INTRODUCTION

   I've always enjoyed playing strategy games (ever since the original Warcraft and Command & Conquer RTS back in the mid 90's) and that goes double for space ones (like Homeworld, Haegemonia and Sins Of a Solar Empire) so since lately we've been on the receiving end of several such titles (including Polaris Sector, Fleets Of Sol, Nomad Fleet and more importantly Ashes Of The Singularity and Battlefeet Gothic Armada) once again i decided to spend extra time testing gaming peripherals like keyboards, mice, headsets and even a few mouse pads. Now as many of you know it's been quite a while since i had anything by QPAD on my desk so we got quite a few things from them to test with the mentioned titles including the brand new DX-20 Pro Gaming Optical Mouse.

   QPAD built its success on a grassroots commitment to the gaming community. Like you, we thrive in the madness of competition and embrace the free spirit of gaming. Our sponsorship of the Q Tour, King of Nordic, events, communities, cups, tournaments, teams and LAN parties reflects this commitment. The knowledge we've gained has fed into our development of high quality products that deliver great performance and given many a winning edge.

   If you've been around for as long as i and some of the guys here have then you should remember the ergonomic Intellimouse 1.1 mouse by Microsoft released back in early 2000. Microsoft gained a serious following because of that particular line (that's also why they updated it a few times) so it was really just a matter of time before that specific design (overall) would also be used by several other brands in the market including SteelSeries (Sensei), Zowie (FK1) and others. The design of the DX-20 Pro Gaming Optical Mouse is also based on that of the Intellimouse 1.1 but everything inside reflects the best of what the industry has to offer today. So under the hood we find an Pixart/Avago PMW-3320 optical sensor (3500CPI/80IPS/20G/3.6MPS/5300FPS), ARM Cortex M3 32-bit processor, 128kb of onboard memory (used to store profiles) and OMRON switches for the primary buttons (rated for up to 10 million clicks). The DX-20 Pro Gaming Optical Mouse also features a thin layer of rubber coating (for improved grip), total of 7 fully programmable buttons and RGB (16.7 million colors) illumination system. The specifications sheet sounds promising so let's not waste more time in introductions.