Along with the Sonar 5.1 Surround headset that I reviewed Cyber snipa sent their latest in gaming mouse technology, the Stinger.

I haven't always put much stock in things like gaming mice, until I got stung. The Cyber Snipa Stinger Mouse is a great piece of gaming hardware hands-down, or rather palm down in this case. The sleek, rubberized, ergonomic design made for ultimate comfort in my gaming sessions as well as everything else. I found the mouse so sensitive that I was actually able to move pixel-by-pixel in an image in Photoshop while editing. This is a huge step up for me as I was previously using a Cyber Snipa SWAT laser mouse which was still a good mouse but only had 2 dpi settings. Other differences between the SWAT and the Stinger are numerous.

The addition of a rubberized skin to the entirety of the mouse means you hand won't slide off the body when you're doing your super-special ultra-secret 'death blossom maneuver' to take out a horde of enemies surrounding you. How did I know you had that move? Well that's a super-special ultra-secret too.

The Cyber Snipa Stinger also has 9 buttons, 6 being  programmable for macros: left, right, two gaming buttons (forward, rear), clickable tilt mouse wheel (left, right, down), dpi and mode. The dpi, left and right mouse buttons are not programmable. The dpi and mode buttons change the DPI (400-3200) and switch between the 3 possible macro sets for a total of 18 programmable macros. That's an extremely handy feature. The sensitivity can be further tweaked on the DPI to get a specialized dpi on each level. If you set the Macro mode button as programmable you lose the ability to switch to the other 2 sets, so you might not want that. Plus you can't get the three-color combo like I use with a blue mouse wheel, green mode button and the red Cyber Snipa logo.

On the underside the Cyber Snipa Stinger has four 'feet' to help it glide across the surface with ease and the access panel for the weight system. When I started I wasn't sure what weight I would like in the mouse so I loaded all seven 20g (0.71 oz) weights into it. I found that to my liking and still use it. The difference between their older SWAT and the Stinger in weight really makes a difference. The Stinger with the weights loaded into it is more solid in my hand and I feel I am better able to control it. It still only requires a nudge of the finger to break it free of static friction and effortlessly sliding across the Nova Winner II MicroOptic mousepad that I use for everything nowadays. Though, I feel the added weight of the mouse gives me a finer precision in moving it.

For the full experience you will need 2 pieces of software, supplied on a disc with the mouse, the driver for the 4-way scroll and the macro manager. You can also download them from their website if needed (only available for XP and Vista.) The macro manager is somewhat on the complex side so I had to read the manual to figure it our properly.

Each macro has about 500bytes of space which they say is around 200 steps. That's one heck of a macro though so it should be plenty. Though programming them all is some amount of work and will take a Saturday afternoon, or maybe a Sunday. I was never very good at Sunday afternoons personally.

Each level of 'dpi' can be customized. So I set them to 400, 1800, 400, 1800 dpi to test them in a game to switch between standard and sniper modes. Then I set off into Bf 1942 and my first thought was, this is sort of cool. I could turn down the sensitivity to the normal rate in the game and flip the switch between fast and slow. Then I thought, what else can I do? So I made a - switch to grenade, throw grenade, switch back to big weapon macro. I wanted to make a switch to sniper mode, auto-switch dpi macro...but that wasn't possible. Hopefully they can release an update to the macro software that might allow this in the future.

 Now the bad things. There are no stock profiles for games. Actually there are no stock profiles for anything. They do supply you with some options like browsing and media player controls, but you must manually make a profile and assign them. Additionally the macro control is not very intuitive. You can't include a dpi switch in a macro as I stated above and personally I think that the mode and dpi buttons aren't in a fantastic spot because you must move a finger to use them. A better place might have been on the side by the gaming buttons. Maybe in the next iteration of the Stinger they'll move the buttons to a more ergonomic position.

One thing that really irked me was the lack of customization in regards to install location. It simply asked WHAT you wanted to install and never where. So if you are like me and have multiple partitions or drives it will automatically install to your system drive (C:\Program Files in my case) without the slightest care about whether or not you want it there. They are using the Nullsoft Install System and I am fairly certain that can be used to ask where you want to install it, tsk tsk. It only about 5.5-6.0MB but still now if I need to reinstall and format that partition, I'll have to reinstall the application.

Finally, there's no support for the products. I mean there is no place on their site where you can contact them about support. They do have drivers and programs for download but no FAQ about that products and no specific support area, as if the products never need support. A product manufacturer who does not offer support for their product is unconscionable. They should remedy that immediately.

Overall I believe that the Cyber Snipa Stinger Mouse is a very good value for $44.99 (39.90 Euro) when compared to the prices of other 'gaming mice.' It could still be a little better with some fixes to the macro software. If they moved the dpi and macro mode buttons in the future the next version of the Stinger might be a dream come true.
If you're in the market to fatten up your gaming arsenal and further own your competition, you may need a Stinger.

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