 Welcome to my unboxing of the Diablo 3 mouse from SteelSeries. So this isn't the first time SteelSeries has released a licensed Blizzard product, but this is the first time that I've seen their mouse be basically just like a themed version of one of their other mice, which I already know is awesome, so I don't even have to speculate. In fact, my SteelSeries Xi is right over there, I use it on my test bench, and it is a fantastic mouse. So it can only be made better by Diablo-themed artwork and a Diablo-themed GUI that allows you to easily map... Ah, okay, here, look, I'll let them word it the way they want to. Quick and effortlessly remap the mouse buttons with drag and drop, predefined game actions and functions and skills, as well as illumination settings, all of which are easily configured in the thing that looks like this. So we're going to load up the driver and show you guys on the computer behind me in a minute, let's talk about what else SteelSeries has to say about this mouse first. Optimal comfort with an ambidextrous shape and size, making it versatile for all types of gamer grips. The Xi is that as well, so there you go, that's fairly straightforward. Seven ergonomically placed, ergonomically, ergonomically placed programmable buttons. World's most durable switches, so these are Omron switches, guaranteed for 10 million clicks, which means that no matter how high your actions per minute... Actually, if you know your actions per minute, then you can actually calculate exactly how long this mouse is guaranteed to last for you if you sat and gamed, like, 100% of the time until it died. Well, you'd probably die first, but there you go. There you go, the mouse that lives longer than you. Programmable Diablo 3 themed illumination options, so that's the scroll wheel, the CPI indicator, as well as the logo at the back, and durable double rated nylon cord with gold plated USB connector. Now, this brings me back to a video I did recently, which is totally unrelated to this, where I compared the performance of an SSD drive with various SATA cables, including SATA 2 cables and SATA 3 cables, and there was a lot of debate after that video where I basically determined that it didn't affect the performance about why the performance wasn't affected or what kind of cables they were or whatnot, and there were a lot of comments about how it would have been better if it was gold plated or silver plated, and a lot of debate about what's the best conductor. So I'm going to settle this once and for all. Silver is the best electrical conductor. Better than copper, but it's expensive. Silver also has the enormous disadvantage of easily tarnishing. That is, it easily oxidizes when it's exposed to air. So that means that there is a less conductive layer that forms almost immediately with silver. Okay, so that's why we use copper, because it's cheap and it doesn't tarnish. Now, why do we use gold to plate the end of a connector if it's not as good of a conductor as either silver or copper? Why do you think that is? The reason is that gold is malleable. Gold is soft. So what that means is that every time you insert it, the gold is able to actually make a very small, very, very small, but it'll give way a little bit to the metal from the other end of the connector, making you able to have a perfect connection every time. That is why we gold plate connectors. Also, it never tarnishes and never oxidizes. That is why we use gold, not because it is the best conductor. So that is why SteelSeries has gold plating on the connectors inside there, and then this is unnecessary, but it looks like they've also gold plated the outer housing. Those are the important parts, though. Those got to be gold plated. So here's the double braided nylon cord, which actually feels thicker than most of the braided cords that I've encountered in the past. It also has a little red stripe, which is kind of neat. Haven't seen that before either. All right, so here. It only makes sense that since I recently unboxed some Diablo 3 mouse pads here, let's go with the plain Jane Diablo 3 one. So here, we'll showcase it there. So let's go over the overall mouse here. So what makes this mouse truly ambidextrous, because lots of mice have ambidextrous shapes, is the fact that all of the buttons are equally accessible regardless of whether you use it with a right hand or a left hand. Because check this out. You've got your front and back buttons here. Remember, these are all fully programmable. So if you're left handed, you can make this back in your browser and this forward in your browser. And you've got them on the other side. So that means that if you're right handed, you can program these to do something with your other fingers and use them like this. And if you're left handed, then you can do it the other way around. You've also got your CPI change button, although you can change the... Sorry, yeah, your CPI change button, as well as your CPI indicator LED. So remember, SteelSeries uses CPI because according to their literature, it is a more accurate representation of the actual sensitivity of the mouse. That is, the counts per inch they believe is more accurate than dots per inch. So they always use CPI to rate their mice. So unlike their competitors, SteelSeries allows you to adjust your CPI in fairly small increments. The Akari laser that I have actually allows increments of one CPI, but it's not quite that granular anymore. This one allows adjustments in 100 CPIs, which is still better than most of their competitors, which are more along the lines of like 400, 800, 1200, 1600. And those are the only intervals that you can pick. So they still give you a great degree of granularity and you just use this button to switch between them. So they are some of the most customizable mice on the market because you can change everything from your... Oh crap, I can't even remember what it's called. But you can change how much correction it adds to a straight line. Can't remember what it's called. So I have mine set to absolutely none, zero correction, and then you have a bunch of settings in between and you can actually properly control all of your sensitivities. Your average plain gin and even some of your high end mice do not allow you to do that. They go, oh, 400, 800, 1200. Well, that's not granular enough. So there you go. That's why I personally love SteelSeries mice. I'm not really sure where I was going with that anymore. SteelSeries Gaming Grade Engine. At the bottom we've got our Slippy Pads, which I'm sure there's probably a more official name for them. This is a laser mouse, so you got your little laser class one logo. So basically don't put your eye right up to this and turn it on. You know, it's not good. On the top of the mouse, right, right, I was telling, talking about the CPI button. There we go. I'm caught up again. Hey, check this out. They've upgraded the scroll wheel. So that is a clickable button and then it is also a rubberized Diablo 3 looking scrolly wheel thing going on. You know what? I already like this mouse a lot more than the Xi and that is for one major reason. The Xi, for all its awesomeness, is not as grippy overall. This is a very plasticky, shiny, slippery surface compared to the Diablo 3 mouse, which has, oops, I accidentally spat on it while I was talking. There, much better now. Okay, whereas this one has like a rubberized, soft touch feel throughout the entire mouse. I personally find it easier to pick up a mouse that has that finish on it and I find it to be less clammy feeling, especially when you game for a while and you get a little bit sweaty. The Diablo 3 logo here at the back lights up and I think we've covered the physical attributes of the mouse pretty well now. Let's go ahead and install the drivers. So we're having a quick look at the software, which actually provides an astounding amount of customization. I mean, it's at the point where it's actually a little bit ridiculous because you go ahead and you click on a button. You can change everything about it from the name to the tool tip to the key color to the text color that shows up to the key font. You can change from action types like macros, launch application, disable key. You can record delays or not record delays when you're doing your macros. There's an advanced edit option here to edit macros in a more advanced way. You can create different profiles and your profiles can be for different types of characters within the game, Diablo 3 or within whatever other game you want. In spite of the fact that this is Diablo 3 themed, you can actually use it in a lot of different ways. So there's single keys here, comes with a bunch of pre-configured stuff and then there's custom ones here that you can create using the new action button down here. All right, what else we got in here? So moving over to the settings tab, we see we can adjust the CPI, so the counts per inch. So that's either with the LED off or the LED on. We have two easy switch profiles that we can switch between. We can also adjust the polling rate and the lighting on the mouse. So I haven't actually shown the lighting on the mouse yet, but check it out. The Diablo 3 logo, CPI indicator, as well as the mouse wheel are all illuminated. So it can pulsate fast or slow and it can be brighter or less bright. Okay, what else we got here? Moving over to properties so we can set different profiles to launch when different trigger games are launched. And check this out, this is statistics. So this is like an odometer for your mouse. So you can go either current session or lifetime clicks and it will actually track according to this zone up here, how often that mouse button gets used in relation to the other one. So clearly I'm a left click kind of guy and I don't use my middle click very often. However, if I take my middle click and I click it like 50 times here, you're going to see that if I navigate away from here, sorry, this is going to take a second guys. Still clicking, okay, done clicking. Now I'm just going to like navigate away and come back. And my middle click, well it's using lifetime clicks now, right? I think it takes a second to update, so give it a minute. Yeah, there we go. So my left button now has much less frequency in relation to, oh was I accidentally clicking the right button while I was doing that? Oh, oops, whatever. So it readjusts according to what buttons you press, kind of hilarious. So thank you for checking out my unboxing and first look at the Diablo 3 mouse. Don't forget to subscribe to Linus Tech Tips for more unboxings, reviews, and other computer videos.