If you guys are aware of the sample products displayed at the gaming section such as gaming keyboards and gaming mice, I’m sure most of you would’ve noticed the brand called Armaggeddon. Compared to other popular gaming brand, Armaggeddon is relatively young in Malaysia’s market, particularly this few years consumers start to ask more about the products made by this Singapore company.
Today, we have this gaming mouse called Phantom in house. This is a feature packed gaming mouse with a competitive price tag, let’s skip all of my nonsense talks and dive right into the review.
Tech Specs
- Macro-able™ Laser Class Gaming Mouse with 256KB on-board memory
- 7-level CPI adjustment on-the-fly [Default 600/1200/2000/3000/4800/6400/8200CPI]
- Adjustable light effects and up to 24 colour options indicate profile selected
- 6 Buttons + 4-Way Click scroll [Save Up to 11 Macros (6+5) in each profile]
- Assign button of choice for switching between 5 different profiles
- CPI toggle switch for both increasing and decreasing CPI on-the-fly
- Adjustable polling rate: 250Hz-4ms/500Hz-2ms/1000Hz-1ms
- High performance tracking speed: up to 150 inches per second
- 6-level adjustable weight management system
- AVAGO Laser sensor: AVAGO 9800
- Ultra durable 1.8m nylon cord
- High quality Teflon foot pad
- Frame rate: 12,000fps
- Acceleration: 30G
Phantom design for gamers:
- Rubberized Coating for Long Hours of Comfort
- 4-Way Click Scroll [save up to 3 macros/single keys]
- Scroll Up
- Scroll Down
- Scroll Left Click [Macro-able button]
- Scroll Right Click [Macro-able button]
- Scroll Click [Macro-able button]
- CPI Toggle Allows for 7 steps of increase/decrease of Mouse Sensitivity and [2 Macro-able button]
- Ergonomic right-handed design with [2 Macro-able button] for left and right click button
- Light Indicator shows Profile [Save up to 5 profiles in 256KB of onboard memory]
- Rubber grips on right and left sides, with grooves for more traction
- Lower button near thumb within easy reach [Default: Double Click] and [Macro-able button]
- Additional button within easy reach of middle finger [Default: Change LED color] and [Macro-able button]
- 2 Above thumb buttons design [Default: backward and forward] and [2 Macro-able button]
- Light indicator shows CPI level according to saved settings [Default: 600/1200/2000/3000/4800/6400/8200CPI]
Packaging & Accessories
The box itself has a modern design. One of the corner is slanted as part of the design as well as the colour and font selection matches the overall mainstream gaming and military-alike theme.
You get tonnes of written information on the box especially the rear side where Armaggeddon clearly labels the parts and buttons on the mouse.
Just like most of the gaming mouse boxes on the market, the box has a door lid design where you can flip open the front lid and have a glance or try the mouse with your hands. Wait, they even have the mouse’s bottom parts labeled at the inner lid, this is what other brands fall short where you literally can’t find any official information on the bottom part of the product.
One thing however, the box I got has a minor problem, the velcro tapes which suppose to hold the front lid to the box are not sticking to the box. When I open the lid, one side of the velcro tape would tear off the other side of the tape off the box. Might be the adhesive gone dry or the tapes feel don’t wanna get separated.
Open box:
- Armaggeddon Phantom Mouse
- Weight Management kit
- User Manual
- spare mouse glide/feet set
- driver CD
I was surprised to see Armaggeddon is including a set of mouse feet in the package. You rarely get spare mouse feet whenever you purchase a mouse. While we commoners might not be as extreme as those heavy users who would quickly wears out their mouse feet, but having a set of spare feets is always a bonus. The mouse driver comes in a 3 inch CD instead of regular 5 inch CD.
Close up of the spare mouse glide.
The Phantom mouse is weight adjustable, where the weight management kit is presented in a small fancy metal box.
This box reeks premium quality but what disappoints me is the weight buttons looks oxidized.
I know we won’t be seeing the weight buttons after we install them in the mouse, but cosmetic wise, it doesn’t appeal to the eyes or might be worst – affecting the weight itself.
Close up.
Putting that aside, sending them onto my digital weighing scale, each of them weighs 5 grams with a total of 30 grams if you install all six of them.
By the way, the mouse itself weighs 140 grams including the cable, excluding the weight buttons.
Looks, Feel & Usability
The mouse itself has rugged military design that gives an aggressive impression, text and lines resembling warning signs on military vehicles are imprinted on the mouse. As some of you may know, braided cables are tend to be stiffer than non-braided ones which could be quite annoying. Good thing that even though the Phantom’s 1.8 metre nylon braided USB cable doesn’t feel unnatural at all.
On the size guide stated on the back of the box, Phantom is rated as size 6 out of 7 which you might have no idea how large it is unless hold it on your hands. I personally thinks it is rather large, if you’re a female or having small hands, it could be slightly too large for you depends on how you hold your mouse.
Most of the surface of the mouse is either rubber coated or rubber grip equipped to avoid the mouse from slipping off during intense gaming session. Particularly the side rubber grips, they even have grooved texture on it. I absolutely love the soft touch feel of the rubber coating, one thing however, I’m not sure if it could end up as most Razer gaming mice, well the mouse would look quite hectic when the rubber coating wears off.
As you can see, the mouse is designed for right handed users with all those thumb buttons on the left side and the contoured shape to fit your right palm. We’ll talk about the buttons shortly.
Talking about buttons, Armaggeddon Phantom does not boast as much buttons as Razer Naga, but having 6 buttons and 4 way click scroll is more than enough if you’re not planning to move all your keyboard keys to your mouse. The buttons has nice responsive clicky feel and I have to say the primary buttons are nicely paired with the rubber coating. The scroll wheel might not be as high tech as Logitech’s hyper-scroll scroll wheel, but I can say the middle and side clicks’ feedbacks are absolutely clicky and doesn’t feel as mushy as the Logitech’s. The 7 level CPI adjustment can be easily done with the CPI toggle button located right below the scroll wheel. Of course with the Phantom software, you can customize each and every button’s function. Even complex macros could be recorded and assigned to any button you like.
Armaggeddon advertises the Phantom being one of the mouse that uses Omron microswitch which held higher quality than the rest, but I don’t understand why the mouse designer decided to put the Omron microswitch on the side button that toggles the mouse profile. From the box label, it clearly points the OMRON switch at that button.
There are literally thousand lines of text at the bottom of the mouse, so much information and pseudo warning text. At the middle, the Phantom mouse sports the Avago 9800 laser sensor which has sensitivity adjustable up to 8200 CPI. What is CPI?
8200 CPI is absolutely overkill for me, most of the time I would stay at 2400 CPI or occasionally up to 4000 CPI or down to 800 CPI while having BF3 session. To fully utilize the 8200 CPI I think either you need highly responsive gaming or your desktop configuration is ultra HD resolution.
The weight management cartridge cover can be easily removed with a flick on the slider.
Plugged into a computer, immediately you’ll have the mouse working in few seconds even without installing the mouse driver. Of course you can install the driver either from the included CD or download from Armaggeddon’s website. The driver allows more configurations of the mouse such as button, lighting, and profile settings.
Software
Here’s the UI of the Phantom mouse software.
You can configure up to 5 profiles with different button configurations. All of them would be saved into the mouse’s 256kb memory, so that you can still use your pre-saved button configurations at cyber cafe without the need to install the software.
The colour of the illumination can be customized with 24 colours, 4 different light intensity and 4 different pulsation. All of these are saved in the mouse’s onboard memory along with the button configuration.
Even more configurations can be adjusted in the advanced settings panel.
The Verdict
Pros:
- Informative packaging
- Weight adjustable
- Included spare mouse feet
- Comfortable rubber coating
- Grooved side rubber grips
- Braided USB cable
- On-the-fly CPI adjustment
- 600 to 8200 CPI range
- Sufficient buttons for wide range of configuration (6 buttons + 4 way click scroll)
- Macro-able with 256kb onboard memory
- up to 1000Hz polling rate
- 2 years warranty
Subjective:
- Design
- Rubber coating
Cons:
- Precise QC
- Questionable placing of Omron microswitch
I enjoyed using the Phantom mouse, even though there were a few inconsistent QC on the my unit, but they’re just minor cosmetic issues and does not directly affecting the mouse’s usability and performance. On top of that, it is a mouse that is suitable for gamers and even multitaskers, thanks to the macro capability and onboard memory. I find myself saving the profiles in the mouse and bring it to my office and access all the saved profile without installing the Phantom software. It was a performance booster considering that I can simplify some of the task such as copy/paste.
The Phantom mouse retails for RM199, at this price, you really can’t complain much as it offers mid-high end gaming mouse’s features.