NZXT's new Avatar mouse: license to pwn
Avatar: the no-more-excuses gaming mouse.
(Credit: NZXT)It's always been my pet peeve in gaming when the guy on the other side blames the equipment (i.e. "I have bad lag" or "my mouse skips") for his defeat, making my pwnage a little less glorious. Well, get a new mouse, I say.
And not just any mouse, a good gaming mouse.
NZXT, a company that makes accessories for gamers, released on Monday the newest of those mice. Called Avatar, the mouse is designed to provide gamers with significant enhancements in gaming with a few breakthrough features.
First, it sports a 2600dpi optical sensor, providing maximum sensitivity and responsiveness to yield unparalleled onscreen accuracy. To put this in context, most optical mice have a sensor with 1000dpi or less. The Avatar also has an LED dpi indicator that gives the user improved usage and feedback. It also incorporates a four-speed dpi switch that enables you to go from slow movement--perfect for sniping--to quick attack movement in a matter of seconds.
Secondly, the Avatar comes with a great deal of customization. It has seven programmable keys that can be assigned specific functions to accomodate different genres of games such as first-person shooter, real-time strategy, or MMORP all within the macro and profile settings.
Last but not least, the Avatar boasts a very ergonomic design that allows for hours of continuous play. It's also simple to install: all you need to do is plug it into any available USB port.
This sounds like a great gaming mouse. There's a catch though: it's not cheap. You can get the Avatar now for about $60, which is relatively hefty considering you can get a regular optical mouse for one-third the price or even less. However, glorious victories or honorable defeats never come cheap. You should know that by now!
Dong Ngo is a CNET editor who covers networking and network storage, and writes about anything else he finds interesting. You can also listen to his podcast at insidecnetlabs.cnet.com. E-mail Dong. 
