Cooler Master Storm Sentinel Advance Review

[Jester]

Dominate the competition and strike fear in your foes with the latest CM Storm Tech - The Sentinel Advance.

The ultimate gaming mouse. Since all of the information I posted is gone (it was posted on the old GND and the old EVGA website), I decided to do a full review here. This high performance mouse is targeted towards gamers, even the hardcore gamers who can do more than just point and shoot. Official description...

This technological marvel utilizes the latest innovations in cutting-edge technology: 5600 DPI twin laser, rapid fire mode, internal Sentinel-X™ memory and our patented security, Storm Guard™; The Sentinel Advance is designed for one purpose and one purpose only - to search and destroy.Overpower your enemies with speed and precision beyond their imagination. Conquest is at your fingertips - Sentinel Advance.

So what does this mean? Aside from dual lasers, mind blowing DPI settings (speed), 8 buttons, great aesthetics, and lots of customization, this mouse also supports all kinds of technology such as macro scripting, key binding, and configurable buttons. Lets dig a bit deeper to find out more.

What is Cooler Master "Storm"?

Storm is a series of products from Cooler Master dedicated to gaming. They have Storm cases, the Storm Scout and Storm Sniper (and several special editions of each case). Both of which are very innovative and the best in their class (the Storm Sniper ranks #1 mid tower case on the market in my book). They also have Storm designated mouse pads, featuring a rubber base, heat treatment, and top of the line materials. Some use Duracloth, which is weaved meticulously tight to provide pinpoint precision and highly responsive tracking. Others use H2Glide cloth, which is weaved especially to provide a perfect balance between tracking control and speed. I wouldn't be surprised if the Storm Sentinel Advance works best on these mouse pads, I'll update this thread when I get such a mouse pad.

PACKAGING

The packaging of a product is very important. It should protect the contents inside from any kind of abuse, and it should attract attention. Including accessories is a nice thing to do as well. Fortunately, Cooler Master does all of this with the Storm Sentinel Advance gaming mouse.

Included with the mouse is a small DVD that includes driver software for advanced configuration (not mandatory), and a PCI expansion slot which allows you to run wires through to slow down thieves at a LAN party.

The software is saved to its own directory. Mine is located here, so yours will be in a similar location.

C:\Program Files (x86)\Cooler Master\STORM

This directory includes the driver software, a very highly detailed PDF manual, amongst other things.

APPEARANCE

Rest your eyes upon the Cooler Master Storm Sentinel Advance. It won't bite, I promise.




Here it is, staring you right in the face.

The first things that stand out are the LEDs. Red. This color is becoming quite popular these days. AMD/ATI perhaps started it with their video cards. EVGA used this color on their GT200 series video cards (and the G92b refresh GTS 250). Cooler Master uses it on several cases (Cosmos S, HAF 932, Storm Scout). If you don't like red, don't worry. You have plenty of other options to choose from. More on that later.

In the center of the mouse is an LED screen that displays the current DPI settings (X-axis and Y-axis). There is a small piece of plastic covering the screen, I recommend taking it off.

The Storm Sentinel Advance is constructed out of a non-slip, comfortable, yet durable polymer material. The mouse has configurable weight. You can open up the bottom of the mouse to remove weights. It comes with five 4.5gm weights. The cable is completely sleeved in a very nice material. It works on a variety of surfaces, the preferred surface is a soft mouse pad (surprise?). Cooler Master has their own mouse pads as well, some of which fall under the Storm category.

As I said earlier, this mouse has 8 buttons. Left click, right click, middle scroll button, three little buttons on the top of the mouse, and two on the left side of the mouse. So, what do they do? By default, they do what you expect. The two on the left side load previously visited webpages (one goes back, one goes ahead). The one in front of the scroll wheel loads other profiles (up to five). The two behind the scroll wheel can be used to change between specified DPI settings. However, any button can be reassigned to any configuration you want.

That little disk included with the packaging installs a fancy driver software. The menu has a huge array of options. Prior to the loading screen for this software, you can choose between a "CASUAL GAMING" and a "PRO GAMING" setting. The only difference I noticed was motion sensitivity. More on this below.

So what have we got here? All the way on the left shows button assignments. Any button can do whatever you want it to do (when speaking of mouses, it won't make you a drink). There is a streaming image of the mouse in the middle of many other options. You can set four DPI levels, which you can scroll through using the two buttons behind the scroll wheel. This mouse supports 5600 DPI. Wow. You can set motion sensitivity, double click speed, button response time, and USB report rate. Note the five profiles you can create on the bottom.

I'm a rather hardcore gamer myself. I don't play many different games, but the ones I do play I am rather serious about (Crysis Wars, anyone?). I personally prefer the motion sensitivity set to a low setting, and the DPI settings raised to high levels. This mouse can be very sensitive to motion. If you raise motion sensitivity too high, it can sense vibrations on your desk. That shows how precise two lasers are. I leave the double click speed and button response time as they are.

There goes one menu, out of many. Lets see what is next.

LED control! Every gamer wants a cool looking mouse. I want my mouse to match the LEDs in my amazing Cooler Master ATCS 840 case (blue LEDs). Available colors include red, green, blue, yellow, pink, light blue, and white. If LEDs aren't your thing, you can turn them off.

LEDs are visible on the top of the mouse and in the front of the mouse. The color can be separate for both areas. You can choose to keep the LEDs on at all times, make them pulsate ("Breathing" option), or make them light up upon clicking.

The LED screen that shows the DPI settings also has a logo, the stock logo being a Cooler Master Storm logo. You can change it, gamers might want to use their clan symbol on it. Photos should be 32 x 32 pixels and a BMP format.


So how big is this mouse? Big enough. I have rather large hands. The Logitech G9 is way too puny for me. Here is an image of the mouse next to my old Logitech Wheel Black mouse.


There are more pages in the menu. Next is this one.

Macro scripts. You can record, browse through them, etc. I'm sure this would make more sense to someone who uses it. Lots of options there.


More scripts? That's too much for me. How many options does this mouse have? The answer is more.


Script library. Any more? Of course.

Readily available support/updates. Sweet! That's all the driver software has to offer. In case you were wondering, none of this is necessary in order to use the mouse. This mouse can be used as a plug and play mouse. Once you plug it in, let your operating system recognize it, and then it works. Great for the simple people out there.

THE BOTTOM LINE

Is this mouse perfect? I say it is pretty damn close, but falls shy in a few aspects. The one downside I can point out is the material of the surface over the topside LED. The paint wears off. This is visible in some of the photos. This is hardly an issue though, aside from this I have nothing to complain about. This is the best gaming mouse I have ever owned, used, or even heard of. So how about the price? Newegg is selling it for $54.99, and $39.99 after rebate. No, that's not a typo. The release price was $60-$70 (I can't remember). Amazing right? When I first received this mouse for beta testing, I expected it to cost over $100 easily.

BUILD QUALITY: Construction is overall solid; the polymer is of non-slip design, the buttons are solid, and the configurable weight and LEDs are a great feature. Good sleeving on the main cable. However, one thing stops me from giving it a perfect score. That is the minor problem around the top LED section, where the paint rubs off, as I mentioned before. So it gets a 4.5/5 here.

FUNCTIONALITY: Driver firmware with lots of options, more than any mouse I've ever owned, used, seen, or read about. Almost everything is customizable. Even for simple folks, this mouse is easy to use. Plug it in and it works. I'd have to be insane to not give it a 5/5 here.

VALUE: Launch price was $70, it can now be picked up for $50-$60 depending on where you buy. This is considerably less than other gaming mice, many of which are too small for me, they don't have advanced firmware like this or this much flexibility, and most don't let you go all the way up to 5600 DPI. Obvious 5/5 here.

AESTHETICS: This mouse just looks great. It features LED lights and an LED screen, showing DPI speeds and a logo. I like the fact that you can change the logo as well, using any 32 x 32 sized Bitmap image. 5/5.

OVERALL: 4.875/5 (average of the above numbers)

[strudinox]

Nice review!! I've been following this mouse for a while. It looks like it performs just as good as it looks

+REP and would you mind if I put this on the main review section?

[WASD]

Nice review! Nice pics as well. That looks like one EPIC mouse. Much better than the pos im running lol.

[Jester]

Thanks for the feedback. I'd be glad to see it in the main review section.

[Joe]

WOW! Epic review, you obviously thought this through, and it's clearly laid out

If i wasn't sure on which mouse to get, i am now

+ Double REP!

[eXile]

Yes man that review is insane dude very good job. I love that mouse looks proper bad ass. Altough my next buy will be the Logitech G9x and the Logitech G19 keyboard (: Thanks for sharing with us.

+ Double rep too!


XeqtR

[Jester]

Thanks for the comments. Prior to this mouse, the G9 had my attention, but I was disappointed by its size after feeling it. The Storm Sentinel Advance has more features which I like. Hey I-E-D, you had a dilemma about a new mouse a while ago. Out of curiosity, what did you choose, if you did make a choice?

[Joe]

I chose a cheapskate USB one that my dad had

That combined with better internet (the isp was having problems so it was partly due to lag too) fixed my problem. I may try it again sometime, or just buy that...

[iGeForce]

What's there to say? Sick mouse en great review
I'm not planning to buy a new one, my mouse is like 5 months old, but if I would, I might have gotten that one
+rep

[wierdo124]

Thread resurrection.

I guarantee i have bigger hands than you, and have no problem with the G9's size

[Jester]

I guess I'm very picky when it comes to mice.

[Lhotse]

i've had my Log. MX518 for a while now and thought that was as good as it got, aesthetics aside but after reading that seeing the seqsi girl in the cooler master vids on youtube, i just might pull the trigger and get one.
i wish i had known about THAT one first because now my dilemma is what am i gonna do with my old mouse ? (actually it's 'mice' as i have the older, cheap, cordless one too.) my sensible nature prohibits me from just throwing it away and yet i hate clutter.

[Jester]

I keep my old mice as backup if I ever build another PC or destroy this one from a liquid spill or something.

[vincedea]

Im currently using G5 is this mouse about the same size or bigger? just curious cause im about to get this mouse

[CraigUK87]

I use the CM Sentinel... and i must say, bar the skipping and sudden loss of direction (if im playing FPS) its an ok mouse... much prefered my Razer Deathadder 3.5g tho