Page 2 - A Closer Look - Hardware and Software
The name of this mouse, Xornet II, reveals it is the second generation of the Xornet series. Comparing with the Xornet II’s predecessor, the inheritance can be noticed immediately, while the evolution is not hard to catch as well. I believe most people will not to blame the designer for doing it this way, since the first generation already has a pretty awesome ergonomic design. Both the CM Storm Xornet and the Xornet II have the ring finger resting place, and they just look like the normal claw-grip mice on steroids. At my first glance, it left me with an impression of a JDM sports car -- looking at the right side of the mouse, it is just like the out spanning sports car quarter panel. Well, if you consider the computer gaming as a kind of sport, the muscular look of the Xornet series is definitely a plus.
Like its predecessor, the Xornet II only comes in one color: Black. However, this time, the designer really brought the black theme to a whole other level; you can barely find any other color on the mouse. As you can see from the pictures, even the company's logo is in matte black. The logo is pretty hard to see unless your room lighting is bright enough; this is due to the fact contrast is realized by having different reflecting rates on the surface where the logo is printed, which reminds me of the stealth design of the F-35 Lighting II. The featured stealth design shows simplicity and clean looking attributes are heavily used in its design language. I would like to say that the Cooler Master must be very confident in their product to show the company logo in this way. But it also makes sense, since most of the time, the major portion of the mouse is covered by user’s right hand, and people may not want to pay too much attention to the factory logo.
The Xornet II features all high quality Omron switches rated for five million clicks each. Three of the most important buttons of the mouse, the left click button, right click button, and scroll wheel, are also well designed on the Xornet II in terms of the texture and layout. The left and right buttons have a more delicate texture than the rest of body. You can tell the difference by using your bare eyes. This feature actually makes sense, since the buttons are meant to be clicked. In the middle of the two buttons is the half-translucent rubber scroll wheel with notches, and a pair of small buttons underneath the scroll wheel. Unlike its predecessor, the Xornet II has an RGB LED light under the scroll wheel. The light can give the scroll wheel 16.8 million different colors. Each color can be associated with one DPI value. Since a maximum three sets of DPI values can be applied to the mouse, the scroll wheel LED can have three colors to differentiate between the three different DPI values. After the settings are applied to the mouse via software, the color and corresponding setting of DPI can be changed by using the pair of small buttons on-the-fly without the GUI. I would like to say by having 16.8 million choices of colors, you will be able to have different and customized LED settings for 46,207 years if you change the setting once a day. My point is, it is more than enough to allow you to have your favorite color settings, haha.
In order to deliver good handling and control, the Cooler Master Storm Xornet II has rugged rubberized side grips at both sides of the mouse. The grips feature parallel-stripe treads. Unlike those mice that have non-stripe rubber panels, the Xornet II’s side grips can provide enough grip, but not too sticky at the same time. The fine treads are also pleasant to touch. The only downside of the grip's design is dirt and dust may get attached to the rubber grips in between the treads. It may be little bit annoying when you have to touch the mouse right after putting some chips in mouth with same hand. Think about this, the mouse has matte black color almost all over the body, therefore those crumbs can be easily seen.
From the above picture, you can see there are two buttons above the left side rubber grip. By default, those buttons are for forward and backward navigation, which should not come as a surprise to you. As a wired mouse, the channel that allows the mouse and the computer to talk to each other is the USB cable. The Xornet II is not equipped with a braided cable; instead, a normal rubber cable is used. The cable is lightweight and soft, and it has fine lines to mimic the texture of a braided cable. In my personal opinion, using the rubber cable is not a deal breaker, since I have never seen a worn out mouse cable in person so far, nor do I normally feel any extra dragging force caused by one. The mouse comes with a 1.8m cable, but if you want to keep out of trouble when you pull the mouse out of your backpack, a Velcro strap is present to get you organized.
Flipping over the mouse, you will see another nice feature to it: Two pieces of large Teflon feet. The Teflon feet can significantly minimize the friction between the contacting surfaces, which makes the handling of the mouse smooth. The area of each Teflon foot is larger than that of the previous generation. In fact, it has some of the largest gliding feet I have ever seen on a mouse. In between the two pieces of the gliding feet, there is an Avago 3320 optical sensor located right in the middle of the mouse. The sensor allows the mouse to have up to 3500 DPI sensitivity. Combined with the maximum 1000 Hz polling rate, the Xornet II is specified for performance.
The CM Storm Xornet II is mostly plug-and-play. If you want to customize the settings, such as all the seven buttons’ configuration, polling rate, color of LED, and sensitivity, a configuration software is required. You can download it from the Cooler Master’s website easily, so there is no need for any physical disc. Just like the mouse, the GUI of the software is simple and intuitive. The theme colors are black and gray, just like the mouse. In order to minimize the use of the white color, the majority of the configurable items are gray. Only when you move your mouse on top of those items they will become white to show they are highlighted. The GUI is pretty straightforward to use, as it is not rocket science. Basically, you do not need to spend a lot of time on figuring how it works. After you have done with your settings, remember to press the "Apply" button at the bottom right of the program, and your settings will be saved to your mouse. If you mess up the settings, you can always press the "Reset" button to go back to default settings. Note it is a universal “Reset”, which means if you use the “Reset” on one page, all of your other settings will be erased to default, such as the LED colors and DPI configuration.
Page Index
1. Introduction, Packaging, Specifications
2. A Closer Look - Hardware and Software
3. Subjective Performance Tests
4. Conclusion
