Page 2 - A Closer Look - Hardware and Software
After seeing the last ultralight mouse, you might wonder, "How did Cooler Master add seven grams of weight to their MM710?" One word: RGB. Obviously, Cooler Master has started by keeping their ultralight shell and their trypophobia-inducing honeycomb enclosure. The holes still work in creating grooves for your hands to easily grip onto. On the other hand, you should be wary about eating or drinking near your mouse, as dust, debris, and liquids can get inside this mouse. Cooler Master has their dust and splash resistant coating here, which is helpful, but I would not go dunking this in water anytime soon. Inside may be hard to see, but the MM711 is not hollow all the way through, as there is a translucent diffuser for the lights. This should also help prevent dust from settling too deep into the mouse. Speaking of the lights, Cooler Master have two lighting areas, with one near the scroll wheel and another at the back of the mouse. Otherwise, the finish on this mouse is a matte black one, but Cooler Master have other variants including a glossy black as well as matte and glossy versions in white. I do think the matte black is still the best look, as it does a good job of hiding fingerprints. Greasy fingerprints may still be visible however, so you should be sure to wash your hands before and after eating.
In terms of dimensions, the Cooler Master MM711 measures in at 116.5mm in length, 62.4mm in width, and 38.3mm in height. The peak height of the MM711 is situated nearer to the rear of the mouse with a gradual slope up from the front and a smoother, rounded curve down near the back. As I have mentioned, the mouse weighs in at 60g without the cable. The weight is balanced to the middle of the mouse, lining up with the sensor. This mouse is an ambidextrous mouse in terms of shape, which is good for both left-handed and right-handed users. Overall build quality is good, but you can actually flex the mouse a bit when pressing the bottom of the mouse. It is not a huge deal, especially since weight is not usually applied in this area and reinforcing it will affect the ultralight design.
The Cooler Master MM711 utilizes the same fixed Ultraweave cable that measures 1.8m in length. As I have mentioned with the MM710 review, this is the lightest, most-flexible braided cabling I have ever used. I have not used any other mouse since the MM710 primarily because of this. I really hope I can see this cable used in future Cooler Master mice as well as from other manufacturers, as it is the best wired cable I have seen. At the end of this cable, we have a typical full-sized, gold-plated USB port, with a ferrite bead near the plug.
On the left side of the Cooler Master MM711, you can see all of the primary and secondary buttons. As this is the same shell as the MM710, the mouse is ambidextrous, but the button layout is not. The main left and right buttons are separated from each other and the rest of the body. They are slightly sloped towards the middle of the button, which makes users naturally rest their fingers in the middle of the button. Underneath, we have primary Omron switches with a rated lifespan of twenty million clicks. Overall, the button response and weight feel good. The scroll wheel is a notched wheel. Thankfully, they have kept their word in addressing my previous issue of a wiggly scroll wheel. Under the scroll wheel, we have a DPI switch that lets you change the current sensitivity. By default, this cycles between seven levels ranging from 400DPI to 16000DPI. With Cooler Master's software, you can change each of the levels, as we will see later on. On the side buttons, we have the standard forward and back buttons. They offer a good amount of travel, but they also have the similar spongy feel in bottoming out. This is pretty typical for secondary keys, especially since they should not be as easy to press as the primary ones. As for their placement, they are located right above my thumb and are relatively easy to press while keeping out of the way of accidental presses.
The bottom of the Cooler Master MM711 reveals the mouse feet and the sensor. The mouse feet are made up of PTFE, which is commonly known as Teflon. These give the mouse a smooth glide. I am quite happy to see Cooler Master also provide replacement feet as they can wear out. In the middle of the base is the sensor. This is the Pixart PMW3389, which is one of the top-of-the-line Pixart sensors out there. The PMW3389 tracks at high speeds of 400 IPS with acceleration up to 50g, though it is not enabled by default. Polling rate is set to a minimum 1ms, or a maximum frequency of 1000Hz, and a maximum native resolution of 16000 DPI. Unfortunately, I did notice a bit of rattling from the sensor, which could be a one-off issue since the MM710 did not suffer from this.
As of press time, the MM711 integrates with Cooler Master's MasterPlus software. It is the same piece of software you use with the MM710. You can download it from their website, which is a 66MB download. Using the software was overall a consistent experience, especially when compared to previous Cooler Master software. In addition, I ended up updating the firmware installed on this mouse during usage. Internally, Cooler Master has provided 512KB of memory on the mouse to store all of these settings. There is also a 32-bit ARM Cortex M0+ processor to control everything.
Most of the settings pages are the same as what we saw in the MM710 review, which is unsurprising considering they use the same software. As such, the first tab is for Buttons, where you can assign different actions for each mouse button or scroll wheel action. You can enable mouse combinations, which let you add more mouse actions when pressed in combination with the DPI cycle button. The Lighting tab is one tab we did not see previously, as they let you adjust the lighting on the MM711. This provides typical LED modes such as Static, Breathing, Color Cycle, and custom modes. You can also use them to indicate the current DPI setting with the "Indicate Mode". The Performance tab lets you change the seven DPI sensitivity settings, USB polling rate, lift off distance, angle snapping, angle tuning, surface tuning, and other operating system specific settings. I wish Cooler Master would let users enable or disable the number of DPI levels available as cycling through seven is a bit much. The Macros tab is where you create and record macros to be assigned to the mouse actions. Finally, you can save up to five different profiles and settings in the Profiles tab. While this application is still lacking in terms of game integration, I think this software is usable and offers all the same features I would expect for a utility of this nature.
Page Index
1. Introduction, Packaging, Specifications
2. A Closer Look - Hardware and Software
3. Subjective Performance Tests
4. Conclusion
