The underworld boundary

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The Styx is boxed in the usual Speedlink getup; featuring a window with the mouse on show. While Speedlink have added some gamer-style fonts and text to the front, it still seems a little OEM for some reason; possibly something to do with the typeface used for the ‘Styx Gaming Mouse’ at the bottom. This next to a Razer product isn’t going to sell on looks, but the price gives it the edge, as this wee mouse comes in at just below £25.

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Out of the box, you don’t get a vast array of ridiculous leaflets letting you know that you’ve purchased the product etc. that you’ll find when you open a Razer mouse, and instead it’s a simple case of a manual, micro driver CD and the mouse itself.

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The mouse looks remarkably like the Logitech G5, with the only real difference being the colour of the main body. The Styx is made of a couple of different coloured plastics, the bottom is smooth matt black, then the top is a glossy red number and the scroll wheel and the function buttons are surrounded with a silver shroud.

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The left and right mouse buttons aren’t separate from the body of the mouse, and instead rely on the plastic bending meaning the whole top is just one piece of plastic. There is a rather large white ‘Speedlink’ logo on the ass of the mouse where you palm will rest, so it probably won’t be seen by many. On the left-hand side at the rear, you’ll find a DPI read-out that lets you know what sensitivity you have the mouse set to. You can flick through 800, 1600 and 2200 DPI levels on-the-fly without any drivers installed.

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The left side of the mouse is where your thumb will lie, and it has access to two thin oval shaped, silver buttons. That adds the total number of buttons up to 7 if you include the two behind the click-able scroll wheel. The two buttons behind the wheel are used to adjust the sensitivity of the mouse, and also to change the special fire mode. To me special fire mode sounds like one of those easy to implement features that just makes up the list of things that the mouse can do rather than being a useful feature. The special fire mode changes what the left mouse buttons does; switching between single, double, triple and quad fire. So in essence you click the button once and the mouse sends up to four clicks in quick succession, designed for single-shot weapons in FPS games. These buttons are marked with ‘F’ (special fire) and ‘S’ (sensitivity) with the latter being the furthest away from the scroll-wheel.

The shape of the mouse is far from ambidextrous and will only work if you’re a right-hand gamer. I’ve pointed out in the Lachesis review that dual-handed designs are pretty much pointless, as a left-handed gamer isn’t really at liberty to use the other hand for the keyboard due to the placement of the WASD keys next to the space bar. It’s the kind of shape that forces your fingers into a certain position that may or may not be comfortable for you depending on your hand size. Your thumb rests on the lip on the left-hand side, just underneath the side buttons, while your V-flippin (index and middle) fingers rest on the small indentations on the main buttons. Your ring and small fingers are relegated to the right side which doesn’t have any support; just like any other mouse.

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The cable that flows from the top of the mouse isn’t your usual plastic wrapped affair, instead it’s covered with a braiding that makes it look more like string rather than a; wholly pointless but does look pretty nice.

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