Usage and TestingHere are Madshrimps we like to base our decisions and recommendations on quantifiable data, while this is pretty straightforward for video cards, CPUs, fans, coolers, etc. testing methods for a mouse are definitely less scientific. We’ve seen people use a record player running at different speeds to try and track accuracy of the onboard motion tracker; but even that doesn’t necessarily mean anything when it comes to daily usage. A large decision factor for a mouse is the ergonomic form and this is a very personal matter, the only sure thing we can say about the Behemoth is that it is for right handed people only and people with smaller hands will find it less practical.
So what follows now is a very subjective evaluation of how the Behemoth handles in different situations, these findings might be completely different from what you might experience, so takes it for what it is: a subjective opinion.
I took the Behemoth to work and used it for office applications and general desktop work for at least 8 hours a day. After 2 weeks of using this mouse I decided to go back to the standard
Dell K251D Mouse; the main reason was that the large size of the Behemoth and often swapping between having two hands on the keyboard and then using the mouse again, would produce a less than comfortable experience, before your hand was well in place on the Behemoth and you were good to go, you to had to switch to the keyboard again, this reduced accuracy for normal office tasks noticeably; later when I took the mouse home and hooked it up to my main workstation I found that browsing the web and discussion forums resulted in the same less than ideal experience. At home I use a
Logitech MX1000 wireless mouse; been using this model for quite some time, it has less pronounced curving to fit your palm, making it easier to grip quickly.
So after about 4 weeks of using the OCZ Behemoth at work and at home I was almost ready to write it off as “too clumsy to use”… then I started up a game, a first person shooter, Team Fortress 2, I started out with the Logitech MX1000 as I had pretty much written off the Behemoth; I started noticing some small delays due to the wireless nature of the MX1000, so I swapped to the OCZ Behemoth, at first it took a bit of getting used to, my accuracy went down a few notches the first few sessions, but then gradually the real strength of the Behemoth came to the surface, with no delays and almost pixel perfect precision and on the fly DPI adjust to find the right balance I was definitely improving. As your hand never leaves the mouse you don’t waste time finding the best position, and the extra size does help in accuracy once you get used to it. So in the end I left the MX1000 and Behemoth hooked up the same system.
Conclusive ThoughtsNow you’ll most likely say: “how can you almost make up your mind about a gaming mouse, without actually playing a game with it”. Well, I’m glad I did finally use it for gaming to find out it’s pretty good at what it is made for. On the other hand I find the fact that for daily usage it’s far less comfortable than a $5 Dell mouse quite disturbing.
So how much of a decadent PC-style would one have, to use one mouse for browsing the web, and one mouse for gaming. At first I thought it would not be feasible to recommend such a setup, but that was before I looked up the price of the Behemoth. The Logitech MX1000 still costs about $70, the OCZ Behemoth
is less than $15. Paying $15 for a mouse dedicated for games is quite a bargain, given the feature set of the OCZ Behemoth, the software tools and the fact that it simply excels at what it is made for, it would be hard not to recommend it, or at least give it some serious consideration. Logitech’s wired gaming mice with similar features cost at least twice as much; as do other gaming mice from other companies; is there a more affordable gaming mouse with similar features as the OCZ Behemoth out there?
OCZ Behemoth
Of course all the above is a moot point if you find the idea to have two mice connected to your system ridiculous and rather prefer one all-purpose PC rodent. From a practical point of view I would definitely agree, but from a cost perspective angle the OCZ Behemoth doesn’t come at a premium; you just have to make sure to try it out before you buy it, to see if the ergonomic form fits your hand.
