Cooler Master Spawn - Designed to Fit

As the number of PC gamers in the country increase, there’s inadvertently an interest in performance mice, as well. Brands such as Razer and Logitech have been around a long time and made a base in the country. Cooler Master, best known for their PC chassis’ and power supplies have branched out.

A wide mouse, which might not go down well with claw-style gamers

Their newest gaming mouse, Spawn falls under the Storm branding which is meant for products oriented towards gamers. With a number of gaming mice in the market, each boasting about superior sensor resolutions and refresh rates, the Spawn has to bring something seriously impressive to table to stand out from the rest.

Features

The Cooler Master uses a 3500 DPI optical sensor, which can be switched to 800, 1800 and 3500 DPI. The sensitivity switch option is common on most mice. However, there is no feature to tweak the DPI steps. For example, users can’t choose to drop to say 1600 DPI instead of 1800 if they wanted to. This is something that’s found on most mice. To change the sensitivity itself, you’ll have to depend on either the Windows mouse sensitivity settings or the one in the game.

The Spawn has 7 buttons which includes the two DPI switch buttons, the back and forward buttons on one side and the of course, the third scroll click. Like many of the high-performance mice, a refresh rate of 1000 Hz is supported, which is handy for quick reactions. Most gamers prefer to use the refresh rate as high as 1000 Hz or 500 Hz.

The drivers aren’t complicated at all if you compare it to a typical high-end gaming mouse driver. The interface is spaced out and the key features are slotted into separate tabs. The mouse comes with 32 KB of internal memory to store settings. Like all mice that have the internal storage feature, the settings take sometime to save the settings. 

Design and Build Quality

One of the things that makes the Spawn different from other mice is its design. While every manufacturers will make some changes to the shape and design of the mouse, the changes are always subtle. Cooler Master has changed the shape quite a bit to accommodate the palm of your hand batter. 

Rubberized finish that makes the mouse easy to grip

Those who adopt the claw-style of holding the mouse are going to find this difficult to hold between the thumb and the little finger due to the mouse being pretty wide. Those who like to rest their palm on their gaming will find this much more comfortable. If you have long fingers, you might find your pinky finger sticking out rubbing against the surface of the table, but otherwise you’re bound to find he mouse very comfortable to use. Since the mouse is so light, there isn’t the need for too much of physical effort to move the mouse about. The fact that the Spawn has two large teflon feet helps.

Not the best quality buttons

There are no glossy surfaces on this mouse except except for a narrow strip of plastic that runs around the mouse click buttons, so the mouse is a tad more comfortable to use. There are rubberised surfaces which help grip the mouse well. The quality of the mouse buttons isn’t so great. The primary mouse clicks offer the same level of resistance and fluid motion as some of the Razer mice, but the side buttons and the sensitivity switch buttons have a cheaper feel to them. 

Performance

Being a gaming mouse, we put it through its paces in games such as Quake 3, Counter Strike: Source, Team Fortress 2 and Battlefield: Bad Company 2. The mouse tracked flawlessly without any signs of skipping. Performance at all the DPI levels were good, although we preferred setting the sensor sensitivity at 1800 DPI and accordingly changing the game sensitivity settings separately. Switching between DPI profiles is easy and almost instantaneous. Most gamers will agree that moving from one gaming mouse to another does take a while adjusting to. Having used a Logitech MX518 and Razer Imperator for the long period, adjusting to the Spawn was not a problem. 

Cooler Master Spawn - an ergonomically designed mouse for gamers

Verdict

Cooler Master sells the product for a MRP of Rs. 2,999 but you can also buy it in the market for around Rs. 2,300, which is cheaper than the popular Razer Imperator mouse but around the same price as the Razer Deathadder, which is a popular choice in the same price bracket. If you’re looking for a mouse in this price range and you rest your palm on your mouse, then this is one of the better, affordable gaming mice to own.