10,000 DPI, 16.8 Million Colors and…$50? Corsair Sabre RGB 10K DPI – Second Look

Jan 2, 2017

Back in May of 2016, Managing and Tech Group Editor Agasicles Stamas gave his initial impressions and wrote our formal review of the Corsair Sabre RGB 10K DPI Gaming Mouse. I recently also got my hands on one and wanted to submit this second opinion.

Gaming mice are hard to make different from one another these days.  DPI, RGP, Claw or Palm Grip, 8-buttons or more, mice for gamers have grown into a hotly contested market, with options for anyone at just about any price point.

Today I’m taking a test drive with the Corsair Saber RGB gaming mouse.  Coming in at $50, 8 buttons and a DPI setting all the way up to 10,000, this mouse hits an interesting spot for me.

Looking at the packaging, you can quickly see that this is a more budget conscience mouse.  It has the flap to display and show off the mouse while it’s on the shelf at Fry’s, but once opened, it doesn’t house a lot of extra items.  Inside, we find the mouse, with its 1.8-meter braided cable, the warranty guide and quick start guide.

Taking a physical tour of the mouse, you can see the ergonomics here are geared more towards someone with a wider grip, which may or may not fit your liking.  It has 8 buttons, all of which are programmable.  The two buttons for thumb feel nice and default to front or back.  The buttons on the left edge of the left click, right next to one of four RGB lighting zones, defaults to quick changes for your DPI settings, giving you 5 customizable levels to switch between on the fly.  The afore mentioned light is color coded to the different DPI settings, so you can know based off the visual queue what DPI setting you are currently using.

The right and left click feel nice, although maybe a little soft, and the entire mouse has this rubberized feel, although at $50 I don’t think it’s an actual rubberized coating.  After playing some Overwatch for a few hours, I noticed that my hand, and sub-sequentially the mouse, was still relatively dry and free from sweat. As someone who sweats pretty easily, this was an impressive feat to me considering the price point and material options available at it.

Looking at the bottom of the mouse you see our sensor, and 3 well placed placed mouse feet that make gliding around on my cloth surface smooth as butter.  One of the feet is a single strip, that dives down through the middle of the mouse, but only partially covers the length of the mouse’s underside. The location of the single strip is interesting to me, but after using it and getting a feel for how it sits in my hand, I do understand it.  The real jewel of this piece of kit, though, is the updated optical sensor at up to 10,000 DPI with the mouse itself having a 1000 Hz polling rate, adjustable down to 125 Hz if you’d like.

The other three RGB lighting zones are the Corsair logo at the palm of the mouse, the scroll wheel and this front zone that acts like, what I could best describe as, a head light.  Another interesting design detail to note while up front, is that the cable for the mouse comes out of the right mouse button, not dead center.  This worked out well for me and my current set up, as the computer sits to my right and so my cables naturally go that way.  For someone with their computer on the left, this might be an annoyance.  Speaking of left, this is a right handed only mouse, leaving left handed folk to look for another offering from Corsair.  This doesn’t effect me personally, but I understand that there is a large enough population of left handed people that it does matter overall.  This was a design choice, and one that, at the price, doesn’t surprise me completely.

As I mentioned earlier, the cable itself is nicely braided, with plenty of flex and give while not dragging or snagging on anything on my desk.  It’s a reasonable 1.8 meters long, which should be good for most people.

Jumping into the software itself, the Corsair Utility Engine, you can see that there is lots of room for customization.  With the option to create macros and map the mouse clicks to anything you’d like, the software side of the mouse gets the basics done well, in what appears to be a great piece of software from Corsair.

When looking at the lighting effects of the mouse, you will notice that the only three zones that we have any real control over are the palm logo, the scroll wheel and the head light.  From here, you can set them to the basic assortment of effects, with Corsair’s 16.8 million color combinations.  In my experience, the color accuracy seems good.  The only way to change the fourth lighting zone, the one dedicated to the DPI visual indication, is to change it for the DPI setting being used.  That said, the lighting on the Corsair Sabre does leave something to be desired, as there isn’t enough to stand out on it’s own, and feels like it’s there because Corsair felt they needed to find a way to add in RGB lighting on this mouse for more than just the logo.

Finally, the addition of being able to turn on angle snapping and enhanced pointer precision are there, although I found that I didn’t have a need for them.  The idea of taking what’s already a great sensor on the mouse and trying to mess with it by adding in additional software effects just seems wasted, at least on me.

Playing Overwatch, my game of choice these days, this mouse did really well.  It was responsive, snappy and accurate, even at the default DPI setting of 1500.  This mouse is undoubtedly for FPS gamers.  Weighing in at only 100 Grams, this mouse is very light, making snap moves effortless.  In fact, too effortless.  Coming from the Corsair M65 on another computer, the weight of the Sabre is too light for my personal liking.  After using the Razer Mamba (2012) for so long, and then the Corsair M65, both of which are heavier, I’ve had a hard time adjusting to the weight of the mouse.

The other thing that I’ve had a hard time adjusting to and don’t care for is the ergonomic design.  Interestingly, the M65 is pretty close in form factor, but the lack of anything on the pinky side of the hand makes the M65 a much more comfortable mouse in my opinion.

For me, the mouse hits a weird place.  On the one hand, I have zero complaints about the design, execution or the capabilities of the mouse.  For $50, it might be the best mouse you can get, though I’ve got a lot more mice to test to know for sure.  But on the other hand, I’m not a fan of how light the mouse is or how it fits in my hand.  For my money though, I do think that I’m going to end up returning this and taking a look at another mouse.  I had considered taking a look at the cheaper Corsair Harpoon, based on the design alone, but knowing that the Harpoon is even lighter than the Sabre, I probably won’t be taking a look at that after all.  Do you have a favorite mouse you’re using that cost about $50?  If so, let me know so I can take a test drive with it, too.