NZXT Avatar S Mouse Review

Playing with the Avatar S

Because of its simplicity, the Avatar S was one of the models that saw quicker action in our hands. Since it doesn’t feature dozens of buttons and DPI settings, we programmed the five buttons to our liking and played our favorite titles – World of Warcraft and Battlefield Bad Company 2 – to see how the mouse performed. As we already discussed, we found the sensitivity levels a bit low, and the imposed tier limitation annoying – we weren’t pleased with the 400 DPI, for instance, so the Avatar S ended up having only two working settings for us: 800 DPI and 1600 dpi.

The model is a bit too light, and the elongated design doesn’t favor those who prefer to control the mouse with the fingertips, a style known as “claw grip.” As it features only a single button on each side, if the user wants to control a fifth button, he/she must hit it with the little finger. We ended up leaving that button for perfunctory functions which required less precision or urgency (like opening the character’s bag on World of Warcraft). We understand that the button disposition follows the idea behind the ambidextrous design, but at least we should have had the compensation of a central button located below the scroll wheel. Hitting a button with your little finger, no matter if you are left- or right-handed, is not pratical.

In our experience, the Avatar S did what it set out to do: to be a simple gaming-grade mouse for the less demanding user. It just bothered us by having fixed sensitivity tiers and those tiers being so low. We had to adjust our grip and thought that the mouse could be a bit heavier, but that depends on personal playing style.