mouse at the Canals yesterday,

So until I get a replacment i am basically target practice................

Going to grab one of these and see how i like it
__________________
You don't need a reason to help people
Reply With Quote
  #5  
Old 10-05-2012
GFDuke's Avatar
GFDuke GFDuke is offline
OCA Gladiator
 
Join Date: Jun 2009
Location: Ferenginar
Posts: 2,825
Rep Power: 17
GFDuke is on a distinguished road
Default

Let me know how you like it. I've been thinking about a new mouse myself. I think i need a wored mouse since i get my asss kicked so much. Sometime my gun won't move on me or it's late moving and i get pwned by Dom. It's gotta be the mouse. No way Dom pwns me. :')
__________________
DUKES PC MODING PAGE


Ferengi rule of acquisition #8: " Small print leads to large risk. "
Reply With Quote
  #6  
Old 10-05-2012
Neuromancer's Avatar
Neuromancer Neuromancer is offline
OCA Gladiator
 
Join Date: Jun 2009
Location: South Jersey, USA
Posts: 5,645
Rep Power: 21
Neuromancer might just be on to something hereNeuromancer might just be on to something here
Default

thanks guys shannon mentioned it was a "community review" so I tried to keep it loose and informal. Tried to focus more on opiino then anything else. But then again cant really run 32M on a mouse anyway, so not sure how I would do a "real" review of one


And for Kal...

My hands are kind of big so picture of my hand on the mouse is basically just a picture of my hand but here yah go.



Oh and that is a sock on my mouse pad. the gel pad split so I duct taped it, then the duct tape started peeling so I stuck a sock on it. Not sure what I am going to do whne the sock gets a hole in it.
__________________
"Don't You understand? This is Greek to me! Except I spek Greek, this is like Aramaic to me, and not the Western Dialect I can read a little." - Dr. Walter Bishop

Special relativity is not "Eat Two Big Macs."
Reply With Quote
  #7  
Old 10-05-2012
Kal-EL's Avatar
Kal-EL Kal-EL is offline
Superenthusiast
 
Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: Krypton, Hawaii
Posts: 11,027
Rep Power: 10
Kal-EL is on a distinguished road
Default

Poor mouse is getting mauled, doesnt look consensual from this angle. Main question is "Is it comfortable?"
__________________
What kind of community do you intend to re-build?
tell me your sins and I'll sharpen my knife...(Take me to church)
Reply With Quote
  #8  
Old 10-12-2012
Neuromancer's Avatar
Neuromancer Neuromancer is offline
OCA Gladiator
 
Join Date: Jun 2009
Location: South Jersey, USA
Posts: 5,645
Rep Power: 21
Neuromancer might just be on to something hereNeuromancer might just be on to something here
Default

It is comfortable now. As I mentioned in the post it did take some getting used to.

One change, I ended up taking out ALL of the weights. There is not a large difference between having the weights in or out. But every little bit helps.

I have used it for a few more games now and even a couple of 8 hour mararthon civ5 sessions the last two nights. Feels a lot better

Oh, one more update, my mouse sock did end up getting replaced after some hot cocoa got dripped on it.
__________________
"Don't You understand? This is Greek to me! Except I spek Greek, this is like Aramaic to me, and not the Western Dialect I can read a little." - Dr. Walter Bishop

Special relativity is not "Eat Two Big Macs."
Reply With Quote
  #9  
Old 10-16-2012
Splave's Avatar
Splave Splave is offline
Beyond Help
 
Join Date: Jun 2009
Posts: 7,331
Rep Power: 22
Splave will become famous soon enough
Default

Its a little light for my taste but still a good performer.
nice review
__________________
2nd place in SPi32m

Quote:
Originally Posted by Vivi View Post
when those trolls start making love your VGA has no chance!
Reply With Quote
  #10  
Old 10-21-2012
Neuromancer's Avatar
Neuromancer Neuromancer is offline
OCA Gladiator
 
Join Date: Jun 2009
Location: South Jersey, USA
Posts: 5,645
Rep Power: 21
Neuromancer might just be on to something hereNeuromancer might just be on to something here
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Splave View Post
Its a little light for my taste but still a good performer.
nice review
TBH, that does not surprise me. I am no where near your strength level anymore, and having seen a pic of you, probably never was lol

I am so busted up now, I had to think to lift properly a single 80 pound bag of concrete the other day when I had to move a quarter pallet of them.
__________________
"Don't You understand? This is Greek to me! Except I spek Greek, this is like Aramaic to me, and not the Western Dialect I can read a little." - Dr. Walter Bishop

Special relativity is not "Eat Two Big Macs."
Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is On

Forum Jump



All times are GMT -10. The time now is 10:59 PM.

Copyright ©2009-2014, Overclockaholics

Designed by: vBSkinworks