Gaming Mouse Review: The Fanatec Headshot Controller
There are plenty of gaming mice available today, but there's not a whole lot that differentiates them beyond some design aesthetics and tricked out features. But the mouse is an extremely personal device, especially for gamers, and often every little curve, button, and yes, colour, can have an impact on how user-friendly the device will be.
The Fanatec Headshot Controller from German manufacturer Endor certainly has more than its share of bells and whistles, with an audacious design complete with a unique mouse pad, cable arch and flashing lights. But it also works extremely well and has about as many features and customizable options as a gamer could want in a mouse and accompanying mouse pad, which is good considering the premium price. The Headshot Controller comes in a sleek-looking package that resembles a clear plastic briefcase. Included in the package are the mouse, mouse pad and USB hub, a 220V power socket for the AC adaptor, a few cords and a driver disc.
Let's start with the mouse. It weighs approximately five ounces and comes with a finely coiled USB cord attached to it. Like the rest of the Headshot Controller package, the mouse itself is a lustrous item but it's more than just a pretty picture. The mouse is perfect for someone like myself who has rather large hands and frequently finds that most devices are simply too small to use comfortably. Each side of the mouse has oversized finger rests. The right side finger rest is particularly important, since it keeps your ring finger and pinky from hanging off the mouse and dragging on the pad.
As for the left side of the mouse, here's where the Headshot's customizable design comes into play. For gamers that feel the mouse is too large, Fanatec has included two screw points on the bottom of the device that when unscrewed remove the entire left side thumb rest of the mouse. The top of the Headshot Controller is a smooth plastic surface that's covered with small dimples to prevent your hand or fingers from sliding.
In addition to the right and left click buttons and customary mouse wheel, as well as two secondary click buttons near the wheel, the Headshot Controller has two small minus and plus buttons atop the device. These buttons, which are arguably the Headshot's best features, allows users to quickly adjust the mouse's sensitivity from anywhere between 400 DPI to an outrageous 4,000 DPI while they're in game. Thus, you'll never have to jump out of a game and reconfigure the resolution of the Headshot Controller.
In addition to the Headshot mouse, you get the Aura (or aURa, as Fanatec spells it) Mouse Pad. The useable surface of the mouse pad is fairly large, running 13.5 inches at its widest point and 10 inches at its longest point (the pad itself has a curvaceous design). The surface of the pad is quite smooth and feels like a Teflon-coated cookie sheet. While the Aura took up quite a bit of room on the desk, I didn't mind so much because it offered an ideal amount of real estate for my mouse movements. In addition, the indented curves of the pad made it easy for me to push the Aura right to the edge of the desk and rest my wrist comfortably against the pad.
Attached to the mouse pad is a high-speed USB hub that features an illuminated cable arch. There are two additional USB ports beyond the one you'll use to connect the Headshot Controller's cord. Those ports can be used for additional hardware such as keyboards and MP3 players, but only if the AC adaptor is plugged in. However, if you just want to use the Headshot Controller, all you need to do is plug the Aura mousepad's USB cable into your PC.
The arch is design to hold the coiled mouse cord above the pad to remove any interference with the Headshot's movement. The arch also has an LED light embedded at each end on the base of the mouse pad. At first I thought the LEDs were a bit frivolous and served no real purpose, but eventually I came around on them (more on those later).
