Sandio 3D O2 Gaming Mouse - First Impressions and First Look

First Impressions:

Below is a list of items included in this package.

• Mouse
• Wrist support fin
• 2x manual
• Driver CD

Opening Box

6 Degrees of Freedom

Before I go any further I'd like to take a moment to say that I was very impressed with the box that the Sandio 3D O2 mouse came in. It had a nice design, and was held closed by a couple of magnets that were easy enough to pull apart but also held the box closed adequately. The lid opened up to reveal the Sandio Tech mouse and its removable wrist support fin in a nice display.

In The Box

Mouse Profile

To get at the mouse, the hard plastic cover is held down only by 2 pieces of tape at the front and back making it easy to access, open and get at the mouse itself. On a side note the outside of the box was also packed full with features, specifications, and random information pertaining to the gem inside.

Manual and Software

Wrist Rest

I'm used to big ol' mice like my Logitech G5 mouse so the switch from that to the Sandio Tech mouse was not a problem, but going down, everything else will seem quite small, even the G5. However for those who like the low profile mice like the Razor mouse Zeus recently reviewed (over here) a big mouse may be a stretch that could take some time to get used to.

Even with the advantage of being used to large mice, when I first placed my hand over the mouse it felt weird. Instead of my thumb and forefinger resting on the smooth side of the mouse, they came in contact with 2 rubbery pads on top of the two side joysticks.  It forced me to use all five of my precious fingers to reach the three joysticks and both regular mouse buttons. Also, instead of my pointer finger reaching the scroll button, the middle finger that rested on top of the top joystick took that job.

At 80 inches I found the cord to be more than long enough for my needs and plenty long enough to reach even the hardest of places with a comfortable slack on the mouse. The removable wrist support was an added bonus as well, I usually kept it off, but for those worried about carpal tunnel syndrome the wrist support fin is a necessity.

First plugged in, the mouse lights up like a Christmas tree, a soft blue glow is very noticeable behind each joystick and the DPI setting's color visual adds to the array with one of three colors of its own. This display stays on even when the computer is off, and even though it is a soft glow, it acts like a “night light” and could get annoying for one who is a total darkness sleeper. Unfortunately I was not able to get any pictures to display the light but I can tell you it is there.

As mentioned above, the DPI setting has a color visual through the scroll wheel to represent four different DPI settings. The lowest DPI setting (400) had no color, just a regular blank scroll wheel. The next DPI setting (800) was red, 1200 had blue, and 2000 got purple. Interestingly enough, purple is the combination of red and blue, and if you look closely enough at the purple you can actually see the red and blue color separated from each other just off to the side of the purple color. I thought that was neat.

One more thing I'd like to mention is during my testing period, I tried this mouse out with several different materials:

• Normal table surface
• Steel Series Steel Pad 5L
• Steel Series I-2 Experience glass mousepad.
  

All of these materials worked well except for the glass mouse pad. For some odd reason, it found the glass very hard to track on. If I moved the mouse very slowly over the glass it would track OK, but as soon as I moved it any faster than a snail's pace, it would skip and the mouse pointer would not move at all.