Unwinding with the SideWinder
Microsoft relaunched its SideWinder line of gaming peripherals in 2007 after a four-year hiatus. The first product in the revamped lineup was the SideWinder gaming mouse, with a design inspired by both Halo's Master Chief character and the Mazda Senku concept car (in other words, kinda sleek but also a little unwieldy). This year, Microsoft has upped the ante with two new SideWinder gaming products--the X5 SideWinder mouse and the X6 SideWinder keyboard--and announced plans to release a third SideWinder mouse in February 2009.
The X5 SideWinder is a direct descendent of the original SideWinder, with similar engineering--a 2,000 dpi laser tracking engine, on-the-fly dpi switching, and 7,080-frames-per-second image processing--and all the doohickeys that make the difference between owning your opponent and getting pwned, including a wide rubber scroll wheel and five programmable main buttons.
The soon-to-be-released X8 SideWinder, however, is a significant upgrade. First off, it's wireless, giving you far more freedom of movement than with the X5. Second, it employs Microsoft's BlueTrack technology, which adherents claim is a huge upgrade to traditional optical and laser tracking. The technology leads to massive resolution and speed upgrades, including a 4,000 dpi resolution, 13,000-frames-per-second image processing, 75g maximum acceleration, and a max speed of 120 inches per second. The X8 also includes seven programmable buttons and three replaceable mouse feet, depending on your gliding preference.
Finally, the companion X6 SideWinder keyboard will appeal to gamers who crave a custom setup but find their existing keyboards a little underwhelming on that score. The X6 includes such features a detachable keypad that switches seamlessly from the right to the left side; 30 programmable keys and 90 programmable options, with assigned gaming profiles; a toggle button that switches the keyboard from standard mode to one of two gaming modes; an in-game macro record button that records any sequence of keystrokes; and a Cruise Control option that lets you continue an action without holding down the corresponding key or series of keys.
For those who own a SideWinder product, what do you think? Do they live up to the billing?
brett on October 09, 2008 at 04:45 PM
I own the sidewinder x6 keyboard and I absolutely love it. My only criticism, which I'll get out early, is that it is not natural or ergonomic - coming from years of using just such a keyboard, it was a hard switch. But then again, no gaming keyboard is natural, so it's not really a negative for what it is: a gaming keyboard.
I love the macro pad, which I have programed to be my WSAD movement keys as well as 11 or so of my commonly use macros. Combined with alt and ctrl modifiers this gives me around 30 macros at my fingertips without moving my left hand, plus I still have my WSAD keys intact.
The macro record feature is easy, though I still chose the software GUI for most of my macro setup. Switching between modes is also very, very, very nice. Anyone who plays multiple games or is sick of the windows key will love this feature.
The backlight is bright and non-offensive, plus it's adjustable, which is awesome. I only wish it wasn't red/amber or that is was customizable via software (I'm going to mod mine to blue if I can get the nerve to open this thing up!).
All in all I'm extremely happy with this purchase (from Amazon :)). I have already pre-ordered the X8 gaming mouse, as it is a large improvement over the X5. I'm just not sure I'll be able to wait until February for it!!
Microsoft hit the nail on the head with the sidewinder keyboard, I'm sure the X8 will no disappoint.
WoW Gold on February 25, 2009 at 03:31 PM
This seems cool but I haven't tried it yet. I still rely on my good ol' mouse and keyboard when playing WoW.