The Basics Med-sized, 90g, ambi-shaped mouse with 2x thumb buttons on the left side and a DPI button on top. Uses the “TruMove1” sensor that goes up to 7200DPI & 240IPS. RGB, optional software. 30m switches. Textured plastic sides, roughened matte plastic on top. Even though it carries the Rival name, it looks much more like a smaller Sensei 310. Testing time prior to review was 3 days.
The Good
Software is great. Lots of options for lighting. Macros, whole 9 yards. Steelseries possibly has the best software out there – it is light on the system while being reliable and presenting lots of options in a clean GUI - can’t ask for much more than that.
Sensor is an updated 3325 but, I must say that whatever Steelseries did to upgrade the sensor, it worked. In my accuracy testing, the R110 scored a 92% average which puts it in the elite company of the G203 and G403 and well beyond any 3325 I’ve tested. Not only did they increase the malfunction speed, but the snappiness feels like it’s there and accuracy is good. The TruMove1 sensor is a win. Even though I’d prefer a 3360/3366 or TruMove3, this sensor will still do nicely and I easily put it above the 3310.
I like the rough texture on the top of the mouse, even more so than the fiber-reinforced texture on the Rival 310. The 310’s finish felt like it would flake off, this feels harder and more durable.
Cable is rubber and flexibility is outstanding. One of the best I’ve seen and on par with the Rival 310. It is also not especially grabby, I just wish they’d made it black instead of gray so it wouldn’t stand out as much.
No rattles. Build feels solid overall.
The shape is safe. It does not strike me as being particularly excellent for any grip style, but good for a variety of medium hand styles.
The Middling
Side buttons have excellent tactility and short travel. However they are also thin and angled outward creating a sharp feeling. They overthought this, should have gone with a flatter, more basic shape as with the Rival 310.
RGB looks good thanks to decent color depth and brightness, but colors do not change smoothly – the G203 far surpasses it here. Scroll and logo are lit. Unlike the Rival310, their colors cannot be set independently.
Liftoff distance is roughly 2 DVDs. Not as bad as some of the horror stories I’ve read, but not the 1 DVD gold standard. Did not affect gameplay.
The sensor is also mounted toward the rear of the mouse. Mice tend to feel snappier when that is forward. It did not affect me in-game.
The mouse weighed 90g with a little bit of cable. For some reason it is the heaviest 90g mouse I’ve ever tried. It feels at least 95g to me, if not more.
No finger grooves. There is a little bit of a bulbous curve to the mouse, just like the Revel. Not the best. Flatter buttons as found on the Rival 310 would have felt much better.
The scroll wheel is pretty difficult to press, but usable. The scroll steps are well defined but not audible [a plus] or tactile [a negative]. The scroll wheel has a nice textured tread to it and the RGB looks nice.
As safe as the shape is, it feels rather long and narrow in a pedestrian kind of way. As someone biased toward a fingertip grip, I’d have loved to see the Rival 110 end up maybe .5cm shorter.
The plastic sides are a hard, textured plastic. It baffles me why Steelseries, Thermaltake and others think this approach works in anything but the most basic sense. The basic matte plastic used on the sides of the Nixeus Revel is superior and the rough plastic on the top of the very same mouse is vastly superior in both feel and grip. Grip on the Rival 110 is only adequate because of the shape ad weight of the mouse. The material choice doesn’t especially hurt grip, but it’s supposed to help, right? As with the TT Iris and Ventus R, it’s a poor design decision and deserves to be flagged. The good news is that it is durable and won’t polarize as much as the silicone grip on the Rival 310 and Sensei 310.
The Bad
Primary clicks are attached to the shell and quite stiff. They do seem to break in slightly with use though, similar to Zowie mice, then again it could just be me adjusting to them.
There is noticeable pretravel on the primary clicks to the point of being distracting at first. After using Logitech mice it feels strange to press a click as far as you would to bottom out a Logitech…and still not get a click out of it. The effect is a mild but annoying sponginess ending in a "sprongy" snap. [Look mom, I made a word!]
The right click was a little loose. Sometimes it would rattle when bumped downward but not enough to actuate the switch underneath. Eliminating the pretravel would solve this minor point.
Conclusion
The marks against the Rival 110 are few, but the positives are generically weak and there is a whole lot of middling. It is an uninspiring ok to good mouse, mostly due to a surprisingly competent sensor that seems on par with the Mercury. Overall, it is not as good a mouse as the G203 in most areas, but it does offer a safer shape and that makes it a viable alternative in the $20-30 range. I’d probably even take this mouse over the MM520 thanks to the better thumb buttons.
If SS were to flatten the primary buttons, flatten the thumb buttons, use matte plastic on the sides, reduce length by 5%, reduce weight to 80-85 grams and reduce primary click and scroll resistances by 30% [and separate primary clicks from shell], all while keeping price under $40…that would make the Rival 120 an A+ in my book. All told though, the 110 ain't too bad.