Both the Sentinel Advance and the Death Adder are competitive in price compared to the G9x. Both of those mice are contoured to be held in a palm grip and are better suited for low to medium DPI users that set their DPI to 200-800dpi. The G9x is a small and very light mouse that is in the same size class as Logitech's notebook lineup of mice. The G9x was purely made for the fingertip grip and claw grip users in mind that like to play with high DPI of 1,000dpi or greater.
I'm not too sure about the build quality on the Sentinel Advance as that mouse was just recently released and has not seen a year on the market yet unlike the Death Adder and the G9x. The Death Adder has gotten a lot of mixed comments about it's quality. The rubbery paint will slowly peel off over time making the mouse look and feel like it has leprosy. Sweat accelerates the degradation of the paint, so keep the mouse clean after you use it, though this applies to every mouse you use. My main issue with this mouse is with the scroll wheel. Razer, as well as Microsoft, are notorious for using sh*t scroll wheels in their mice; the ratchet isn't tactile nor provides firm resistance against turning the wheel one click at a time, and the wheel may at times execute a scroll movement even before you finish moving the scroll wheel after it's ratchet click. A lot of users here may say otherwise about the quality issues with the Death Adder, but this is just my general observation from using the mouse myself as well as from my LAN buddies that use this mouse.
Both the Sentinel Advance and the Death Adder, as well as every 3000+ DPI laser mouse that Razer produced as of 2007 use the same POS laser engine, the Phillips Twin-Eye. My biggest beef with this sensor is the prominent Z-axis jitter (lift jitter) and negative acceleration at a rapid come to stop. For low and medium DPI users, this is not what you want hindering you on the battlefield. The G9x, and the Xai from SteelSeries, use the new Avago LaserStream ADNS-9500 sensor, which is a much better product compared to the Twin-Eye. You get a low lift distance, no lift jitter, and no negative acceleration. The maximum tracking speed on both sensors are high enough that you would need superhuman arm speed to move your mouse fast enough to get the mouse to skip in tracking. Overall tracking is good on both sensors. Only when you start going into crazy high DPI such as around 2400dpi and above will you start noticing that the tracking performance of the sensor will become dependent on your mousepad as well. I'm not saying that the sensor will have problems tracking at a high DPI, rather I am saying that at that DPI level the mouse is very sensitive to movement and resistance. Even a slight vibration or snag in the mousepad will move or impede your mouse. If you're a high DPI user, you need to get a "hard" mousepad. Fortunately for me, I won one last weekend and I'll put it to use once I get my new G9x from Logitech. The LaserStream ADNS-9500 does have a few quirks with positive acceleration at a rapid come to stop, but that's only at a high DPI. High DPI users generally only use their fingers and/or wrist to move the mouse so the mouse isn't going to move as fast as a low DPI user that whips their mouse across their mousepad so positive acceleration won't be a problem with this sensor in that area.
The G9x has been my
weapon mouse of choice since I departed from my old Dell ball mouse, and my MX 1100, which I gave to my mom when her cheap Office Depot mouse died on her. The only quality issue that the G9x has, in my opinion, is with the wide load grip. The rubbery paint on that grip will eventually wear down like I mentioned above with the Death Adder. I use the smaller precision grip so it doesn't really matter to me. The scroll wheel is a big chunk of metal that is accurate, fast, and tactile. The scroll wheel is harder to push for the middle click compared to the Sentinel Advance and the Death Adder, but your finger will get used to it. The scroll wheel is fairly tight too so when you middle click, the wheel isn't going to tilt to execute side scroll.
All three mice have a well laid out button scheme. I'd say the Sentinel Advance's thumb buttons are a little too high, but that's probably my personal bias. The software that comes with each of the mice are very user friendly and allows you to setup your mouse the way you want it as well as keep your settings stored to the mouse's onboard memory so you don't have to reconfigure when you use your mouse on another computer. All three mice have a center of gravity that is more towards the rear of the mouse. The majority of users including myself prefer the weight balance this way as it follows how the human wrist lifts a mouse, and keeps the front end (cord end) of the mouse from landing first. They all come with extra weights if you want to add more ballast to the rear of the mouse. However, all of the mice are well thought out in terms of weight and weight distribution so I don't think you would feel uncomfortable with any of them.
This is pretty much the scope between these three mice. If I were in your shoes, I would consider the SteelSeries Xai as well. It looks like a boring ambi mouse, but it's a strong competitor along side these mice too.
Last edited by a moderator:
May 7, 2015
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