Mice & Keyboards by stefan @ 2013-12-11
The CM Storm Reaper from Cooler Master sports an unique design by integrating a machined back which is removable and is equipped with an Avago 9500 laser sensor. The friendly user interface allows us to customize the programmable button functions, assign macros, work with several profiles, fine-tune parameters and adjust the LED lighting system.
At first I would like to thank Cooler Master for sending a sample of their CM Storm Reaper Gaming Mouse for testing and reviewing.
"Owning the PC trenches for almost two decades, Cooler Master ’s veterans present their scars from battles past as claims of triumph over the competition. United with a new generation of eSports athletes and engineers, now marching under the flag of CM Storm, the time has come to reveal truly ground-breaking, military grade hardware for the gaming revolution.
Through long-standing research programs, CM Storm is co-developed with the world’s most prolific enthusiasts and eSports prodigies. Thanks to intensive testing and continuous feedback, the CM Storm division has been able to encompass and improve upon gamers’ needs and their tough to handle scenarios.
By working directly with the gaming community we have injected our Storm Tactics into each and every product we make. Storm Tactics, with a heavily dedicated focus on Strength, Security and Control, will keep your most vital gear fortified and well tuned at all times.
2008 marks a new era for Cooler Master, as its fierce Storm Gear stands ready at bay to mobilize and back up your gaming skills.
CM Storm – Arming the Gaming Revolution"
8 Fully Programmable Buttons
Reaper comes with 8 fully programmable buttons that can be saved as your favorite button assignments. The intuitively designed “clutch button” enables gamers to instantly switch to a preselected DPI setting for accurate aiming in different environments (like sniping) when held. Release the button and you are restored to your original setting.
Designed for Comfort
The rubberized, soft-touch surface paired with a premium aluminum cover and wheel makes Reaper a comfortable, durable and lightweight gaming device.
Macro Keys and Profiles
Besides basic button assignments, you can also program command sequences as macro keys and save them to 4 different profiles on the onboard memory. Once programmed, Reaper saves those profiles across different systems even without the CM Storm application installed. A perfect mouse for tournament gamers on-the-go.
White LED Accents
The warm glow of white LED lighting peers through the groove in the palm rest and in the front. Access the Reaper’s software to toggle lighting effects between modes such as a menacing breathing effect or “Rapid Fire” (reactive lighting) mode.
Customizable Aluminum Plate
The removable aluminum cover is anodized and electrically plated for a high quality look and feel. Its aluminum palm rest functions as an excellent passive cooler for your hand to help avoid sweaty palms during intense gaming moments.
The Reaper is another peripheral which takes part of the latest Aluminum series from CM Storm and is shipped inside a fully-sealed cardboard box:
On the top side of the packaging we will see a drawing of the mouse along with a list of main product highlight:
A short product description along with system requirements can be found on the side:
The product components are explained in more detail on the back:
After the removal of the top packaging layer, we will end up with a black box:
Besides the mouse, we will also get the documentation in a separate transparent plastic bag:
The Reaper is held inside a black plastic mold:
The mouse looks gorgeous, being a mix of aluminum, rubber and plastic; the back removable plate is made entirely of aluminum and has the same texture as we have seen on the Pulse-R headset:
The rugged scroll wheel is quite durable and near it we will find the DPI switcher composed of two extra buttons:
On the left side we can locate three extra programmable buttons, one being the “clutch”, which can be used for modifying the DPI setting when it is pressed; this function is also called “sniper” on other mice, which helps reducing the DPI significantly at a preset level:
As the left side, the right is rubberized and has a nice feel, while providing a good grip:
As on the Sentinel Advance II, we will get extra LED lighting in the front:
On the bottom we can see the sides covered with PTFE feet:
A sticker is present near the sensor lens, which comes with the model number and input power rating:
In order to benefit from the rest of the Reaper mouse benefits, we will have to go online and download the Application Software. The mouse firmware can be also updated to the latest version via a separate executable file:
The firmware updater will show us a progress bar after we have initiated the process:
The GUI of the software application has a well-organized layout and the menus are split in multiple tabs; on the bottom we have the four switchable profiles to which we can also assign different pictograms. Inside the Main tab, we will be able to change the functions of the programmable buttons:
Here are the functions which can be assigned to each button; we can see that some of the functions like Multimedia, Profile or DPI can be further extended:
Multimedia
Profile
DPI
By navigating to the Advanced tab, we will see options to alter the settings of the four DPI levels, customize the LED lighting effects, adjust the LED brightness, OS sensitivity, OS double click speed, button response time and more; a double click test area can be also found here:
From the Macro tab we will be able to define new button sequences, with or without recorded delay:
The currently available profiles can be found inside the Profiles tab; here we can also perform operations of import and export:
The Library tab will allow us to manage our macro database. We can import macro files from other sources into your database and export your macros to other locations, including the mouse, for sharing and backup:
The last Support tab allows us to access online help from the team and check the version numbers:
The CM Storm Reaper is quite unique thanks to the chassis design which integrates a machined aluminum back plate along with the rubberized sides and buttons for a nice feel and added grip. Cooler Master went with the Avago 9500 sensor on this one so we have available up to 8200DPI resolution which can be customized from the software. A “sniper” button is also present and is easy accessible on the left side of the mouse, for lowering the DPI to a certain level only when it is necessary.
We are still using to this day the wonderful Sentinel Advance II mouse, and we could consider the Storm Reaper as being a worthy upgrade. A design element is even shared with the Sentinel Advance II, the frontal LED lights.
This is by no means a light mouse, with no possibility to customize the weight which is 145 grams, but in the same time it feels really solid.
Coming back to the software, it is well organized and easy to use, including settings for the LED lighting. We are not getting an unified software suite as we have seen with Razer or SteelSeries, but hopefully CM Storm will consider this for the future releases.
The CM Storm Reaper can be found online for about 63 Euros.
We would like to thank again to Cooler Master for making this review possible!