For years now, Corsair’s M65 has been the company’s flagship mouse. That evergreen rodent has gone through a number of iterations, but it has retained its distinctive, angular shape. While the M65 has undoubtedly proven its place as a high-quality mouse, its unconventional shape isn’t for everyone. In an effort to build a better mousetrap, Corsair has introduced the Glaive RGB, a gaming mouse for those who prefer more conventional shapes. Corsair kindly sent one of these new rodents to our lab for testing, and I’m here to report my hands-on results.
The body of the Glaive is mainly constructed of black plastic, but our version comes with optional aluminum accents at the front of the mouse. The all-plastic Glaive already weighs 120 grams, and while the aluminum looks nice, it makes the mouse seven grams heavier still. I recommend going with the plastic version if you’re picking one of these up, but others might prefer the extra heft. The aluminum edition feels sturdy and durable, and given Corsair’s track record and the quality of the plastic in the aluminum version, the full plastic Glaive should be just as well-built.
The Glaive feels absolutely fantastic in the hand, which I wasn’t expecting considering how large it is. At 5″ x 3.6″ x 1.8″ (LxWxH), the Glaive is not a small mouse, especially for someone with relatively small hands like me. However, the Glaive has such a classic-feeling, well-proportioned and rounded shape, my hand practically melds right into it. In another endorsement, the Glaive caught the eye of my old man Damage as it was sitting on my desk. He went over to it, put his hand on it, and immediately proclaimed he was co-opting it as a replacement for his old Logitech MX510.
Two slick-looking RGB LED strips run along the top of the mouse, and they flank an RGB LED-backlit Corsair logo. There are more multicolor LEDs at the front of the mouse, but while they look cool, they aren’t even visible most of the time. Thankfully, the brightness of the LEDs can be adjusted in the mouse software, since they’re a bit too bright by default. There are also five lights on the top of the Glaive’s body that correspond to its five customizable DPI levels. One of my gripes with many gaming mice, particularly mice with more than two DPI levels, is that there’s no quick and easy way to tell which DPI level the mouse is on. It’s nice to have DPI indicators built directly into the mouse, but I think they could be positioned more optimally. In their current position, the indicators are hidden from view as soon as you put your hand on the mouse.
The two main buttons and the DPI button feel great, at least. The scroll wheel isn’t so hot, though. My experience with the company’s past mice suggests it can make some of the best scroll wheels on the market, but the Glaive’s scroll wheel isn’t one of them. It doesn’t have notches that are as clearly distinguishable as the detents on other Corsair scroll wheels, something I care particularly strongly about when selecting a mouse. The Glaive still has a pretty decent scroll wheel relative to other scroll wheels on the market, but it doesn’t feel as good as Corsair’s usual efforts.
Two buttons jut out from their own little alcove in the side of the Glaive. This is quite an irregular side button design. Most side buttons just stick right out the side of the mouse. The side buttons in the Glaive, however, are offset from the main side section of the mouse with a sizable gap between the buttons and the thumb grip. After getting used to this arrangement, I actually liked having separate trigger-like buttons. There’s something satisfying about pressing in a large clicky button with a fair amount of travel. However, given how odd these side buttons are, I can totally understand someone not liking them. Opinions on these buttons are highly subjective and depend heavily on the mice you’re already used to, your hand size, and your grip style.
In the vein of things that may or may not be a negative depending on hand size and grip style, I found that if I grip the mouse farther back, the side of my thumb that touches the mouse pad a bit occasionally gets slightly caught under the back of the mouse. The back side angles up in a certain way that causes this annoyance only when I use a very specific far-back grip, but it’s still something to be aware of. I don’t think this will be an issue for most people, especially those with smaller hands. Even so, this is one of those things that would be good to test if you get a chance to try out the mouse before buying it.
Another area of mice subject to varying opinions is the thumb grip. Rather than picking one style of thumb grip and alienating those who like other styles, Corsair packages the Glaive with three different thumb grips: a smooth, only slightly-curved grip, a textured, curvier grip, and a textured, almost flat grip that curves downward into a full-on thumb rest. All the grips felt usable and comfortable to me, but I prefer textured grips because my hands tend to sweat. I also found that I prefer to rest my thumb higher up than the thumb rest so as to decrease the distance between my thumb’s rest place and the side buttons. As a result, the textured grip without the thumb rest (the middle grip in the picture above) was my thumb grip of choice.
The grips attach to the side of the mouse magnetically and fit snugly into their dedicated cut-out. They don’t rattle any and definitely won’t suddenly detach. In fact, purposefully detaching the grips is somewhat difficult due to the strength of the magnets and how tightly the grips fit.
Here are the main specifications of the Glaive RGB:
Glaive RGB | |
Dimensions (LxWxH) | 5″ x 3.6″ x 1.8″ (126 x 92 x 45 mm) |
Weight | 4.5 oz (127 g) |
Max CPI | 16000 CPI |
Sensor type | Optical (PixArt PMW3360) |
Switch type | Omron |
Switch life | 50 million actuations |
Programmable buttons | 6 |
Max polling rate | 1000Hz |
DPI switching levels | 5 |
Shape | Right-handed |
Cable length | 5.9′(1.8 m) |
Price | $69.99 |
At $69.99, Corsair is firing a shot right across the bow of the Logitech G502 and SteelSeries’ Rival 500 with the Glaive. Let’s see if it has what it takes to compete with these popular gaming mice now.
The sensor
The bottom of the Glaive houses a PixArt PMW3367 optical sensor, which is a Corsair-specific version of the popular PMW3360. The PW3360 is regarded as one of the best mouse sensors on the market, and I’ve come to feel the same way after rigorous testing of two different mice featuring this particular eye. However, I haven’t ever reviewed a mouse with the Corsair version of the sensor. More importantly, tests should always be run in order to make sure a mouse isn’t messing with the information from the sensor.
I first spent a good amount of time using the mouse and feeling for any irregularities in the tracking. My time spent playing Titanfall 2 and Overwatch was unhindered by any wonky sensor behavior. All my mouse movements transferred to in-game movement exactly as expected. I ramped things up a bit by furiously moving the mouse across the pad and slamming it down at various angles. No matter what I did, I couldn’t make the sensor spin out or lose tracking, so it gets an A+ on that test.
I moved on to my standard one-to-one tracking test in CS:GO with zero mouse acceleration and raw input on. I snuggled the mouse up to a book and fired a bullet at the wall to leave a marker. Then I moved the mouse across the mouse pad until it rested up against another book on the opposite side, at which point I fired another bullet. Lastly, I moved the mouse back and forth between the two books, checking each time the mouse was against a book that the cursor was over the corresponding bullet hole. I carried out this test in a number of in-game locations with varying distances between my character and the walls. The cursor consistently lined up with the proper bullet holes in every location, which means the sensor has one-to-one tracking.
Before concluding my testing, I opened up MS Paint and checked for built in angle-snapping by drawing some patterns, which you can see above. The patterns show no angle-snapping, so all good there.
Software
I’ve been saying the same thing about the Corsair Utiliity Engine for awhile now. CUE is one of the better gaming peripheral software on the market. It isn’t an eyesore to look at, things are fairly intuitive, and it has all the standard features, such as custom macros, lighting settings, and DPI levels. However, Corsair would do well to take a hint from SteelSeries and simplify things a bit more. There are more tabs and separate menus than necessary. DPI settings and mouse acceleration don’t need to be separated into their own tabs. A little bit of clean up and simplification could go a long way.
Conclusions
Corsair may be better-known for its keyboards than it is for its mice, but the Glaive RGB continues the company’s fine legacy of high-end gaming rodents.
I do feel that the Glaive’s scroll wheel could be a bit notchier, and its deep and distinct side buttons are a bit unconventional. The back side of the mouse may occasionally catch on some people’s thumbs, but those are pretty minor drawbacks or matters that could come down to individual preference.
September 2017
I quickly got over those minor issues once I got in the game with the Glaive. The mouse’s main buttons are clicky, the overall unit is well-built, and it comes with three different swappable thumb grips for different hand shapes and grip styles. It has convenient DPI indicators on its top surface, the obligatory RGB LED accents, and one of the best sensors on the market. Most notably, the mouse’s overall shape is superb. It feels right at home in the hand for me and for other testers that tried it.
All that said, the Glaive isn’t for everyone. The mouse does weigh 120 grams (or 127 if you go for the aluminum version), and it’s big. It also comes with a $70 price tag. $70 isn’t cheap for a mouse, but it’s right on par with the Logitech G403 and G502, both direct competitors to the Glaive. If you don’t mind the price and like tall, meaty mice with a generously rounded shape, I absolutely recommend the Corsair Glaive RGB as a high-quality contender in a crowded market.