INTRODUCTION

   Having medium sized hands has helped me quite a bit through the years since i can use pretty much every gaming mouse out there for both work and pleasure without having to spend much time in order to get used to it. However the same does not apply to some people i know so to get the ideal grip they are always forced to look for the largest possible gaming mice in the market. Unfortunately that's not very easy since most gaming peripheral companies focus in the design and manufacture of medium sized gaming mice aimed at the majority of consumers. Thankfully exceptions always exist and Mionix is perhaps the only gaming peripheral manufacturer that actually makes and has been making one of the largest gaming mice around for quite some time now. We are of course talking about the NAOS and today we will be testing the fastest model currently available the NAOS 8200 High Performance Gaming Mouse.

   Mionix AB was founded in 2007 by Peter Nygren. The goal was to design and develop high-end computer peripherals made for gamers. The company stands for high quality, cool design and a touch of innovation. Mionix has received numerous of international prizes and awards for their products. Mionix has a global presence with a worldwide network of distributors, resellers and partners. For more information, visit www.mionix.net.

   As mentioned already the NAOS 8200 which we have here with us today is not really the first gaming mouse designed and manufactured by Mionix to bear the name NAOS (the number next to the name stands for the DPI of the sensor used). To be more precise the first NAOS was released back in 2009 (NAOS 5000) followed by the second almost a year later in 2010 (NAOS 3200), the third in late 2012 (NAOS 8200) and the last which we will be taking a look very soon which was released roughly a month ago (NAOS 7000). So when a manufacturer goes in all the trouble to keep updating a specific product to the latest available technology then you can rest assured that they must have done something extremely right. The only question is whether or not the NAOS 8200 High Performance Gaming Mouse is in fact the best and fastest NAOS manufactured by Mionix to date and we are here to verify exactly that.

SPECIFICATIONS AND FEATURES

PACKAGING AND CONTENTS

Exactly like the Avior 8200 the NAOS 8200 gets shipped inside a small box with a product image at the front and the Mionix logo.

A product description is placed at the rear right next to the specifications list while the main features are printed in 12 languages.

Mionix has placed the NAOS 8200 behind a clear plastic cover.

Once again the bundle only contains the basics and so along with the NAOS 8200 you are also getting the user's manual and a Mionix logo sticker (ours was stuck in the manual so it didn't fall off).

THE NAOS 8200

The housing of the NAOS 8200 is dressed with a very nice rubber coating and measures 130.84mm in length, 84.72mm in width and 38.67mm in height with a weight of 99g.

Two programmable buttons and the DPI selection indicator are placed on the left side.

Once again Mionix has placed their logo at the rear end of the mouse.

The DPI selection buttons are placed at the top and are also fully programmable (here you can easily notice how the rubber coating gets when you touch it).

One of the things i always liked with the NAOS series is the very large pinky rest on the right side which helps improve the grip.

Rubber coating is also applied on the clickable scroll wheel.

The 2m long braided cable has a gold plated USB plug at the end.

A total of 4 PTFE (Polytetrafluoroethylene) feet are placed at the base of the NAOS 8200.

The NAOS 8200 wears the very successful ADNS-9800 laser sensor by Avago industries (8200DPI/12000FPS/150IPS/30G/10.8MP).

CONTROL SOFTWARE

You should always download the latest software version and to do that you will need to head to the official Mionix support page as seen above.

Just like the Avior and most gaming mice released by Mionix the control software is quite unique. As always from here you can program all of the 7 available buttons, set the polling rate, adjust the speed of the double click/scroll, allows you to create macros, adjust the illumination effects and gives you the option to set the DPI for all 5 available profiles but it also gives the end user the ability to configure the lift-distance and also to analyze the quality of the surface used to see just how good it is.

From the color settings screen you can choose either all 4 zones or one specific one to play with and you can of course also choose the desired color and effect.

CONCLUSION

   I had my very first encounter with an NAOS gaming mouse back in 2009 with the 5000 version and although since then i must have used at least 50 other models i still remember that one mainly because of its design and control software. Of course having medium hands means that the NAOS housing used with the NAOS models is a much better fit than the ones used in most gaming mice so that could also be a reason. Needless to say that if you have small hands then you shouldn't turn towards the NAOS 8200 regardless that however i still think that Mionix managed to design one of the best housings offering impressive grip, glide and comfort so i see no reason for them to change that and since they've kept updating it for the past 4 years i think they feel the same as i. Moving to the blazing fast and accurate Avago ADNS-9800 laser sensor i can't say it's something new since we've used quite a few models with it in the past but this time over it seems to be a much better match thanks to the large housing of the NAOS 8200. The control panel will impress most people with the vast number of settings you can play around with and still offers some unique features like the Surface Quality Analyzer Tool (up till this day i still don't know if it ever goes up to 100%).

   A high performance gaming mouse certainly can't come cheap but the NAOS 8200 with its price tag of USD89.99 inside the USA (Amazon.com) and 73Euros inside the EU (Amazon.co.uk) seems to ignore that "rule". Now I’m not saying that the price Mionix asks for the NAOS 8200 is not set somewhat high but in the end after taking into account what you are getting for your money (large high quality housing with excellent grip, blazing fast speed and extreme accuracy) i think they are asking for the right price. Perhaps the only thing I’d like to see with the NAOS 8200 would be a adjustable weight system but even without that the grip is excellent. Overall the Mionix NAOS 8200 is amongst the 5 best gaming mice I’ve ever used just like the NAOS 5000 was back in 2009 and because of that it gets our Platinum Award.

PROS

- Build Quality
- Design/Size (Ideal For Medium/Large Hands)
- Accuracy/Grip (4 Rubber Coat Layers)
- 8200DPI Avago ADNS-9800 Laser Sensor
- Surface Quality Analyzer
- 128kb Onboard Memory
- 7 Programmable Buttons
- 5 Profiles
- Illumination Control (4 Different Zones)
- Braided Cable With Gold Plated USB Connector 

CONS

- Price (For Some)