Thermaltake Tt eSPORTS Black Element Gaming Mouse

Posted by Lvcoyote on July 5th, 2011

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The guys at Thermaltake USA in Southern California were kind enough to send along the Tt eSPORTS Black Element Gaming Mouse for us to check out. We have done several reviews lately of the Tt eSPORTS gaming products as the product line continues to grow and offer an ever increasing list of options for today’s gamer. So, lets have a look at this high end gaming mouse and all it’s attributes.

First though, a little about Tt eSPORTS,

Headquartered in Taiwan, Thermaltake, and thus Tt eSPORTS, have a strong global presence with several locations in South America, the USA, Japan, Australia, and Europe. Founded in 1999, Thermaltake has been at the forefront of thermal solutions since day one.

As their product lines have expanded from thermal solutions to encompass Chassis, Power Supplies, Storage Accessories, Server Products and a diverse line of computer accessories, the Thermaltake brand has rapidly become a well known name in the computing industry.

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Let’s start off by exploring the outside of the box the Black Element Gaming Mouse is packaged in. The normal red and black Tt eSPORTS colors are present and accounted for. In fact, as we have done a couple reviews of the Tt eSPORTS gaming mice, they all appear to use the same boxing method.

The front of the box has a flashy picture of the top of the mouse with some branding and logos that mention a few of the features available. The box sides have only some branding incorporated on a red background. The back of the box is decked out with additional branding and a multilingual explanation of a few of the most pertinent features.

The face of the box opens much like a book cover to reveal the mouse securely encased in a plastic shell on the right side, and the inside of the cover has several pictures outlining additional features of the Black Element Gaming Mouse.

Removing the plastic casing from the box will reveal a nice nylon storage pouch, the warranty policy (2 Year) and quick installation guide. Inside the plastic envelope that houses the pamphlets is also a target decal and a Tt eSPORTS sticker. Also included in the envelope is the driver and software application CD. Turning the plastic shell over and removing the shell’s clear cover will allow access to the Black Element Gaming Mouse itself.

As usual with any Thermaltake product line, the packaging is informative, appealing and does an excellent job of protecting the contents.

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Before we get too much deeper in to this review, we should probably give the feature and specification list.

Obviously the Black Element Gaming Mouse does not lack in available features and the lists of specifications is quite impressive.

As we zero in for a closer look at the Black Element Gaming Mouse, the first thing noticed is the rubber coating over the entire outer surface of the mouse, yes…. even the sides! The cable measures 1.8m in length and is fully braided. The top of the mouse has the scroll wheel, which has pronounced gear like teeth on it providing an excellent grip. Just below the scroll wheel are two buttons which are factory set to change the DPI settings. The main right and left buttons are grooved and provide a comfortable surface for your fingers to reside while using the mouse.

On the left side of the mouse, you will find an additional three programmable buttons along with a light strip extending from the rear of the button cavity to the back of the mouse. The right side of the mouse has one more programmable button and another light strip which is identical to the strip on the left side. The lighting on the side strips, scroll wheel and the Tt logo can be changed to any of five available colors. Color options include red, light blue, dark blue, green and a purple/pinkish color. The Tt logo light features a fade-in/fade out function as well. Additionally, you are able to completely eliminate all lighting functions through the GUI software.

Moving to the bottom of the mouse we are able to see the four Teflon feet which provide a very nice, smooth feel as the mouse is guided over your pad. Also at the bottom is the 6500DPI sensor which features 1000Hz polling.Finally, at the bottom area of the mouse you will find a removable cover which houses the Weight-In system. This system is comprised of a rubber block, which holds the five 4.5g round weights. These weights can be used in any combination or none at all. The Weight-In feature allows any user to customize the feel of the mouse to their own liking.

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The included CD has both the drivers and GUI software for customizing the mouse functions. You will not find any game integration presets, however, which was a bit of a disappointment. To be honest, we found the GUI software to be a pretty basic affair with even simple text over the option buttons missing. However, if you “Mouse-Over” the option buttons, a description will pop up.

The main screen that loads when the GUI is started is where you begin the customizations starting with the five available profiles. In order to make a profile, simply assign a function to all of the “T” options and save it. You can program all nine buttons, but we assume that the scroll wheel and left click/right click buttons would be left alone.. Any of the mouse buttons can be set to perform a Macro function as well.

Clicking on the gear like icon on the lower left of the main screen will take you to the “Performance Adjust” screen.Â This is where you set your DPI values, polling rate, DPI levels, double click speed and scroll speed. The DPI has four level options to choose from, 800/1600/3200/6500, or you can manually change the DPI anywhere from 100 to 6500 for both the X and Y axis. The polling rate has three available options 125Hz/500Hz/1000Hz at your disposal.

Again, from the main screen, if you click on the light bulb icon, you land on the LED lighting options window. Here you can turn the lighting on or off, change the colors and control the scroll wheel, light pipes and Tt logo independently of each other. As mentioned earlier, the color options are red, light blue, dark blue, green and what can be best described as a purple/pinkish color.

Setting any of the “T” buttons to “Macro Key” and then pressing the button will pop up the Macro recording window.Â From here you can create a Macro of repetitive mouse actions which allows you to use a single press of the assigned key to perform the actions you have recorded to the Macro.

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Ok, so how does this mouse feel when gaming and for general use? Actually pretty darn good! The fluid feel while dragging the mouse over a pad is no doubt due to the use of the four large Teflon feet. The use of Omron main button switches will go a long way as far as durability is concerned as they are rated for an insane 5 million clicks. The software bundled with the Black Element Mouse will take some time to set up and fine tune to your liking, but once that is complete you will find that the software works as intended. Hopefully, in the future, Tt eSPORTS will see fit to include some automatic game integration or even some pre-sets for popular games.

The mouse is advertised as excelling at either MMORPG and RTS type gaming and it does perform quite well in those situations. We also tried a couple of FPS games and the mouse performed just as well in those situations. The Weight-In feature gave us the ability to set the mouse at an optimal comfort level and thus giving us a confident feel as we navigated through a gaming session. Using the software’s performance adjust feature we were able to dial in the Black Element Gaming Mouse just the way we like it….. Precision and accuracy!

The Thermaltake Tt eSPORTS Gaming Mouse certainly does not lack in the design quality and looks category. Everything from the Pause/Break Lighting system, the light bars down each side to the fully rubberized finish, the Black Element is a unique and well designed piece of hardware. If you are in the market for a high end gaming mouse that has a lot of flare and works extremely well under every game situation we could throw at it, then the eSPORTS Black Element needs to be seriously considered as the next weapon in your gaming arsenal.

At the time of this review, the Black Element sells for around $69.00 USD and at that price we feel it is an excellent value.

Pros