Sandio Game O' 6DOF 3D Gaming Mouse

Imagine, for a moment, the ability to take movement keys off the keyboard and transfer them to your mouse. You know, strafing movements, all within reach of the fingers of your mouse hand without having to utilize the keyboard to take care of that while punching up other game options.

This was likely the inspiration behind the Sandio Game O' 6DOF 3D Gaming Mouse. Cantered more for right-handed users in terms of the curvature of the molding, the mouse has six buttons on it. There are the standard left and right top clickable buttons and middle mouse button, but the folks at Sandio have added a button on either side of the mouse plus a button in front of the middle mouse button that acts like the top-hat button on a joystick.

The mouse also comes with a palm rest, which is detachable, but this can hinder (just a bit) the sliding motion across a mouse pad. There are controls for 23 games pre-loaded into the mouse – ranging from the likes of Age of Empires III to Battlefield II and Call of Duty 2, to Max Payne and Warcraft III. Fable, Counter-strike, Half-Life, Halo, Prey, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time and Oblivion are all part of the pre-programmed package. But that is just barely touching the service. The top-hat style button will allow for rotation upon the Y and Z axis (think of it as yaw and roll) and the mouse supports multiple dpi settings, from 400 up to 2,000. Changing the dpi on the fly is as easy as pressing the side buttons simultaneously and waiting for the voice acknowledgement that the dpi has been changed.

This is a USB device that does have supporting software. And yes, the mouse is fully programmable.

The first challenge in using the mouse was that most of the games pre-loaded were not readily available for testing. The ones that were performed well, but loading in (programming) new settings for newer games was not difficult. The palm rest, though, proved to be a nice feature that was not necessary and seemed to increase drag on the mousepad. It was removed and the mouse was used with some features programmed and as a standard mouse in other instances. In both cases, it performed well. There was no discernible difference between the mouse inputs and using another mouse in concert with a keyboard. Movement was handled well and after a bit of a re-learning curve (in understanding the movement was not relegated to the mouse control scheme), the mouse was enjoyable to use.

With 16 new programmable functions, this mouse does have a bit of diversity and also works very well in programs that have a free-roaming three-dimensional environment.

Sandio’s 6DOF mouse is, no doubt, following a trend to put more control within easy access, and this is a well-realized mouse. It does not have much weight to it, so those who like the weighted variety of mouse (like Logitech’s G5) might not enjoy the “feel” of the mouse, but do not confuse lack of weight with flimsy. This mouse was put through a few things that normal mouses should not endure (dropping it off the table, stepping on part of it) and it held up just fine. While the exterior plastic is slick, the buttons do have a bit of a texture change and hold up fine even when the hand can get a little slick from intense gaming sessions.

Sandio’s mouse is a solid product and worth checking out.

Pros:
Fully programmable and comfortable for the larger hand. Everything is within easy reach. The mouse is responsive in terms of input.

Cons:
The palm rest does increase drag on the mousepad but is removable. The mouse size may be unwieldy for smaller hands.

Overall: 9.0
The mouse is XP compatible and the molding on the exterior is cantered for right-handed users. It is a bit larger than some mouses (not a problem for this user), and has a nice-long USB cable attaching it. Once the software is installed, this is a plug-and-play device. This is an easy recommend for gamers wanting to compact control schemes and while it can be used for a variety of applications, it is particularly useful in first-person shooters but with fully-programmable functionability, this mouse is conceptually strong and a good product.