Swedish manufacturer, Mionix has released their latest ambidextrous mouse, the AVIOR 8200. This is a gaming mouse, but does it exceed or hold up to more well-known ones from Logitech, Razer, and Microsoft?
Hardware
The mouse itself is well constructed, easy to grip with the rubber coating. Perhaps a little bit on the small side for even an average hand. This wired USB (2.0) mouse has a very welcome teflon-coated cord. The braided coating allows for hard edges of a desk or any kind of rubbing against a harsh surface resistance from damage. This gives it a sense of physical insurance that you can see and count on.
Buttons are soft and don’t sound overly mechanical when pressed. The side buttons are bit too easy to accidentally press in the heat of battle. But I think that is just par for the course for any mouse.
Thankfully, there’s no blinding light from the laser. In fact, the laser is invisible when you flip it over, or lift it up. The only lights are on the scroll wheel and the logo where your palm rests, and are fully customizable.
Software
If you like color, the AVIOR 8200 options come in droves. You can set colors to cycle, pulse, breathe, or simply be solid. You can change the color to anything of your choosing, either by random or something specific. It goes so far as to allow you to set the wheel and logo independent colors.
The mouse has 9 customizable buttons, allowing you to use a specific selection of options from a drop-down menu. It doesn’t let you do whatever you want. The DPI settings allow you to change at what DPI your mouse operates, the customizable buttons allow for on-the-fly changes for easy changing. Lastly, if you’re an MMO or MOBA gamer, you’ll want to create macros and can set buttons to execute them.
There are standard options to set the double click speed, scroll speed, and acceleration (which I never have on, and neither should you).
A tab for Sensor performance, works with ENSIS 320 pad, analyzes surface quality. You can read more about that in the review.
Games
I tested the mouse against some newer titles such as Splinter Cell: Blacklist, Dota 2, Rise of the Triad, Arma 3, and PAYDAY 2. Each of them responded well and recognized the mouse to utilize the extra buttons and make them work for me. The macros were best used in Dota 2, and executed well. I also tried the macros in Guild Wars 2, and they worked just like you’d expect them to.
Mionix may not be a household name in gaming, but they should be. The quality and care given to not only the hardware, but the software is impeccable. Full of choice and customization, it’s hard to go wrong with the AVIOR 8200. It’s form factor design is a bit smaller than I’d like. This is a sophisticated gamer mouse and rests at almost a modest price.
The hardware unit was provided by PR for review purposes
