Reviews Roccat Leadr Review

I'd be interested to know how this compares to other, cheaper, wireless mice like the Logitech M705 - can this one really be worth the 4x price premium? I suppose that device availability will always be an issue though - people will always be keen to send the top-tier devices over!

 

Yeah, flagship devices rule the ranks, unfortunately. Are they 4 times as good as cheaper ones? Probably not, would I use a M705 as my main mouse though? Nope. The sensor on them is very basic and it actually feels rather cheap. The mouse wheel is a little.... dodgy (it feels loose) and there are very few buttons. The best thing about it? Well, the battery life, they last around 8 months lol. There is a visible lag whilst using it too, or was whilst paired with my HTPC.

 

This looks like as close to perfect as I can think of in a mouse, if it wasn't for what appears to be blue LEDs in the charging dock. Well, that and the software issue; impossible to remove bloat is a total no-no. But a tilt function that isn't built into the wheel? Sold. I might even put up with stupid bloat software for a feature like that.

Question; can you 'set the mouse up', then uninstall the software and have everything still work? Or better yet, have everything 'just work' on another system? That was one of the things I liked about a couple of the Logitech mice I've tried.

On the Logitech M705 front... I bought one at end of 2013, beginning of 2014 and it's starting to show it's age a little... the right click button now works basically one out of three goes and the scroll wheel is... erratic. I bought a replacement recently but the build quality is absolutely atrocious in comparison to the older version. Buttons are louder with a slight rattle on release, mouse wheel wobbles terribly. The sensor might not be the best, but on my favoured mousemat it is pretty well behaved, no skips or jumps or refusals to track correctly, which is more than I can say for my old G700 which got horribly fussy as a batteries got lower. It lags badly if the receiver is too far away, but as I use mine with a laptop, it's rarely more than a few inches away from it.

 

I don't think you can use the on board memory for profiles, but I will test this out later and see. I will also check if you can remove the software, but I am unsure if it will save the changes made. We have sent the reveiw to our Roccat rep too, so no doubt they will give us information on the issues with the software. In all honesty, the problems are only problems because they have tried to give us extra. If they just removed the features that don't work, I don't think anyone would mind. I would prefer them not there than being there and not work though.

 

Thank you.

 

How far is the wireless range on this? Could you use it with a HTPC and have it as an alternative to a wireless keyboard/trackpad alternative?

 

I tested up to around 3 meters, but I will see if I can go any further. The issue is, after that I am outside my office and cannot see the screen so I will have to grab someone to tell me when the mouse stops working