The latest trend in PC hardware has been previously component-only companies like Asus, MSI, and NZXT getting into markets they had nothing to do with before. The results have been mixed, of course: the early Eee PCs were kind of chintzy, MSI has struggled with price points and brand differentiation, and NZXT’s Avatar mouse was unique but flawed. But it’s exciting and it adds to hardware diversity, which I think is a good thing. And now Cooler Master, maker of excellent PC cases, is putting out a gaming mouse and some other stuff.
These first forays into the human interface world are often fraught with design flaws, though this “Storm Sentinel” looks pretty decent. The lighting effects say to me “LAN party mouse” — it’ll shoot light out the front when you click, apparently. It’s got weights, a dual-laser sensor, and independently-adjustable X and Y DPIs displayed on a little OLED screen there on the top of the mouse.
Personally I’ll be sticking with my Razer or Logitech for now (years of expertise pay off), but if these hardware companies end up really committing to their mice and keyboards, I’m sure they’ll have some serious contenders coming out soon. More info about the Storm Sentinel will be coming out at Computex.