FUNC MS-3 Gaming Mouse Review

Rating: 9.0.

Today we are looking at the new gaming mouse from FUNC – the MS3. This mouse targets the high end enthusiast sector and is priced accordingly, around £60 inc vat. The MS-3 uses an Avago Laser sensor which the company claim delivers stable results with a high maximum tracking speed, up to 5,670dpi. The MS-3 is a large wired, 10 button mouse with an ‘instant aim' button and 3 profile onboard memory system. Should this be on your shortlist in 2013?

MS-3 Key points:

• Ergonomically designed Grip Intelligence
• Unique T+4™ thumbzone button placement for more accurate gameplay
• Switch instantly to another dpi holding down the Instant aim™ button
• Carry your settings with you thanks to onboard memory storing up to 3 profiles
• Advanced macro editor records up to 20 actions live
• Adjust your mouse exactly to your gameplay style
• Customizable LED-light system with profile indication
• Built to last with only the best components available
• Plug n play, no need for installations

The MS-3 mouse is shipped in a lovely, understated box with just the name of the product and the logo of the company above it.

The rear of the box shows an overview of the MS-3 mouse, including a high resolution image of the product, shown from a front/side angle.

The front of the box can open, exposing the mouse behind a protective plastic shell. Great for a retail store as the user can see the size of the product, as well as the shape.

The FUNC MS-3 box includes a well written user manual and a software disc.

The MS-3 is a ‘fat' mouse, an intentional design decision by FUNC. The company claim the body is ‘bigger than average' meaning that it will suit North European and North American hands. There is 512kb of memory installed in the mouse to hold settings and the firmware is upgradable to improve performance down the line.

There is a full two year warranty with the mouse, for added peace of mind.

Along the top of the mouse is the scroll wheel button and DPI+ and DPI- buttons. The scroll wheel is as close to perfect as I have experienced. Each notch offers tactile feedback under the index finger, but the movement is very silky, offering only modest resistance. The button at the edge of the right mouse button is the profile switch, easily accessed without having to move the hand.

There is no scroll tilt function on the MS-3. When we asked FUNC, they said “We did not include the scroll tilt function as we found it negatively affects the mechanics of the mouse and increases the chance of the wheel easily breaking. We excluded this to prolong the lifetime of the MS-3.”

The company claim that the design of the mouse took 1.5 years of development.

FUNC are using high grade OMRON switches throughout the mouse to ensure a long life span. The MCU/Processor is the WT6573.

I really do like the finish of the mouse, it maintains a cool temperature when you are using it extensively, and doesn't slip in the hand. The surface can be easily wiped clean after an intensive, sweaty gaming session.

FUNC have this design trademarked, and call it ‘Grip Intelligence'.

The scroll wheel lights up when the mouse is connected to a USB port, as shown above.

The sides of the mouse are wide. One side has four more buttons. The two longer buttons are for ‘backwards' and ‘forwards'. The company have included a small ‘Instant Aim' button close to the front edge of the mouse chassis which would be accessible with the thumb.

The company say “Do you hate those moments when your opponent sneaks up on you from behind and you really need to turn 180° but realize that your sens is set for sniper camping? With the Instant aim button pushed, your dpi is instantly changed as long as you keep the keystroke down.”

This Instant AIM button lights up and can be toggled to instantly increase the DPI during a gaming session. The final button, at the very bottom of the chassis is used to mute audio. Handy if someone is calling you and you can't afford to move your hand off the mouse at all.

This mouse doesn't support a weighting system, but the company claim to have invested a lot of hours into getting the balance right. It weighs 127g (w/o cord) and measures 126.93 x 100.69 x 42.38 mm. We took a picture of the MS-3 (far left) with some of the other leading mice currently available on the market today.

The other side of the mouse has two ridges cut into the chassis and are positions for your pinky finger and inside finger to rest upon. In practice this took me a little while to get used to, but it was quite comfortable and almost perfect for the shape of my hand.

The mouse has four feet underneath to ensure smooth movement on a variety of surfaces. FUNC are using the Avago UGS 9500 sensor which has received positive feedback from the gaming community. The sensor supports resolution settings between 90 dpi and 5,670 dpi.

The mouse supports up to 12,000 frames per second, max acceleration of 5.1m/sec (150 ips), 30g and image processing of 10.6 megapixels/sec. The report rate is also adjustable, right up to 1000hz. We will take a look at the software later in the review.

The FUNC MS-3 ships with a long high quality braided cable which ends in a gold plated USB header.

FUNC supply the software on the supplied disc and it only takes a few seconds to install. No reboot is necessary. It only takes up 10MB on your hard drive, so it would be safe to say that no bloatware is installed.

This is refreshing. No dark, oppressive interface. Just a well laid out, bright attractive UI.

The Basic settings panel covers a lot of the primary settings. You can set up three DPI step parameters, which can be called from the memory on the mouse via the DPI- and DPI+ switches.

The three default DPI settings are 450 dpi/900dpi and 1800 dpi. All quite low, but suited to a wide variety of end user. Those who like a twitchy trigger style mode of gaming will probably need to change these settings to much higher resolution settings.

If you are a tweaking fanatic, then the X&Y resolution settings can be separated. There is also a pointer sensitivity slider, as well as a Double Click speed slider.

FUNC also include a Lift Off Distance slider which can be adjusted between low-mid-high settings. This can help cater to some gamers who may have a different style during gaming.

There are on/off switches for Angle snapping and Pointer Acceleration. There are also polling rate settings, 125hz, 250hz, 500hz and 1000hz. I found 1000hz gave the best responses during my testing although the FUNC software defaults to 500hz. When you apply 1000hz, the software disables and then re-enables the mouse while the settings are updated.

The interface is mostly quite responsive, although there may be a delay or 1 or 2 seconds between some settings as the mouse is updated.

The button assignment panel is fully featured and seemingly bug free in our testing which is quite remarkable for such a new product. There are a plethora of options to fine tune the button configuration if you don't like the default settings. The software includes a backup and restore button for saving groups of settings.

The colour settings panel is also fully featured and the mouse can support any of the 16.8 million colours. Thankfully they have not overlooked the fact that some gamers may not like the lighting and all the LED's can be disabled completely.

The Macro Editor can handle real time recordings and is able to save up to 10 commands in one macro with a total of 60 macros accessible from any profile. All macros recorded are available to all user profiles.

I was impressed with the operation of the software, it seems very stable on 64 bit Windows 7 and didn't crash during several days of testing.

I used the mouse to play a handful of games, including Call of Duty Black Ops, Far Cry 3 and Max Payne 3. Initially I found the size a little cumbersome even though I have large hands. Part of my initial concerns were due to the fact that my two outside fingers are normally resting on the table and with this mouse they are lifted from the surface and positioned into the two ridges on the side of the mouse.

After an hour or so I had adapted more to the shape and found it very comfortable. The Avago laser sensor is highly regarded to track well and I didn't experience any issues during the gaming sessions.

I handed the mouse to a local game clan who passed it around their inner circles for several days. Feedback was generally positive although I was noticing that the reports from some of the physically smaller gamers wasn't quite so positive. The comments ranged from ‘awesome' and ‘very responsive' to ‘too big and clunky' which makes me feel that this mouse is specifically designed for larger men and may prove problematic for people who have small hands.

I am 6ft3 and have big hands and the shape of this mouse seems designed perfectly for my hand, so this would verify these findings. FUNC have already said that they designed this mouse with ‘bigger than average' people in mind, so smaller Asian gamers will probably find a thinner Razer mouse more appealing.

I set up the three profiles with 900 dpi, 1,200 dpi and 1,800 dpi profiles with pointer sensitivity around the 4-5 mark. Lift Off distance was best at ‘mid' level in my testing, although depending on how you play games, this might need tweaked either down, or up.

Almost everyone who had a ‘hands on' with the mouse said that a polling rate of 500hz (default) or 1000hz worked the best, giving the greatest overall experience.

When using Adobe Photoshop I found a dpi of around 1,600 to 2,000 dpi worked well, which is generally the settings I use on any high grade mouse anyway. Pointer movement was smooth without any jerky glitches painfully apparent on some cheaper models I have used in recent months.

The overall experience with this mouse was exceptional. All buttons are in easy to reach places, the software is highly customisable and reasonably quick to respond. We found that the FUNC MS-3 tracked well with a variety of mouse mats from Razer, Steelseries and Roccat. Even a plain wooden table worked well, without delivering a series of tracking concerns.

The FUNC MS-3 is an extremely well built gaming mouse which deserves a lot of attention from the enthusiast audience . The box design alone is a great indication of having spent money on a premium grade product.

The mouse itself is on the ‘porky' side, with extended girth to suit people with larger hands. When I first held the mouse, it was actually as if they had taken a mould of my hand and built a product to suit it. While this is fantastic for me, it might not be so good for female gamers, or physically smaller men.

This was an intentional design decision by FUNC who are clearly trying to cater to an audience who are sometimes forgotten. After all many companies produce mice that are designed by and for the Asian audience. I am a big fan of Razer products, but I do find many of their mice to be very small in my hand and slightly uncomfortable for instance.

Performance of the MS-3 is fantastic and certainly worthy of being labelled a flagship product. I like the soft touch surface which offers a great combination of grip and comfort over long sessions of gaming.

The software is a noticeable plus point for anyone considering the FUNC MS-3 mouse. The interface isn't bogged down with silly design decisions which are often made just to make the user feel as if they are at the bridge controls of the Starship Enterprise. FUNC have opted for a simple, yet highly effective series of white panels which are easy to understand and intuitive to navigate. A few of the settings may take a couple of seconds to upload to the inbuilt memory on the MS-3, but generally it responds well and is very stable.

I am not a user who chases ultra high DPI resolution settings, in fact the highest I generally find useable would be around 3,200 dpi and only in some games. Even with a three screen Eyefinity setup, I find around 2,000-2,400 dpi is more than enough. That said, if you like to push the settings high, then 5,670dpi is available.

It is worth pointing out that this isn't the highest on the market, The TT eSports Black Element has a setting up to 6,500 dpi and the Roccat Kone XTD which we reviewed back in November 2012 has an eye popping setting of 8,200 dpi. Only you can decide if you need more than 5,670 dpi, but I would imagine it will be unlikely. Sensor performance is actually defined by image processing, maximum tracking speed and the tracking abilities on specific surfaces.

While the MS-3 is a high end mouse there are some luxuries which the company have omitted. For instance there is no weight tuning system and you are forced to use the mouse as it is supplied. The reason behind this is simple. FUNC didn't feel the additional manufacturing cost for this would have translated into higher sales for them. Weight tuning systems haven't proven that popular with a wide audience and raising the retail price to accommodate this didn't seem a good move.

At time of publication there are no stores selling the MS-3 although we have been told it will retail for £59.95 inc vat. We will update this page with links, when we get them.

Pros:

• Excellent build quality.
• highly sensitive.
• sized for bigger hands.
• tracks well on a variety of surfaces.
• 2 year warranty.
• great cable design.
• not overloaded with useless gimmicks.

Cons:

• smaller hands may find the girth intimidating.
• A lot of competition at this price.

Kitguru says: A cracking mouse which will suit the larger people out there, like myself!

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