KitGuru KitGuru.net – Tech News | Hardware News | Hardware Reviews | IOS | Mobile | Gaming | Graphics Cards
To test the ASUS Sica mouse and Whetstone pad, we spent a couple of weeks using them as our chosen gaming and general working mouse and mat combination. It was tested with a number of games in different genres, used for 10+ hours a day.
ASUS Sica gaming mouse
When it comes to gaming, the Sica delivers a first class experience. It is light and fast and thanks to its high quality Pixart PMW3310 optical sensor, it is wonderfully accurate too. I found it performed at best in faster paced shooters and RTS titles, mostly due to its light-weight and overall speed making it feel more at home there.
It works absolutely fine in turn based titles or ones that do not require urgency, but due to its lack of a DPI switch key, if you want to drop the sensitivity before starting such a game you will need to do so in the back-end software.
The back end ROG Armory offers some simple remapping, though there are no additional buttons beyond the three front ones
I love the ambidextrous shape of the Sica and it is built to very high standards.
Grip is excellent – it does a good job of keeping your fingers and thumbs in the right places, though I do wonder why the rubber coating on the side is placed so far back. Although this mouse is built with claw and finger grip gamers in mind, I never hold my thumb quite as far back as this mouse suggests. Would it have been much trouble to extend the rubber grip further along the mouse sides to cater for gamers like me?
I have yet to find my hand slipping off during a sweaty gaming session, but a bit of rubber is always preferable to plastic when it comes to grip and control.
I like that once again ASUS has given users the chance to change their switches and mouse feet on the Sica, though unlike the Gladius we reviewed last year, this mouse does not ship with replacements in the box.
Performance options are relatively simple, with no DPI steps of switch capabilities. Lighting is limited to on or off, with choices of brightness
I do wonder if the slightly elevated feet adds a little to movement drag. It is not particularly pronounced, or something that seems to impact performance, but if you listen and feel closely during the mouse's movement back and forth, there is definitely more friction occurring than most mice I test. That said, The Sica is a comfortable piece of kit to use for hours on end. At no point did it feel like it contributed to hand fatigue in a way that could become uncomfortable.
Like most optical mice, the Sica is best when used on a mouse mat, though it works equally well on aluminium as it does on cloth.
Whetstone Mouse Pad
The Whetstone is an interesting mouse mat, as from the get go you notice that it is quite different from most. Instead of having a flat surface, its is pitted with rivulets in a ‘Mayan' style … as ASUS puts it. Fortunately this does not negatively impact tracking at all and in-fact seems to work very well in terms of picking up a variety of sensors, whether they are optical or laser.
Indeed I found it a nice mat to game on for the most part, even though I personally prefer a slightly thicker pad to cushion the wrist more.
Getting the most grip from the Whetstone takes a little time initially. When it is removed from the box, it is important to counter roll it tightly 4 or 5 times so the pad will lie perfectly flat on the desk.
When perfectly flat, the pad has fantastic grip – far greater than that of other mouse mats. I can't help but feel that shipping the Whetstone in a flat box would be a better move for ASUS as it would mean you could use the mat immediately without the need for this initial ‘counter rolling' procedure.
It is also worth mentioning that at just over 32 x 27cm, this is not a large pad, so this is not one for low sensitivity gamers.
