Review: Speedlink Fortus Wireless Gaming Mouse

With the release of their new Fortus wireless gaming mouse, Speedlink have added yet another great looking peripheral to their PC gaming line-up.

The Fortus gaming mouse is the next in a recent line up of matching hardware, the metalic red and black design built to match their gamepads, keyboards, mousemats and even arm rests.

The mouse is controlled by a small USB dongle which is initially housed in the battery compartment, which is pretty handy if you want to pack it away or take it with you.  The 2 AAA batteries (included) slot easily into the small compartment with no screws to slow the process down.

The base of the mouse is smooth with only the battery compartment and optical sensor on show and it glides across the mouse mat (we used the matching Speedlink LED mat) well.

For a wireless mouse this is actually fairly light.  It’s obviously never going to be in the same league, in terms of weight, as the wired mice, but it wasn’t overly heavy in a few hours of use.

There are lights on either side in a ‘grill’ style and the writing on the main body glows at the same time.  It’s fairly unobtrusive compared to some of the other mice I’ve had and only really shows up under dim light.

A large rugged scroll wheel sits at the front in the middle of the curved buttons.  The tyre-like indents make it really easy to grip when scrolling.  Behind this is the DPI setting switch which changes the DPI with a click up or down.  It would have been nice to keep a DPI setting when switching the PC back on as I found it reverting to one single setting each time.  The LEDs on the mouse show the DPI setting, thankfully, though this also means that you can’t set them to match the rest of your setup if you have other lights without the extra software.

The usual front mouse buttons are responsive in gaming and the curves help fingers grip on to the right area in order to access them quickly.  To the left there are up and down buttons which are useful for web nagivation as well as programmable for gaming and on both sides the base juts out to give your fingers somewhere to rest.

In testing I found that the weight wasn’t an issue, something which is often a problem with larger wireless mice, and that the mouse itself was really comfortable to hold thanks to all its curves.  The only issue appears to be that DPI switch, which isn’t a big problem.

While wireless mice aren’t ever going to be as responsive as a wired mice, they’re more suited to the growing trend for lounge based or wireless PCs and the Fortus is also an ideal companion for those who play games on their laptop.

Speedlink Fortus Wireless Gaming Mouse

8

Overall

8.0/10

Pros

• Nice to hold
• Red and black matches other Speedlink accesories
• LED options to show dpi
• Lighter than other wireless mice

Cons

• Still not as responsive as a wired mouse
• Could do with a few more programmable buttons