Why should you buy this: The Rival 650 improves on its predecessors and provides a great blend of customisation and performance.

Who’s it for: PC gamers wanting to add flair to their desktop.

Why we picked the Steelseries Rival 650:

The Rival 650 is a testament to the age-old adage: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Taking everything we loved about the Rival 600 and leaving it unchanged, Steelseries made the best even better by adding a more powerful sensor and higher durability switches. 

We love this mouse on many levels. For starters, it includes its own weight management system, that you can use to finely tune this mouse to suit your style. With over 256 different combinations to choose from, you can customise each game you play, and make alterations between work and relaxation. However, it is good to bear in mind that constantly changing the weighting of the mouse will lead to more calibrations being required. 

But that’s not all. This mouse took everything good about the previous charging cycles, and boosted them to 1000. The new fast charge system is one of the best offered by Steelseries, and offers an incredible 10 hours of play time, with a charge time of only 15 minutes. Obviously, you can charge this for longer if you want some added security, but if you’re a busy person who’s always on the go, this mouse will keep up. The second biggest feature with the Rival 650 is its tactile feedback. That means you can program the mouse to vibrate whenever a specific action or event appears on the screen. 

Finally, the mouse relies on in-house switches rated for 60 million clicks. There are seven buttons overall that are fully programmable through the desktop software, and the integrated ARM processor lets you save your customisations, from colour schemes, to CPI settings, and button mappings. The Rival 650 simply feels extremely solid throughout its design: there’s nothing cheap or fragile sitting under your fingertips. Unfortunately, like its predecessor, the Rival 650 is only designed for right-handed gamers, so if you’re a leftie, scroll down for a mouse designed just for you.

Why should you buy this: Razer’s Lancehead packs a big punch.

Who’s it for: For any PC gamer who can’t find a mouse designed specifically for their hand.

Why we picked the Razer Lancehead:

If you’re looking for a gaming mouse that fits into any hand, Razer’s Lancehead is a great solution. It works both as a wired and wireless device, so technically it could even fall under our “best wireless” category. But its ambidextrous design wins the show, with each side sporting rubberized grips, so you won’t lose control of your desktop rodent. This design is complemented with an overall shape that fits firmly into your palm without feeling too bulky or too slim.

The Lancehead includes nine programmable buttons, two of which rely on Razer’s in-house mechanical switches. Of course, you can only use seven unless your ring finger can easily utilise the two non-thumb buttons on the other side. Complementing these buttons is an illuminated RGB strip running along both sides of the peripheral, an illuminated mouse wheel, and Razer’s LED-lit logo on the palm area. The Lancehead’s illumination supports up to 16.8 million colours.

Finally, Lancehead owners can program all buttons and illumination through Razer’s Synapse software. You can use Synapse to customise the button commands, set your sensitivity levels, assign lighting effects, and other options to profiles that can be stored directly onto the mouse. That said, you can create a customised profile and assign it to a specific game, as well as assign macros to any button on the Lancehead.

Why should you buy this: You get lots of love for the money, including programmable RGB lighting.

Who’s it for: PC gamers not wanting to pay more for a mouse than the actual games.

Why we picked the Logitech G203 Lightsync:

There’s lots to love with Logitech’s G203 Lightsync. For starters, it addresses gamers looking for bling, providing programmable RGB illumination in the Logitech G logo and in a strip running along the back of the mouse. This illumination supports 16.8 million colours that you set using Logitech’s free desktop software along with different lighting effects, and related triggers that react to the action on your screen. These illumination settings are saved to profiles you can create for each installed game.

On a hardware level, the G203 Lightsync consists of six programmable buttons: The left and right click buttons, the mouse wheel, two located on the left side of the mouse, and the button typically assigned for on-the-fly DPI (dots per inch) shifting. This mouse supports sensitivities between 200 and 8,000 DPI, and you can use Logitech’s software to define four sensitivity levels. Thus, by hitting the DPI button, you can quickly move through these four sensitivity levels when you need to quickly take a sniper shot — or go full-blown trigger-happy.

Logitech says this model stems from the G100S Gaming Mouse used by eSports professionals, but relies on a re-engineered and optimised base design. Both focus on performance and comfort, although the G203 Lightsync ditches the Delta Zero optical sensor for a newer, unnamed model. Other highlights include “Advanced” button tensioning for precise clicks, left- and right-click switch lifespans of 10 million clicks, and a choice of three main colours: Black, Blue, or White.

Why should you buy this: There’s more to this mouse than meets the fingers.

Who’s it for: PC gamers wanting to cut the cord without sacrificing performance.

Why we picked the Logitech G903 Lightspeed:

The G903 is an outstanding mouse on several levels, from its ambidextrous design to its wireless connection. Even more, it supports Logitech’s PowerPlay charging station, so not only does the mouse roam free without its tail, it doesn’t have to worry about battery changes or overnight recharge times.

The G903 includes 11 buttons that are programmable through the company’s free desktop software. Technically, you can only use nine unless you’ve trained your ring finger to access hard-to-reach buttons on the other side of the mouse. By default, the package includes an extra pair of side buttons lefties can add to the right side and a cover for the left side when/if they remove the right-handed thumb buttons.

The G903 was one of the first mice to support the Logitech PowerPlay system. Simply remove the weight located on the bottom of the mouse, and insert an energy converter module into the same slot. The PowerPlay system is basically a large wireless charging pad with a special mouse mat residing on the surface. Thus, this station is plugged into your parent PC via USB and supplies both a wireless charge and wireless connectivity to the G903 mouse. It’s an added cost, though, and the G903 can still function as a wireless mouse without it.

It’s tough to convey how a mouse, particularly a gaming mouse, performs in day-to-day use, which is why the most important test gaming mice endure in our labs is a simple one: we use them. The tech specs can only tell you so much, DPI, weight, response time, number of buttons, but actual use forms the basis of our mouse review process.

We put them through the paces in a variety of games, making sure the mice that come through our office are up to the task of high-performance gaming, and low-performance office work. After all, a gaming mouse still must be a good mouse.

Let’s be honest about gaming mice. At the end of the day, they’re still just mice, and you’ll be able to get by with that old wired mouse you’ve had for years – your games aren’t going to know the difference.

Sure, you might be missing out on buttons and a super-sensitive sensor, and maybe your response time will even be a little slower, but you don’t need a costly mouse to enjoy games.