Corsair HARPOON RGB Review

👤by Tony Le Bourne Comments 📅11-11-16
Performance Testing

Setup, Design & Observations
Visually the HARPOON RGB looks quite sleek, well designed and of solid construction. The use of Omron switches makes each click fast and satisfying. The mouse wheel too is quite solid, though I felt it was a little too easy to rotate when pressing it down. The feel of the materials used by Corsair is great, being a rough, anti-sweat finish. This surface texture may be a little love/hate depending on preference, my only qualm with it is that it does wear down over time, creating smooth and rough patches.

The ergonomic shape is rather interesting as I found that it is on the smaller side for palm grip users, but the shaping is geared more towards a palm grip. I found that using my natural claw grip, the pressure at the rear, and its lack of a PTFE slip pad at the rear-centre, made it easy to lift the front, which caused some problems in game. Also, I found that the position of the angled rear just before the right side concave thumb groove dug into the base of my palm, creating a noticeable dull ache after a while of use. That isn't to say that it isn't compatible or even comfortable for Claw grip, that is more just a subjective observation based on my personal grip style. Others may not experience this. Considering it weights just 85g and is on the smaller side, finger tip users may find that this is perfect for them, offering grip and comfort in the right places. The only other issue I had was with the side buttons, this may be a null point for some users that do not rely on them for gaming, but I do. Again, this is rather subjective to my natural claw grip. First, I found that the side buttons were hard to distinguish between front and rear as there was no tactile distinction between them, and secondly, they are positioned in a strange place like the inside upper section of a curve, almost facing downward, and thought they have been designed with a lip on them to help locate, they feel like they need to be pressed upward and inward, rather than just inward, and at sometimes I found that I was pressing the seam between the buttons and the edge of the top plate of the mouse which overhangs just above the side buttons.



Performance
The HARPOON RGB features the Pixart 3320 optical sensor which was initially thought to be the successor to the 3310, a gaming favourite. However the 3320 in its raw performance is somewhat of a step back. Where the 3320 shines is purely in its advanced tracking capabilities. This was observed in our testing on black fabric mouse mat, bare desktop, glossy coloured paper, even on shiny coloured foil, it tracks flawlessly. Though, that does little to stop the fact that it is fairly jittery over 4000DPI, and not quite as responsive as some would expect. This is because the native DPI of the 3320 sensor is 3500, meaning Corsair have interpolated the sensor for a higher DPI gain.

In our gaming tests, (DOTA2/CS:GO) we found that the HARPOON RGB is quick and performs great across various surfaces, and it edges out some mice at this price point in regards to speed. Being an optical sensor there is no acceleration to worry about either, something that FPS fans will always be relieved with.


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