Shogun Bros Ballista MK-1 Mouse Review

Overview

 

Here we have the right handed ergonomic Shogun Bros. Ballista MK-1. The mouse features a gaming grade laser sensor with an 8200 DPI maximum resolution. In addition to this the Ballista MK-1 features ten programmable buttons, five programmable modes with user definable names and 5 colour LED lighting. The Ballista MK-1 also has user definable (via software) DPI levels with LED indicator, independent X & Y axis control, a 1.8m Tough Military Fabric braided cable and Military Grip Paint.

 

 

The Ballista MK-1 arrived at pcG in a sturdy corrugated black box with a clear plastic slip on cover. You could also view the mouse through the clear plastic cover before opening. The clear plastic slip case is printed with various features and specifications of the mouse such as the different gaming modes, grip paint and key customisation.

The back of the box has an image of the Ballista MK-1 (albeit the visually nicer looking Red one) and also two views of the black version from different angles. The back of the box also lists additional features and specifications of the mouse such as the Driver free capability, Thick Thumb Rubber and Military Fabric Cable.

 

 

The top, bottom and sides of the box just feature the Shogun Bros. logo and not much more.

 

 

The mouse sits in a corrugated cardboard tray with a plastic blister with the braided cable hidden beneath the cardboard. There is also a technical brief/instruction book called the Master Guide (13 pages) and a Driver CD. Overall the packaging is adequate for this price point and it’s always nice to be able to view the product before opening the box!

At the time of writing the Shogun Bros. Ballista MK-1 is retailing on Amazon for approximately £48 and on Overclockers UK for approximately £45 and comes with a 1 year warranty.

 

Specifications/Features

courtesy of ShogunBros

* Additional details available here

 

First Impressions

 

 

My first impressions of the Shogun Bros. Ballista MK-1 were good, the mouse appears to be well made and constructed from high quality materials. The mouse had a rubberized coating and the very interestingly named Thick “Rubber Sofa” thumb rest on the left side. The ergonomic design looked like it would favour Claw/Palm Grip Gamers with its wide, contoured and heavier design. On face value the Ballista MK-1 appears to be a good gaming mouse, now for a closer look…

 

Looking at the left side of the Ballista MK-1 we can see its ergonomic design with a deep contour and Thick “Rubber Sofa” (which was actually very comfortable!). The thumb buttons are really well placed and both of a good length. Both buttons met the middle of my thumb perfectly. There are also the indicator lights for the DPI at the front of the mouse and the Precision Sniping System/DPI selector button at the back.

The ergonomic shape of the right side of the mouse has very deep contours which force your little finger to sit below a protruding ridge. I found that this felt more comfortable for me when I rested my palm on the mouse at a slight angle.

 

 

The front of the Ballista MK-1 features a captive 1.8m Tough Military Fabric braided cable with a red and black design. In the image above left you can also see the ergonomic design of the mouse with its high left side sloping off to the right.

The back of the mouse features the rubberized coating all the way to the base, where we find the main Shogun Bros logo and product name.

 

 

Looking at the top of the mouse we find a soft feeling plastic scroll wheel between the two main Left/Right buttons. The wheel has 3 button uses, down, left and right and are accentuated by a dull clicking sound when pressed. Behind the scroll wheel we find the Configuration button and the Mode button. The Mode button looks particularly good as it tapers away and goes off towards the front of the mouse (as can be seen in the photo, above left). There are also the well placed (and angled) Alpha/Beta buttons which are placed on the edge of the right click. The X & Y indicator lights are also found on the top of the mouse, these are supposed to show different levels in line with their settings but they always seemed to have a mind of their own! 🙁

The underside of the Ballista MK-1 has the strangely placed laser sensor 8200 sensor in the top right hand corner of the mouse, why it was not in the middle I have yet to work out!? The Ballista features three glides, one at front and two at the back. The glides are very long and cover 70% of the peripheral’s edging.

 

Hardware Installation

 

Testing Methodology/Setup

 

The Shogun Bros. Ballista MK-1 mouse was tested using our Test Rig, a fresh installation of Windows 7 64Bit (service pack 1) was installed along with all appropriate Drivers. The Ballista MK-1 states that it comes Driver Free and is promoted on the box as a “Bring mouse to any PC for gaming”. In order to test and configure the mouse though I installed the supplied Driver/Software from the CD provided and used it throughout testing.

 

The following games were used during testing:

• Battlefield 4
• Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

 

Hardware Performance

 

The Ballista MK-1 retails around £45 which puts it in the mid range price wise for a mouse. The mouse has a good feel to it and its ergonomic design and coating make it a very comfortable mouse to hold. I did find the bottom edges of the mouse to be a bit unfinished and sharp, almost to the point where I thought I could use it to slice my pizza! Of course this does not affect your gaming in any way, only when you pick the mouse up and handle it…

During testing the default DPI setting was 1600 and this was a bit slow for me, the next setting was 3200 DPI (too high!) so before anything I changed to 2000 DPI (via the user definable software). The mouse felt very smooth on my cloth desktop mouse mat and the longer glides did the job perfectly. The mouse scroll wheel sits up quite high from the mouse and enabled good control. The left/right action of the scroll were both utilized easily due to its good height. Once I got used to the very forced contour on the right side of the mouse it felt very comfortable (palm grip at a slight angle). The rubberised coating and Thick “Rubber Sofa” connected with the skin on my fingers and palm in a velvety way. Instead of a cold plastic feeling you are met with warmth which is always a good thing in my book. But how does the Ballista MK-1 perform?

In games such as Battlefield 4 and Witcher 3 I had no issues with the mouse at all, the tracking was good and the mouse was very responsive. My only qualm was with the Sniper/DPI button placement, this is where I had my only real problem with the Ballista MK-1. As a button for switching the DPI level between games then it would be okay, it is out of the way and you will not press it by accident. But as I like to use the DPI button whilst in game then it was awkward, when playing Battlefield 4 I often set a different DPI level for infantry or vehicles. To change the DPI in the game (especially when I am being shot at) I either had to bring my thumb right back, losing all control of the mouse or use my left hand! I ended up programming a different DPI in the software to each of the modes (as the mode switch is easily accessible) and got over the problem that way. The mode switch illumination and on-screen prompt told me which mode (now DPI) I was using too (problem solved!).

 

 

The LED indicators of the mouse are very practical. There is no unnecessary aesthetic lighting on the mouse although it would have been nice to have the well designed Shogun Bros. logo illuminated. The colour LEDs are instead left for the DPI indicator, scroll wheel, mode button and X & Y indicator (although this indicator did seem to have a mind of its own most of the time). Both the mode button and scroll wheel use the same colour for illumination; there are five modes and five colours, red, green, blue, pink and aqua. Overall the illumination is bright and visible enough even in the daytime in a well lit room.

 

SOFTWARE

 

The Ballista MK-1 software is very basic and loads up with a simple Home screen with three options which are Button function, Macro and DPI & tool. Clicking on one of these will take you to one of the three options screens available. You do not need to go back to the home screen at any time as the three options are now always available on the left hand side.

 

 

The Button function screen allows you to assign keyboard commands to the buttons on the mouse. From the Function list you can choose the command and then left click and drag it to the button to assign it. A red light will show on the Function list to let you know that the command has been assigned. There are five modes running along the top of the screen and each one can be renamed (this will also show up on the on screen prompt when the mode is changed in game).

On the Macro screen you can record different macros by clicking record and then pressing keyboard buttons for the commands you want. The mouse also supports recording mouse clicks and buttons into the Macro with no problem at all. The keyboard prompts and mouse prompts are listed with the time interval in between and from here you could tweak the delay if needed. When you are finished you need to click stop and then drag the command from the Macro Editor over to the left side and into an empty slot. Then the macro can be renamed and then assigned in the Button function screen.

 

 

The DPI & tool screen has all the settings for the DPI, X & Y, Report rate and Scroll Acceleration. The DPI can be changed in increments of 200 and there are four changeable DPI settings. This is where I assigned a different DPI to a different game mode to get around the awkwardly positioned DPI button on the left side of the mouse. The independent X & Y DPI setting can be changed here to allow slow vertical and/or horizontal movement for better targeting and thus giving you your Precision Sniping System. You can also change the X & Y DPI independently here to suit a super wide monitor (perhaps!?!). There is also a changeable Report rate bar on this screen and a bar where you can change the scroll acceleration on your scroll wheel. You can also Backup, Restore and Reset from here. When you press the reset button and confirm then you are shown a reprogramming screen (see the photo below).

 

 

Overall the software for the Ballista MK-1 is basic but does the job well enough, there is everything you need to configure the mouse to suit you. I would say that the menus are simple and this is not necessarily a bad thing if you just want to cut to the chase, program and get on with your gaming. But, for the price tag the experienced Gamer might expect a bit more.

 

Final Thoughts

 

The Shogun Bros. Ballista MK-1 is a well built right handed ergonomic gaming mouse. But at this price and with the basic software and (for me) the poorly placed DPI button I think it could have been better.

The BALLISTA MK-1 arrived in a well packaged box which showed the product through the clear plastic slip cover. Included was the Driver CD and even a well presented ‘Master Guide’ instruction book.

Once out of the box I could see and feel the quality behind the Ballista MK-1. The ergonomic design of the mouse fitted me well with my palm style grip although it should also fit a claw grip gamer as well. Most of the buttons and the scroll wheel were well placed and very accessible. My main problem with the mouse was the location and action of the DPI/Precision Sniping System button. As a sniping button alone it would not be a problem but as a DPI button it was. It was too hard to use during gaming, the button is in an awkward place at the back of the left hand side. I either had to bring my thumb right back which messed up my control or use my left hand which was of course busy on the keyboard. In the end I had to resort to assigning a different DPI to a different Mode to get around the problem. It’s a shame because the rest of the mouse is really well put together with great grip paint throughout and that unique “Rubber Sofa” on the left side.

Whilst using the Ballista MK-1 mouse I found that the 8200 DPI laser handled itself well while gaming, the precision of sweeping the mouse around and finding my targets was done with ease across all DPI used while testing (1800, 2000 and 3200 DPI).

The software supplied on the CD and the “Master Guide” was easy to navigate, this was due to the fact that it was a bit basic to say the least. I would have liked more control over the DPI settings as 200 was too big an step, increments of 100 would have been better. I think if you’re new to Gaming on a PC then this software might suit you as it is very hard to go wrong with as there’s not much to it.

At £45 the Ballista MK-1 is not the cheapest mouse available and by all means not the most expensive. I just feel for this amount of money you would expect more, such as better illumination, more advanced software and understandable X & Y LEDS (or even explained). For me the poorly placed DPI button is just too awkward to be used when I was in game and it’s what lets down what would otherwise be a very good gaming mouse.

 

Verdict

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