SteelSeries Rival 3 Wireless Gen 2 - Review

I have never been one of these people that thinks that ‘Gamer’ versions of things makes it a better device, mostly it throws in a ton of RGB. So, for that reason, whenever I see new hardware the two things I look at first is the amount of RGB and the second is if they throw out terms like ‘game better’. Which makes the SteelSeries Rival 3 Wireless Gen 2 such a great little mouse, it has none of that and instead focuses on letting you do what you need to do. The question to be answered though, does it achieve its goal?

As with all hardware reviews, I focus on the form factor first, because if you can’t hold it, then nothing else matters. SteelSeries are one of the companies whose headsets I adore, they get the form right, so I was expecting a lot from this little mouse and I was right. From the moment I took the mouse from its box, which has almost no wasted space inside it, I was impressed. The mouse is designed to be used in ones right hand, but it features a pretty symmetrical design. That means that you won’t have to twist your hand around in order to get it to fit the shape. It does not impact me, but I would have loved to have seen a left hand built version, which should be doable given the symmetrical design. As far as features go on the mouse, you have your left and right buttons, a scroll wheel, the DPI selection button and then the forward and back buttons on the side. There are no extra options hidden away, it is just the basics and that is perfect. You can use the GG software to apply additional settings, but those are entirely optional.

The DPI mode button is the only one you may not use, depending on your use case, because at the smallest 400 DPI the interaction with Windows was flawless. Now I did test the mouse out with a few different games and the only one I increased the DPI on was for Battlefield 2042. I myself am not a huge online gamer, so if you do play in competitions, you may want to increase the DPI, but that is something to decide upon a case-by-case basis. What I did like about the DPI button is that it causes a little light around the scroll wheel to change colour, so you know what setting you are in. For those curious, the maximum DPI it supports is 3200. The only other button on the mouse is the mode switch, which is located underneath it and allows you to turn it off or select between the Bluetooth and 2.4 GHz modes.

Normally, my go to connection method is Bluetooth, but I will fully admit that I had issues getting the mouse to show up on my PC when it was in pairing mode. I tried multiple times and it just never showed up and the one time I thought it was there, it just refused to connect. So, given that Bluetooth was out, I swapped to the 2.4GHz mode and thankfully they included a dongle for that. SteelSeries had provided me the Lavender mouse for this review and I was happy to see that inside the mouse was a Lavender dongle, so colour me surprised. Inserting the dongle had Windows detect the mouse and I was good to go and I had no issues there at all.

The one thing that I wanted to test was the battery life, because this mouse is a little special in that regard. First up the mouse uses two AAA batteries, but in a move that I don’t think anyone else has done, you can opt to run it on a single battery. When connected via the dongle, SteelSeries advise that you can get 175 hours of life from it with two batteries inserted, but if you go via Bluetooth, you can get 450 hours. To put that amount of use in context, for you to run the batteries down flat, you would need to keep actively using the mouse, every second of every day for 2.5 weeks, in order to go for 450 hours. Even with all the gaming, photoshop work and general web browsing that I did, I only saw around 30% off the battery life used, according to Windows.

The only drawback I found with the mouse was that if I walked away from my PC for any extended amount of time, the mouse would take a bit to wake up. Now I don’t mean like drowning it in coffee or anything crazy, but it would take a good 5 seconds to register that I was using it again. Now this is not something that is going to be a problem for all, but it is something to be aware of. Something else to be aware of is the weight, it varies depending on how many batteries are in it, but at most its 106g. That is not a lot of weight and if you are like me and use a heavier mouse, the reduced weight difference does take some getting used to.

I can honestly say that the SteelSeries Rival 3 Wireless Gen 2 is one incredible little mouse. Once I was finally able to get it to connect to my PC, it just worked and apart from some lag in waking up again, I had no issues. The battery life is perhaps the most insane thing about this mouse, so if you plan to use it for gaming, you are going to be set for a while. Much like other SteelSeries products, they have taken something everyone knows and stripped it of the unnecessary, leaving a mouse that looks as sleek as it is to use.

The Score

8.5

Review unit provided by SteelSeries

The Pros

Battery life is insane, even with a single battery and the hungrier connection method, you are still look at ~90 hours

Sits in the hand incredibly well, even for those with smaller hands…

The Cons

…Designed for symmetry it might be, the only for right hands is a bit of a weird choice

There always seems to be a delay in the mouse waking up, which can be frustrating