FIRST off, the SideWinder is a HUGE mouse - and unlike the organic shape of the Habu, has a design akin to a stealth fighter with sharp lines and angles instead of smooth and rounded edges.

The SideWinder's big feature other than a plethora of buttons is a tiny LCD which shows you in numerals exactly what dpi setting you have the mouse set to - no more guessing by bars or colours.

Build quality on the SideWinder is also quite a level above regular Microsoft mice - thumb buttons are made of high-quality metal as is the scroll wheel, with a gold-plated USB connector. Taking a cue from Logitech, the SideWinder has a tray for you to fit weights in if you prefer a heavier mouse - although the mouse has only three slots in the tray, it comes with three 10g weights and one 5g weight, so you can add up to 30g on the mouse.

Oh yes, last but not least, the SideWinder even has replaceable feet and comes with two sets of feet made of different materials so the mouse can glide just the way you want it.

Comfort

The Sidewinder is definitely made for large hands, and in my tiny hands, it was quite a stretch to hold the mouse and reach all the buttons.

However, I did let various colleagues with much larger hands have a go at the SideWinder and they all reported that the mouse was very comfortable for big hands.

HEAVY WEIGHT: The SideWinder has a tray for you to fit weights that can add up to 30g if you prefer a heavier mouse.
One thing that I really liked though, are the thumb buttons - instead of the usual two horizontally-aligned buttons, the SideWinder's thumb buttons are vertically aligned which means that you can easily reach both of them with your thumb without stretching.

The thumb button layout is so intuitive that one wonders why thumb buttons on mice have not been like this from the start.

Because of the large body of the SideWinder, I really did have a few problems trying to reach the scroll wheel, but again, with larger hands, this is certainly not a problem at all.

Performance

There's no denying the performance of the SideWinder - you get all the usual settings for ultra-polling and dpi settings in the software and three dedicated buttons for adjusting resolution.

However, out of the nine buttons on the mouse in total, only five of those are customisable.

On top of that you also get a special button which falls under your palm, which by default opens your game folder in Windows Vista. Of course it can be customised to open any folder you want.

However, if you use Windows XP, pressing this button will launch the IntelliPoint software settings menu.

While the resolution settings of the SideWinder tops out at 2,000dpi, I have to say that this is more than enough for most (sane) players - anything above that and the cursor is really too twitchy to be accurate, especially if you're playing some kind of sniper game.

Software

The IntelliPoint software for the SideWinder looks the same as the IntelliPoint software you get with any Microsoft mouse, but you do get a few extra menus that are meant specifically for the SideWinder.

IntelliPoint's support for keyboard macros is particularly interesting - a flat mouse button near the front of the SideWinder allows you to record in-game keyboard combinations, which is a lot easier than keying a macro combination using the software.

Other than that, you can assign custom resolution settings to each of the three buttons just below the scroll wheel - you can set resolution from 200dpi to 2,000dpi in six steps - not as many possible steps as the Razer Lachesis but enough for most people.

Conclusion

If you have medium to large hands, then the SideWinder is the mouse to get - build quality is very high and the design is comfortable.

While the mouse may not have the highest dpi settings on the planet, it's more than adequate for all but the most demanding of gamers. Plus the mouse more than makes up for it in the well-thought out design and the loads of customisable buttons.

We'd rate the SideWinder at least as good as the Logitech G9 - whether to go for one or the other will really depend on how the mouse feels in your hand.

Pros: Lots of customisable buttons; build quality is very high; can be customised with weights.

Cons: Too big for small palms.

SIDEWINDER Gaming mouse

Maximum resolution: 2,000dpi laser

Image processing: 7,080 frames-per-second

Maximum acceleration: 20G

Maximum speed: 45 inches per second

Number of buttons: Nine (five programmable)

Other features: Interchangeable feet, in-game macro recording, tray with weights supplied

Price: $128