Mionix Naos 8200 Review

Mionix Naos 8200 Review

Manufacturer: Mionix
UK price: £51.54 (inc VAT)
US price: $79.98 (ex Tax)

As our recent i-Rocks peripheral roundup showed, you don't need to break the bank to net yourself a decent, comfortable mouse (in fact, you barely need to crack it). However, for those that take their gaming seriously and/or need a wealth of shortcuts literally at their fingertips, the premium mouse market is alive and kicking. At £52, this is the segment that Mionix's flagship seven-button Naos 8200 mouse comfortably fits in.


The last Mionix mouse we saw (way back in 2011) was the Naos 3200, which won us over with its comfortable design. Pleasingly, it's the same design employed here, which makes sense given that it was already great and humanity is yet to evolve a new hand shape. It's a right-hand only mouse, designed for users who employ a palm grip and want full hand support. As such, the right hand side protrudes further than usual with well-placed grooves for your ring and pinky fingers. The arch of the mouse also feels natural to hold, and the scratch-resistant soft-touch rubber coating which is smooth (but not slippery) and pleasant to touch is the finishing touch on this exceedingly comfortable desk rodent.


Four Teflon feet (front, back and sides) on the underside ensure a smooth, low-friction action on most surfaces. We also find a braided 2m USB cable which terminates in a gold-plated connection and supports a 1KHz polling rate. One absence from the design, however, is weight adjustment, which is odd in so premium a mouse, especially as it's rather light at 99g – the Kone XTD from Roccat, for example, is 123g and has the option to add up to four 5g weights. Going from that mouse to this one does make the Mionix feel rather light; not unpleasantly so, but if you're a fan of a heavier mouse you may need to look elsewhere.


The heart of the Naos 8200 is the Avago 9800 8,200 DPI laser sensor, while the brains of the operation is a 32-bit 72MHz ARM processor, which is paired with 128KB of on-board memory. This is less memory than the XTD, but otherwise the two are matched in hardware specs. In use, we can't fault this sensor, as it offers very accurate tracking and is as precise as you're likely to ever need it.

The two main clickers sit atop Omron switches, just as they do on the XTD. Comparing the two, we couldn't tell a difference in terms of the pressure needed to activate them. Suffice it to say that both mice have springy and very well-balanced main buttons. The Naos 8200's scroll wheel is also a joy to use as it's secure in its housing, the notches are well defined and it has great grip courtesy of its rubber outer layer. Both the DPI adjustment buttons and thumb buttons are also well placed and balanced with a sensible level of resistance that feels just right – it doesn't take long at all to become accustomed with the Naos 8200.


The downloadable software is arranged into tabs so you always have easy access to any setting for any on-board profile. The software is simple to use and, like the mouse, intuitive and quick to get to grips with. Each button can be reconfigured to a new function, be it a standard mouse function, single key or recorded macro (or disabled entirely). Meanwhile, sensitivity is configured in 200 DPI steps, with three DPI levels available per profile and X/Y axis separation also available, as well as lift adjustment. The macro recorder is definitely more basic than some, but it's easy to use and can hold loads of key presses. Finally, the four lighting zones (scroll wheel, DPI buttons, DPI indicators and logo) can be independently configured with any RGB colour, although annoyingly there's no colour palette so for anything other than the pre-set colours you'll have to manually enter your own RGB values – good luck with that.


Though it has plenty of options, the software isn't at the level of depth and customisation that Roccat's is with the XTD – we couldn't see an option for a sniper button (one that temporarily lower DPI whilst its held down) and you also can't set profiles to activate automatically when you launch programs, though both of these can potentially be addressed in software updates.

Conclusion

All in all, the Naos 8200 is a fantastic premium mouse. The highlight of it is definitely its comfort – it's one of, if not the, most comfortable mouse to ever grace our palms (the Func MS-3 being another contender). Beyond this, the build quality is also great and the software intuitive and offers lots of options. That said, there are more customisations Mionix could have offered, both physically and within software, but for many they would have been needless extras and may have bumped the price up further. Still, if you find yourself craving more customisation, check out the Kone XTD, which now retails for around £60 – much more reasonable than the £75 it launched at. Of course, even the £52 asking price here is still a fair amount to pay for a mouse, but if the Naos 8200's features take your fancy then the comfort and design more than justify the outlay.