Stop Carpal Tunnel with the RBT Ergonomic (and Gaming!) Mouse - REVIEW
/Written Review & Video Produced by Young Jeohn
The QuadraClicks RBT mouse aims to eradicate Carpal Tunnel Syndrome while adding a great PixArt 3336 sensor for the gamers amongst us. Less pain, better gaming!
It kind of looks like a rabbit if you see it from the side. Rather cute actually, but don’t show it to the girls because knowing them, they’ll see the same thing - and will paint in eyes and whiskers with a bottle of white-out. Other than that, it looks deceptively like a normal mouse - it’s got a left and right button, scroll wheel, dpi button right behind it and two side buttons near the thumb. That’s how it *looks*.
FUNDAMENTAL DESIGN SHIFT
In practice however, the buttons are fundamentally re-designed to stop you from getting carpal tunnel syndrome; especially the biggest mouse clicking folks on the planet - competitive gamers. The RBT does this by re-aligning the buttons to be closer to your knuckles (the button switches sit near the middle of the mouse, not the fingertip end of it.)
It’s an odd feeling at first and those years of training yourself to use mice won’t do you any favors either - you have to “untrain” yourself from that bad habit and learn to loosen up your fingers. And that takes time. But boy, does it pay dividends once you ween your way out.
There’s a side effect of this re-design - in a good way. The way you hold this mouse will prevent your palms from ever touching it, giving your hand room to breath. No more accumulation of sweat, dirt, grime or that icky/sticky feeling you get after a couple of hours of using a mouse. No sir, not here.
MATERIAL DESIGN
The RBT mouse feels really nice to the touch. The sides where you grip it are made of a silicon type material that your fingers easily glide over smoothly. The buttons are a harder plastic, so you can easily tell just from feeling it that it’s a button without having to look. That and it (probably) offers a better “grip” for tapping against.
The cable is 1.8 meters according the literature (though I actually measured 1.9 meters, which is 79” or 6’ 3” for us Yanks) - 4 inches more cable than they promised.
The bottom has two large skates - one front & one rear for smooth movement, with a button near the optics that switches the “Rabbit light” under your palm on (or off). And speaking of Rabbit lights, they’re actually indicators for 6 DPI settings ranging from 500 to 10,800 DPI.
SENSOR TECHNOLOGY
So about that 10,800 DPI - it’s some serious resolution from a big name in gaming sensors. If you’re a gamer, you’ve probably heard of PixArt sensors since practically all the best gaming mice use them. The RBT uses the PMW3336, which belongs in the upper tier between the 3360 and the 3330. Spec wise, the resolution of those sensors are:
PMW 3360 12,000 DPI
PMW 3336 10,800 DPI <— RBT Mouse
PMW 3330 7,200 DPI
To put this into context, standard mice are usually 400 or 800 DPI and most e-sports pro gamers use a setting between 800-1600 DPI with the occasional rogue going to 400. Nobody sets insanely high DPI (or anywhere near them) in practice, but it does reflect the accuracy of the sensor should you ever need to. And with displays going to ever higher resolutions, it’s quite possible.
When it comes to polling rates, Windows typically defaults to 125Hz, but the RBT mouse blazes at 1000Hz. Meaning it’ll check 1000 times per second for the mouse’s position for smoother motion. You can control this number in the accompanying software if you want, down to 500, 250 and a pedestrian 125Hz. But at least you’re offered this option, because I’ve seen some really fancy mice that don’t let you do this.
Tracking Speed maxes out at 250 IPS (Inches Per Second), which is insanely high. It’s the maximum amount of movement you can make with your mouse while still getting accurate tracking, which is critically important for fast moving, unpredictable gaming in particular . It’s also severe overkill for spreadsheets, word docs or any other office app - it’s like driving a Ferrari to go one block down the street at 3 miles per hour. For that, a typical mouse at 16-40 IPS is more than enough juice. The 50G Acceleration of the RBT would also be overkill when a typical mouse’s 8G is more than enough.
But again, the mouse isn’t just for gamers - it’s out to save everybody’s hands from carpal tunnel. It’s just that gamers are more prone to muscle damage if we consider the number of mouse clicks they go through each day.
COMPATIBILITY
The RBT works with all major operating systems including Windows, Macs, Linux. But for customization, you’ll need software which is only available for Windows (at least for now.) The good news though, is that the package is compact at only 16MB in size with everything you need. The Razer Synapse and others in comparison force you to download a bloated package of several hundred MB and with stuff you never use (or want). But not with the RBT. I like how efficiently QuadraClicks developed the software. It’s very usable to boot.
SOFTWARE
You can customize practically any setting you desire. Are you a lefty and want to switch buttons 1 and 2? Sure thing chief. Want to create your own actions? Ok, why not then - go right into the macro manager and record whatever action you want.
It lets you remap every button, set any DPI settings from the 6 defaults (within sensor range of 10,800 DPI), set poll rates, and have fun with light settings from static lights to breathing, changing colors.
The only downside I can think of is the inability of the software to maximize on the screen. You’re kind of stuck in a window that you have to scroll up and down to get to everything.
ONE WISH
If there was one thing I’d want in this mouse that wasn’t there, it would be to be the ability to disable some of the DPI settings from the default 6. Maybe I don’t want that many, and just want 3 or 4. As things stand now, I have to click the DPI button up to 6 times to get the resolution I want. It’s not that big a deal in all fairness, but it would be a nice added bonus.
CONCLUSION
I like this mouse. I can say from experience after 8-12 hour gaming bouts that I don’t feel as much muscle fatigue as I do with “normal” gaming mice. The funny thing is, I binge gamed to get used to this mouse sooner (repetition, repetition, repetition), but doing so also had the effect of showing me how much pain using a normal mouse was causing.
The RBT mouse is good for the hand, good for ergonomics, good for gamers, and comes with a great piece of software. Try it out for yourself - it’ll take time to get used to, but I believe it’ll do wonders for the improved health of your hand.
QuadraClicks are out to save the world one hand at a time, and I’m glad the mouse made its way into my own hand. And I didn’t even know it needed saving.
FINAL RATING - 4.5 of 5 stars
4 - Styling/Design
5 - Comfort
5 - Usability/Function
4 - Software
5 - Performance
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More info: https://QuadraClicks.com
(Test unit provided by QuadraClicks for this review)
Check prices: https://amzn.to/2YCEKrv ---Amazon affiliate link
What the stars mean:
5 - Excellent (up there with the best, no flaws/issues)
4 - Very Good (better than expected, may have minor flaws)
3 - Good w/caveats (works, but has some issues)
2 - SMH (serious issues, needs major improvement)
1 - 0_0;; (just... why?)
