CM Storm Sentinel Advance High-Performance Gaming Mouse : Evalutation

Last Year Cooler Master unveiled its darker and more aggressive side, the CM Storm line. This new line was aimed at the enthusiast who wants looks and performance. We reviewed one of the first products from this new line the SM Storm Sniper Case. It was and still is one seriously nice case. But Cooler Master did not stop there. They have also added an accessory line to compliment the great cases like the Sniper and Scout. We have one of these in house and up on the bench for some gaming and general usage testing. So let’s take a look at the CM Storm Sentinel Advance High Performance Gaming mouse and see if it is worth your time and money. Or will it make you want to jump on a table and scream.


Packaging
The box that the Sentinel comes in it about what you would expect from a high-end gaming mouse. There is plenty of slanting letters to give an impression of speed, red is a prominent color and the required flames tell us this product is “smoking hot”. If you get past all of that you can see there are a few truly nice features shown off as well that we will talk about in more detail below.

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The back of the box goes on to expand on the major features of the Sentinel Advance. Between the front and the back Cooler Master has made sure this mouse will end up in your cart if you are looking at it in a store.

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Once you do get this home and tear open the box you do have everything you need to get going.  Cooler Master has even thrown in one of their unique cable managing slot covers. This is on top of a mini-CD-ROM with the Sentinel Advance drivers and software.

Sentinel Advance Features and Construction
As you would expect the Sentinel Advance is built along the now familiar lines of most modern mice. However, it is not the same. It is a little bulkier and longer than the traditional mouse and also has longer buttons, this last bit offers a larger area for your “shootin” fingers to rest on and activate those functions while gaming.  But let’s take a more systematic look at the Sentinel Advance and cover some of the features as we go.

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Starting at the front we see the typical mouse buttons we talked about as well as a scroll wheel. But there are three extra buttons visible when looking at the front. One is at the under the scroll wheel at the front. This is set by default to switch between the five different profiles available on the Sentinel Advance. Yep, like many other gaming mice Cooler Master allows you to setup profiles for the various tasks you perform. The other two are above the wheel and are for adjusting the dual tracking lasers that the Sentinel carries. The one with the little nipple on it adjust upwards for greater accuracy and the other down through 5600, 3800, 2600, and finally 1100DPI. 

Along the left side of the Sentinel there are two additional buttons. By default these are set to forward and back in your browser. However, as with just about everything else they can be custom configured tooperate how you like them to.

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Just behind these buttons is a clear area surrounded by a ventilated metal bezel. The clear area is an OLED display that shows you what DPI you are currently setup on and the ventilated bezel area lights up with one of eight available colors. You change these in the Sentinel Advance control software that we will talk about later.

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The body of the mouse has an interesting texture to it. Again this feels like a rubberized surface but it has less friction that rubber [even soft rubber] would. This surface is cool and comfortable on the hand. It allows for an excellent grip with very little effort, this reduces strain and fatigue on your gaming hand [insert random online porn joke here].

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Flipping the Sentinel Advance over, we find that the quality does not end at the top. In a slight departure from tradition the Sentinel uses mush larger pads than your average mouse. This gives it a sturdier feel as it glides over your desk or mouse pad. We also see a compartment at the back of the mouse. This is the weight storage area.

When you open it up you can see five 4.5 gram weights. These help to give the Sentinel a solid feel when you are making small and precise movements. This is similar to the weights on the Logitech G5, but without the issue of having the weight tray sliding out all the time. Of course we would be remiss if we did not draw attention to the laser port here. This is the opening where the dual independently adjustable 5600 DPI lasers shine though on their way to your mousing surface.

The last thing we will point out here are the two “head lights” these are a pair of OLEDs lights that can also be adjusted to whatever color you want. This change is independent of the top color. Before we move on there are two last minor things to talk about. The first if the cloth coated cable and the 2nd is a gold [plated] USB connector. Both merely round out an already impressive device.