Steelseries Rival 500 Gaming Mouse Review

Up Close

The Rival 500 is a right handed only mouse that has plenty to attract the eye. The main body is shaped in a matte plastic with heavily textured rubber sides, enabling it to be as tightly controlled whether you are a claw style gamer or a palm style. We’ve always preferred the palm style, but there is no doubt the claw style works here too. Just like the sides the scroll wheel is also highly textured rubber, with enough notches to allow you to cycle through accurately yet without documented scrolling sounding like you’ve put a playing card in the spokes of your bicycle. 

Button placement is the star of the show though. So often with MMO mice they look like regular mice but with an old Nokia 3310 strapped to the side. The Rival 500 eschews this design ethos though and goes for a circular arrangement of buttons. Each are differently shaped ensuring you can find the correct one in the heat of battle, whilst the switch on the underside of the Rival 500 disables the bottom two, so if you’re the type of gamer with a ‘heavy thumb’ then you wont keep clicking things you don’t want. The button design is a revelation.