| Epic Gear Meduza Gaming Mouse and Hybrid Pad |
| Reviews - Featured Reviews: Input Devices | |
| Written by Dan Ferguson | |
| Wednesday, 22 February 2012 | |
Epic Gear Meduza Gaming Mouse Review
Manufacturer: Epic Gear (a brand of GEIL: Golden Emperor International Limited) Full Disclosure: The product sample used in this article has been provided by Epic Gear. What features make the best gaming mouse? Laser or Optical? High or low sensitivity? Epic Gear has released a new technology to make it so you don't have to choose. The new Meduza Gaming Mouse uses Hybrid Dual Sensor Technology (HDST) to combine the best of both paradigms. Along with their Hybrid Mouse pad they have benchmarked high mouse performance. In this article, Benchmark Reviews evaluates the Meduza (model EGMA1H-OB) and Hybrid Pad (model EGHP1-OB-M) in preparation for their upcoming release. In order to evaluate the Meduza it's helpful to understand a little bit about laser and optical technology. In the crudest sense, both technologies shine light on a surface and record many images in a single second. The images are sequentially compared to calculate movement. This is very much like recording the speed of a car from a filmstrip. What separates optical from laser technology is the precision of the images being recorded. The red light that comes from an optical mouse is created by an LED is moving in many different directions and phases; it's called incoherent light. The resulting image could be considered to be blurry. So the pictures are only good for recording the movement of very large features like the fibers in a traditional mousepad. The light generated by a laser consists of waves that move in the same direction with the same phase, and it results in much crisper images. This is why laser mice can work on glossy surfaces where features are much smaller and smoother. These sharper images allow much more precision than the LED images, thus the DPI is higher. But that doesn't tell the entire story. Early generations of laser mice were often jumpy and jittery at low DPI settings. Even worse, they had mediocre performance at high movement speeds. The landmark MouseScore article from ESR is one example of this problem. In large measure it was due to that article that high DPI and 1000 Hz USB polling rates are now considered a requirement. So there has been a long-standing impression that optical mice are more stable than laser mice, at least at lower sensitivities. I rather think the ESR results show that there should be a lack of jitter for either technology under the maximum accurate response speed. But there are mounds of user reports to the contrary, and these cannot be entirely ignored.
Aside from the DPI, good gamers use inches per second and inches per 360 as standards for sensitivity. These metrics combined with the user experience are what Epic Gear seems to have targeted with the Meduza and the Hybrid Pad. The Meduza mounts one optical sensor and one laser sensor onto the same mouse with a switch that lets you choose optical, laser, or a new Hybrid Dual Sensor Technology (HDST) mode which uses both sensors at once. HDST is meant to provide the sensitivity of the laser sensor with the stability of the optical sensor. To evaluate the Meduza Mouse and the Hybrid Mouse Pad, five areas were examined: Performance, Appearance, Construction, Functionality, and Value. Specifically we paid attention to the sensitivity claims, the features offered to assist gamers, the overall quality, and the cost at which this is all delivered. Meduza Mouse Features
EGMA1H-OB Specifications
Hybrid Mouse Pad Features
EGHP1-OB-M Specifications
First Look: Epic Gear Mouse and PadEpic Gear is releasing their first products: the Meduza Gaming mouse and Hybrid Mouse Pad. They're definitely on the right track by entering the market with flashy products and new technology. The scheme they're releasing uses high contrast black and red with highlights of gloss and gray. I can't help but have a feeling of deja vu since this feels similar to when Cooler Master began releasing gaming products under the CM Storm flagship. This time we have Golden Emperor Intl Ltd (as in GeIL Memory) releasing Epic Gear. While the colors may be similar, the products are totally different.
The Meduza and Hybrid Pad are designed to improve mouse accuracy and consistency of movement as well as provide a comfortable, ergonomic experience for hours of gaming. The mouse accuracy is improved by using Epic Gear's Hybrid Dual Sensor Technology while the Hybrid Pad does this through its construction method and materials. Despite these advances, straight out of the box there's nothing visual to set this combo apart from the milieu of other mice available in the market.
Meduza is mostly plastic construction with rubberized grips and buttons. The rubber surfaces give an extra grab which requires very little force to hold which is one feature that aids for prolonged gaming methods without injury. In addition to the plastic and rubber there is little other material, and there must be a minimum of electronics because Meduza is extremely light. It's one of the lightest mice on the market. This is another thing that makes hours of gaming a little easier, however I know many gamers prefer heavier mice or at least a weight adjusting system.
Epic Gear's Hybrid Pad was specifically engineered to be used with their Meduza Gaming Mouse, but the techniques used will be beneficial for any mouse. Again, out of the box there is nothing visual that immediately distinguishes the Hybrid Pad from other products. It has the usual fabric surface adhered to a porous rubber backing.
The pad sent for testing was the medium version measuring in at 16.5 x 11.8 x 0.12 inches. I'm accustomed to playing on a large surface, so it felt barely adequate, but it's larger than typical non-gaming mouse pads. While this set is a decent looking combination, it's the minute details that distinguish the Meduza and Hybrid Pad. In the next section we'll examine the Meduza more closely. Closer Look: Meduza MouseIn this section we'll take a closer look at the design and layout of the Meduza Gaming Mouse from Epic Gear. Regarding form and fit, Epic Gear wanted to make a mouse that would be comfortable for hours of gaming. In this spirit they chose a right-handed, form-fit body design.
This formed design really forces the issue of how to hold the mouse. Every last nook and cranny of the exterior is contoured to work with the hand's natural design. The left and right mouse buttons have a moderate concavity that runs all the way to the top of the mouse. This makes it more natural to use two fingers on the buttons rather than three since the crest of the mouse is peaked above these contours and fits more naturally beneath and between two knuckles.
The left side of the mouse is also concave and contoured around the thumb. Three buttons are put with decent reach of the thumb, two of which are immediately accessible. To get an idea of how long the Meduza is, the peak measures over 1.5" above the mouse pad. Length-wise Meduza comes in just under 5". I have large hands, and the fit is almost perfect so my wrist rests naturally on my desk. Smaller hands will have to choose between fingertips at the ends of the button and the wrist wresting higher on the mouse, or wrist on the desk with fingertips reaching only part-way down the mouse. The buttons have a low actuation pressure but a decent tactile feedback. My thumb rests naturally under the two combined buttons, but I have to reach for the forward button. This is just as well since the forward button cannot be reassigned and servers only to switch profiles. Also on the left side, front, bottom you can see the four LED indicators for the DPI mode.
This back view of the Meduza helps show just how deep the contours are for the thumb and fingers. You can also see on the right side another contour designed to support the ring finger. I found the mouse to be natural for a palm grip which is my preferred playing style. I tried using some other gripping styles, but found that anything else was not natural.
The right side of the mouse has contoured regions for supporting the ring finger as well as the pinky. The section for the ring finger is made of hard glossy plastic, but the section for the pinky is made of soft, grippy rubber. Normally when I play I grip with my ring finger and leave my pinky dangling, but when I used the Meduza it felt more natural to follow the contours. It did not noticeably affect my performance while gaming and I didn't feel awkward making the change.
The mouse wheel provides single-axis scrolling and one discrete mouse click. The actuation pressure on the wheel was more than double that of the other buttons, but it did not feel excessive. During testing the wheel clicked if and only if desired. Above the wheel is the last button. by default this hard-to-reach button changes the DPI mode between four "custom" levels. During testing this button was so hard and slow to reach that it wasn't worth assigning to any other function for fast-twitch gaming. For RTS, MMO or other games where function is required more than speed this may prove handy.
Finally on the bottom we get a first glimpse at the real Meduza; the two "eyes" and a "mouth" make for one scary creature. but really this is where the technological mystery happens. The sensor on the left (bottom in picture) is the optical LED sensor while the sensor on the right (top in picture) is the laser sensor. the "mouth" is really a switch that allows the choice between optical sensor only, laser sensor only, and HDST mode where both sensors are used simultaneously. Before discussing the practical differences between the three modes we'll take a closer look some other details of Meduza as well as the Hybrid pad. Epic Gear Mouse Detailed FeaturesTo get a real feel for why Epic Gear chose the name Meduza it helps to show the back of the box. That's one scary looking face, I guess it's supposed to scare the competition or just meant to be fun. I can only imagine the engineers trying to decide how to layout the sensors and switch and liking the design that looked like a face.
With the two sensors available, the Meduza is essentially two mice built into a single platform. In the image above it's more plain to see that both sensors are indeed optical (meaning they capture images rather than using another sensing technology), and the laser sensor uses only a single laser for tracking both vertical and horizontal tracking. This is in contrast to the current custom of using dual laser mice with doppler technology where one laser tracks horizontal motion and a second laser tracks vertical motion. I'm not sure how big a problem this presents and I haven't heard or seen much about it in forums, but gauging by the options embedded into mouse software it seems that having different X and Y sensitivities is either a problem or a commonly used feature.
I bring up the differences between tracking the two axes because this is one aspect that Epic Gear chose to design into the Hybrid Mouse Pad. I've never thought much about the way mouse surfaces are woven or the types of materials used. Epic Gear uses a special triangular fiber and an evenly spaced weave that supposedly provides consistent tracking in both horizontal and vertical directions. I tried to measure any differences between the two axes on different surfaces, but any differences were too small for me to measure using a common ruler.
Above is a cross-sectional view of the Hybrid Pad showing the uniformity of the surface weave and the porous rubber backing. You can tell that the weave is high quality and very uniform, but you can also see lots of variation in the light that's getting reflected off the surface. There are many local bright and dark spots which indicate tiny differences in surface orientation. If triangular fibers and a specific weave make that big of a difference in the sensitivity and accuracy then I would think these kind of small variations should also make a big difference. That should show up during the testing phase (or not).
Aside from functional features, the Meduza also has some style features. The letters on the back of the mouse light with a red LED purely for style. I think it adds a really nice touch, but it can be toggled on or off through the software.
The LED lighting on the front of the Meduza has two parts. The four indicator lights for the DPI mode also light only in red and indicate the current mode. The light for the scroll wheel is linked to the current software profile of which there are five. There is a unique color for each profile: red, yellow, blue, green and purple. This light can also be toggled using the software. Before looking at the Meduza and Hybrid Pad performance we'll first take a look at the software that runs behind the scenes (or not at all if you please) and how it impacts the user experience. Epic Gear Meduza SoftwareAt Benchmark Reviews we tend to have a very hardware focused evaluation since that is the physical piece of property that you get to call your own. But it's quite surprising how much the software and drivers impact the physical experience. Give the same microcontroller and a task to two different programmers and you can end up with drastically different results. So far the Epic Gear Meduza has fared well in the hardware department, but often it will be the software that makes a difference in success. Once upon a time, mouse performance was tied entirely to the driver installed when the mouse was plugged in. But now there is almost always a software package that must be installed to adjust and control advanced features of the mouse. This also meant that you could only use your mouse and features on a computer with the software installed. A more recent trend has been to put memory inside the mouse and store these advanced settings within the mouse so it can be ported to other systems. In some cases the configuration software can also be run from a portable drive. The solution provided by Epic Gear for the Meduza requires installing the configuration software to make adjustments to five unique profiles. These settings are stored in 128 KB of memory on the mouse so you can use it on any system. While not the ultimate in portability, it is the next-best option.
The configuration utility, i.e. mouse software, has four separate pages used to configure the mouse. The Main Control page is used to assign button functions and DPI settings for each of the five profiles. For button assignments, only 6 of the 7 buttons can be customized. In order to prevent a "soft" brick, one mouse button is dedicated to switching between profiles. If all buttons could be customized it would be possible to setup a mouse so that you could get stuck into a single profile with no way out. While this is a great feature, it would be nice to at least make the profile button movable. The remaining buttons can be assigned to typical mouse functions and macros, but nothing fancy like program launching. For DPI settings, four discrete sensitivity levels can be set for each of the three sensor modes: optical-only, laser-only, and HDST. The optical sensitivity selections are hard coded into four discrete levels of 400, 800, 1600 and 3200 DPI. This also applies to HDST mode since it uses the optical sensor but a fifth option of 4800 DPI is also available. For laser-only mode the X and Y axes can be set independently using slider bars for a more highly customized sensitivity.
The performance page of Meduza's configuration software has a more random collection of configurations. The USB polling rate can be changed between four distinct frequencies of 125, 250, 500 and 1000 Hz. There is an LED power saving option that will turn off the LED to save power if the mouse is idle for 60 or 120 seconds. Since LEDs take so little power, and you probably have a hundred running in your home there's really not much point to this one. There is a small section that will allow you to change the Windows settings for scroll wheel speed, double-click speed, and pointer acceleration. These Windows-specific settings did not transfer between systems. There is a slider for lift-off distance. I can't imagine that anyone would want to increase their lift-off distance, but maybe it was easy to code so they included it. Finally, there is a mysterious "Angle Snapping" setting with a scale from 1 to 10. It's not clear exactly what this setting changes, but the outcome is a jumpy mouse-cursor. Basically the mouse pointer seems to snap at intervals rather than moving continuously across the page. At a setting of 10, the mouse tends to move only vertically or only horizontally. Trying to move on angles is tricky and inconsistent. I've never heard a demand for such a feature, and could only speculate at why Epic Gear thought this was important enough to code into the software.
The third configuration page is for creating macros. The interface and functionality of this macro generator are extremely basic. You can record and name as many macros as you want, but during the record phase, only mouse clicks and keyboard buttons are available. The keys and timings are recorded for the press and release events. The editor can only record and delete individual lines. You cannot change the timings, insert mouse movements, use advanced keys or scripts or anything useful at all. This is the most basic macro tool and seems archaic compared to what is standard in the market. I'm surprised that more time wasn't taken from the "Angle Snapping" feature and put to use where everyone would benefit greatly.
The last page of the software is for support. At present there are only links which lead to error 404 web pages. The website is still new enough that no additional support information can be found. Overall, the software leaves gobs to be desired. It has a super flashy interface with some nifty features, but the functionality is lacking, especially in the macro writing module. Personally, I'd rather have a visually bare utility with bundles and bundles of options. Give me everything you can and even a hidden mode where I can do stuff that might brick my mouse. But luckily this version is an early release so we can hope that by public release the programmers have read the reviews and made bundles of changes to enable additional, useful features that everyone will use. In the next section we'll finally take the mouse for a full-fledged test-drive and see how it performs in the real gaming world. Testing & ResultsTesting MethodologyTo test usability and comfort the Meduza Mouse was used day to day across multiple platforms, operating systems, and applications. It was used especially heavy in various games. To verify the hardware operation, dx_mouse_timer_dialog and Mouse Rate Recorder were used to verify the reporting rate and accuracy. To test the lift-off distance two stacks of paper were used to suspend the mouse above the mouse-pad. The thickness of the stacks were increased until the sensor stopped responding and the result measured with calipers.Test System 1
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