In March Cougar revealed that their new peripheral line - or at least prerelease versions thereof - had picked up a couple of iF Design Awards for innovative features as well as aesthetics. Since then we've heard very little of the 700M gaming mouse and 700K keyboard, but this week Cougar finally let slip a few more details of the former alongside a product trailer.
There are some superficial similarities with the Mad Catz R.A.T. series and more recently Razor's Ouroboros, but Cougar's 700M is quite distinct in its features overall. Built on an aluminium base and frame, the 700M has a rigid spine on which a height-adjustable palm support rests. The palm rest modules can also be swapped to a different design suitable for different grips and play styles, which Cougar calls the 700M's 'Sport Mode'.
The 8200dpi laser sensor is increasingly becoming a standard amongst high end gaming mice which have avoided optical designs, but the inclusion of a 32bit ARM processor and 512KB on-board memory remains uncommon. These inclusions allow the mouse to store dozens of macros and multiple gaming profiles on-board. A front-mounted LED array is capable of 16.8 million colours, the configuration of which can also be store within the on-board memory.
Rather than a weight system on the base Cougar have instead opted for a central pillar from which four weights can be mounted. Whilst it will unlock a certain amount of weight flexibility and benefits from being at or very close to the mouse's centre of mass, it doesn't allow a great level of distribution customisation. Build quality will also be key here to ensure that the removable housing doesn't irritate the users palm.
Eight programmable buttons is one more than the norm and includes a so-called 'sniper button' mounted at a 45 degree angle on the wrist-rest, two mounted on the shoulder and one - described as a 'Fire button' - at the top-left. The layout seems fairly unremarkable, but by now it's clear that build quality is more important than attempting to fix what isn't broken by dotting buttons in illogical places.
Cougar are also taking note of recent changes in the market by including a software suite and communication tech. designed to allow greater interoperability between members of their peripheral range. Known as the Cougar UIX System and Cougar Fusion respectively, the utility should allow unified profile switching, mode switching and more.
There's currently no information on the availability timescale and pricing for the 700M or 700K but from this feature list Cougar appear to be working from the right script.
