So having said that, we will need to see their products up close & personal rather than just feeling them in IT shops and what is a more better approach than to have an unboxing & review of the Armaggeddon G11 Alien Craft Gaming mouse, courtesy of the people from Leapfrog Distribution.
Straight out from the website, here are the specs of the Armaggeddon G11 Alien Craft Gaming Mouse.
- 5040 CPI Avago 9500 Engine
- 9 Macro-able buttons
- 6 level adjustable magnetic weight cartridge
- Advanced, detailed User Control Panel
- 64kB on-board memory
- 5 macro profiles for different games
- Selectable Mood-Swing Pulsating LED Color FX
- Compliance with IEC/EN60825-1 Eye Safety
- On-chip laser fault detection circuitry
- Zirconia Ceramic gaming mousefeet
Notice that the features are somewhat similar to other brands of gaming-grade mouse, Avago 9500, multiple macro button, on-board memory, etc. What caught my attention are the Zirconia ceramic mouse feet, instead of the usual Teflon or PTFE surfaces on most of the mice in the market, which is a type of hard-ceramic compound that is used to make ceramic kitchen knives. Armaggeddon claims that these feet are very durable and will glide on most surfaces. I’ll be testing this claim later in the article, should be interesting for me as I have yet to come across anything similar.
The front exterior of the overall black/red box featured the G11mouse itself set in a fiery inferno background, which is kinda relevant to having ceramic feets in my opinion.
This is all what comes in the box. As you can see, there is an additional plastic part that can be swapped with the stock pinky-rest of the G11 for another shape (more on this later). The weights are housed in a small round container. There is no mention of the USB connector being gold-plated but it does seem to be so, a good feature to have to ensure good connectivity. The braided cable looks to be of good quality, but it is a little small and stiff compared to some other braided cables I’ve seen, but flexible enough to let the G11 move freely.
The G11 is quite large. Placed next to my SS Ikari Optical, you can see that the mouse is quite similar in size and should be suitable for people with medium to big sized hands.
On the side of the G11 is where you’d find the CPI LED indicator, two side buttons and the CPI adjustment switch under the thumb-rest area. It is possible to reach the CPI switch with the thumb but I doubt it is going to be easy to do on the fly with fast paced games. It would probably be better if it were placed at the front under the LED indicators so that users could reach it easier. This area is coated with a thick-textured rubber that is very “grippy” in a sense that makes lifting the mouse easy; it is also quite soft and comfortable, sorta feels like gummy sweets.
Surprisingly, the glossy top doesn’t attract fingerprints, which means less wiping and more gaming, a definite plus if you share the PC with your siblings (it’s another story if you’re snacking on something oily while gaming). The right & left buttons, scroll wheel and the lift & mode button is all here. The Lift button allow the user to set the lift distance that is optimum for use, you just lift the mouse to your comfortable height and press the lift button to set and you’re done!
The mode button allows you to switch between profiles so that all the macros assigned to the G11 for that particular game will take priority; a total of 5 profiles can be programmed giving users a total of 45 combinations of macros. Based on the Maroon shell, you could see that the scroll wheel also has left & right tilt-buttons which can be programmed to any keystrokes to be used in-game. This starts to feel as though the G11 is targeted towards the MMO-gaming community more than other genres.
The bottom part of the G11 is where you’d find the highly reflective Zirconia ceramic feets along with the Avago 9500 laser sensor. A quick test on some surfaces revealed that the Zirconia ceramic feets works very well; on the Assault:Shrike (Armaggeddon’s own line of speed-optimised mousepad) the G11 glides effortlessly and it does glide on a smooth table as well. It also works well on a plain wooden table, my SS QCK and the cutting mat. Placing it on a normal A4-sized paper however feels restrictive and therefore isn’t practical. Beside the sensor, is a button to release the pinky rest that allows you to swap between the two types of pinky rest that is included in the box. This also reveals the weight cartridge drawer where you insert the weights to adjust how heavy or light you wish the mouse to be, oh and the drawer is also completely removable.
I find that the stock pinky rest is more suited for palm/claw hybrid grip, as you can see from the picts above.
There is a drawback to the pinky rest though, as I tend to lift the mouse slightly when sliding to the right, the side of the pinky rest would occasionally scrape on the mousepad and that would hinder the accuracy of a shot in an FPS game. I’m not sure if that’s only applicable to my habit or not though but maybe it just takes some time to get used to the shape of the G11.
Here is how the G11 will look like in the dark in all the 5 different profile lightings; they’re set to Green Blue, Red, Cyan and Aqua. This will be easy for users to identify which of the 5 profiles they’re in.
Software
The Software CD is included in the bundle. Installation is standard affair and once you get in you’d be greeted by the “Homebase” screen like the one above, which does nothing aside from featuring the featured points of the G11. You could select the Button Settings, Macro Settings and Advanced Settings from the tabs above.
In the Button settings tab, you could set the almost all the buttons (except the Mode button) to a macro you have generated via the Macros Tab for all 5 profiles.
Creating macros is fairly simple, those of you who are seasoned will find the macro editor easy to use while first time users will find it intuitive enough to create any macros. All you have to to is to name your macros (Reload or something), click on the "Record" button and enter whatever keyboard and/or mouse combinations and you're done. Once you have the macros you wanted, just head on over to the button settings tab to set the created macros to the desired button. All of this is stored in the G11's internal memory so that you could bring the G11 to any machine, plug it in and still enjoy the macro settings that you have set in your own pc.
Finally, there is the Advanced settings tab where you could set the CPI adjustment button to toggle between 90CPI to 5040CPI by adjusting the sliders. On the same screen, you could backup all your macros to the PC, Restore the G11 to stock where you would erase all settings and Macros and also Reset the settings from a backup made earlier.
Conclusion
Overall, this is a very good gaming mouse. The construction feels solid and robust while offering features that other competitors could not provide in the same price point.
Priced at RM239 in the market, it does offer more features than what Razer and Steelseries have at that same price point that makes the G11 very attractive for those who wanted to get a solid gaming mouse without breaking the bank.
Pros:
- Solid build
- Attractive price and shape
- 2 years warranty
- Decent Software
- Comfortable to use
- Glossy surface doesn’t attract fingerprints
Cons:
- Placement of CPI buttons could be better
- Only 5 Lighting options
