Mad Catz Cyborg M.M.O 7 Gaming Mouse Review

Billed as the "world's most adjustable gaming mouse," the Mad Catz Cyborg M.M.O. 7 features 15 programmable buttons and a sweet customizable chassis that wouldn't look out of place in a Michael Bay movie. But the $129 asking price is a bit like a mini-boss, annoying but not insurmountable. Is the Cyborg M.M.O. 7 worth the bucks?

Design

Click to EnlargeWe consistently had to fight the urge to yell "Autobots, roll out!" when we first saw the Cyborg M.M.O 7. The majority of the mouse is covered in glossy white plastic with wicked gray and blue accents. We were especially fond of the little blue scratch marks painted on the thumb panel. The right and left mouse buttons have prominent backlighting for a touch of customized color. Additional backlighting is on the left side of the mouse designating the different DPI and MMO modes.

The white, gray and blue color scheme is a welcome change from the black found on most mice, but MadCatz pushes the envelope even further. Instead of going with a unibody design, the Cyborg features a lot of open space and funky paneling. A space between the back and middle panels reveals a large chrome dial. Another dial juts out prominently from the rear of the mouse.

The mouse's undercarriage is made of a grayish-blue aluminum and features two pairs of black "Slick" feet that flew across our mouse pad. A 6,400 DPI twin laser sensor promises accurate tracking, precision and speed.

We love the Cyborg's risk-taking Transformers-meets-Robotech design. It's eye-catching and a game changer among a deluge of the same old thing. Folks that want something more muted can go with the black-and-copper version of the Cyborg.

Buttons

Click to EnlargeThe Cyborg delivers 15 programmable buttons for your gaming pleasure. Instead of a thumb panel crammed with buttons, MadCatz keeps things simple with four easy-to-reach buttons. The standout button of this configuration is the 5D button, with a bright red color that is reminiscent of the nub on a Lenovo ThinkPad. A sort of a directional pad for precision aiming, the button can also access five different commands based on the direction in which the button is pushed (up, down, right, left and in). For example, pushing the button to the left would trigger a potion while pressing it in unleashed a fireball.

As we started testing with "World of Warcraft: Mists of Panderia," we noticed that the Cyborg M.M.O 7's buttons delivered varying degrees of feedback. The four buttons on the thumb panel were nice and firm, as were the DPI and mode shift buttons on the top of the mouse. However, the left and right mouse buttons, the pair of buttons surrounding the DPI button and the button above the pinkie grip were somewhat mushy.

Click to EnlargeAnother cool feature is the ActionLock buttons. Comparable to cruise control, ActionLock enables players to reduce the number of clicks necessary to take down a hostile enemy horde. Activating ActionLock is as simple as hitting the gray button by the DPI button and the right or left mouse button. The mouse then repeats the action until you press the ActionLock button again to switch it off or return to manual mode. The feature gave our tired digits a much-needed respite after a few hours of busting through Constructors, letting us place our character into a sort of rapid-fire mode in "Borderlands 2."

While we like the Cyborg's button placement, we wish that there was more uniformity in terms of button feedback. Still, we appreciated being able to reach every button without having to second-guess the location.

Customization

Click to EnlargeThe Cyborg M.M.O. 7 is a tinkerer's dream. The mouse comes with a trio of pinkie grips and palm rests to accommodate just about any hand and holding style. The rear dial transforms into a small screwdriver that helps to switch out the pinkie grips.

After mixing and matching parts, we settled with the panels covered with a gray rough-textured plastic. It provided us with a nice firm grip and felt satisfying rubbing against our finger and palm. Players that prefer a little more height will want to use the palm rest that offers an additional 4 millimeters of thickness.

The screws aren't just there for show. Gamers can also adjust the mouse's weight by removing one or all of the five 6-gram weights. The subtracted weights can be stored in the handy weight storage container packaged with the mouse.

Software

Click to EnlargeSimilar to other gaming mice, the Cyborg M. M.O. 7 features software to trick it out to its full potential. After downloading the Smart Technology software from Mad Catz website, we went to work creating profiles. We love the software's clean yet fun layout, including the subtle honeycomb design and mock schematics.

Mad Catz relies on intuitive sliders to tweak settings for DPI and precision aiming. We created our own custom backlight colors using the 16 million color options for the ActionLock settings (Default, Off and On). The real fun started when we started programming buttons. Entering keystrokes and creating macros was fairly simple.

We clicked on the button we wished to program and entered the keystroke in the text box below. For the macros we hit the small mouse button on the right to begin recording. Once the macro was complete, we hit the green check mark to save. Each profile comes with three modes that can be accessed via the black MMO button. A user can easily program each of the 15 buttons in every mode. Add the two MMO shift buttons and you've got a whopping 90 buttons per profile.

The Cyborg M.M.O. 7 doesn't have any onboard memory so it falls to Smart Technology to keep track of all the profiles. We wish there was some cloud functionality so players wouldn't have to go back to the drawing board if they use the mouse with another machine. Compare that to the Razer Naga. which offers unlimited profiles that can be accessed in the cloud via Razer's Synapse 2.0 software.

However, Mad Catz also has a number of downloadable profile packs that can cover a large swath of games in genres for those that want to skip all the modding and get straight to gaming. For example, the RPG Profile Pack features "Dragon Age 2," "Star Wars: The Old Republic" and "Warhammer Online." With the profile packs, we simply dropped and dragged commands onto the buttons of our choosing.

Gameplay

The Cyborg took a beating as we spent several hours grinding, questing and blasting our way through some of our favorite titles. The mouse transitioned from FPS to Action to RPG with a press of the MMO mode button.

Our initial experience with the 5DP button was a little bit unwieldy, but over time we were able to use it almost as quickly as a traditional number panel. We preferred the ease of pressing buttons on the Razer Naga overall. Switching from a slower, more precise 800 DPI to the insanely fast 6,400 was empowering and fun.

During the later hours of our gaming fest, we enabled ActionLock to continue our high fire rate. However, there were a few instances when we accidently enabled the feature as we began frantically clawing the mouse. We were still going strong after 3 hours of play and could have easily gone another 2 or 3 hours.

Verdict

Click to EnlargeThe $129 Mad Catz Cyborg M.M.O. 7 is the ultimate gaming mouse. From the cool robotic motif to its blistering performance, this killing machine fires on all cyclinders. Swapping out grips, weights and palm rests is immensely satisfying. The Smart Technology software is visually exciting and simple enough for beginners but deep enough for advanced users. For $79.99, gamers can get the Razer Naga, which delivers a comfortable, adjustable grip, limitless profiles and cloud connectivity. However, the Cyborg is the best choice for competitive gamers and those with deeper pockets.

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