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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.
