As a Street Fighter player, the ‘Tournament Edition’ brand coined by Mad Catz actually means something to me. While the Mad Catz brand has a mixed history - mostly positive of late - the Tournament Edition subset, launched with the officially licensed Street Fighter IV arcade stick has a stronger, more singular history: quality, durability, and the gold standard for affordable but reliable inputs.
It makes sense, then, that the company is choosing to transplant its TE branding to the PC space. One of the first products hitting shelves with the name is the R.A.T. TE, a new take on the R.A.T. brand mouse we reviewed previously.
Where the original R.A.T. was an expensive little device with a range of swappable parts and nifty customizations, the TE edition slims that right back. When I open the box, I’m actually surprised by the simplicity of what’s inside: There’s a mouse, some manuals, and instructions of where to grab drivers from.
The price matches that - the TE is significantly cheaper than the R.A.T. 7, it’s equivalent in the previous line-up despite featuring a much higher potential DPI - 8200 compared to 6400, and that’s down the removal of parts that Mad Catz realized to some users are superfluous.
All of this comes from the ‘Tournament Edition’ mantra - that is, supplying products to gamers who are serious about their competitive gaming and want input devices and peripherals that will give them an edge over the competition. The discoveries the company made are simple ones - such as that while the removable weights to adjust the weight of the mouse featured on previous R.A.T. devices was cool, to the majority of serious gamers there was only ever one choice - to remove all of the weights to make the mouse as featherweight as possible for rapid movement across the surface.
Other adjustable parts such as interchangeable palm and thumb rests are also gone, replaced by those most commonly used by the owners of the previous R.A.T. models. The transforming sensibilities of the original mouse are gone, but in exchange for a lighter frame and a cheaper price tag.
To be plain, I continued to use the R.A.T. 7 after I reviewed it. It sits next to me now, battered and well-used, and despite the removal of some of these core features I found the TE to be equally as comfortable. The one major comfort-adjusting factor, an adjustable palm-rest, thankfully remains - and that’s the only thing I ever really adjusted in earnest on the previous mouse.
While the lighter frame gives some cause for concern as to the sturdiness of the product when you initially grip it, it quickly becomes clear that this take on the R.A.T. design is as sturdy as its predecessors. It’s mere 90 gram weight is impressive, considering the tech inside the mouse - but that light weight might not be for everybody.
Much else is the same - the cable is braided and not just fraying, weak plastic, and the additional action buttons are all in the same place, though one has been increased in size to make it easier to hit.
Missing is the horizontal scroll wheel, but it honestly doesn’t feel like a big loss - economy has been deployed here, but intelligently.
One of the bigger improvements that comes with the TE is the new Mad Catz customization software - which strangely isn’t included on a disc in the box but must be nabbed from their website. The mouse will function well enough without the software, but when installed, players can customize 9 programmable functions and other features of the mouse.
This ranges from allowing you to switch between various DPI settings with a press of a button to more complex stuff like adjusting the functions of buttons entirely. One feature I found particularly welcome was an adjustable lift-off height - meaning at what point the mouse stops responding when you lift it from the surface. It’s a tiny measurement - in millimetres - but it makes a noticeable difference.
One of my larger problems with previous Mad Catz products, such as the previously reviewed S.T.R.I.K.E. 7 keyboard, has been the software - but the new Mad Catz customization suite is a lot smarter and more intuitive than previous iterations, and that’s welcome indeed.
In gaming terms, the TE is as excellent and responsive as the previous mice in the series, but the tiny improvements on the software side actually make it better. The response time is still low - Mad Catz claims 1 millisecond - and the higher DPI is very welcome for high-octane games. The DPI can thankfully still be adjusted between four different presets via button on the mouse, while three different macro modes can also be accessed similarly easily.
The R.A.T. remains one of my favourite designs for a gaming mouse, both comfortable and sleek, and the TE strips back some of the features of that design to a more basic level with the core feature set intact. This is still a sports car in the world of PC input devices, but it’s one designed for racing rather than showing off - and that works for me. The fact it’s cheaper ends up the ultimate sweetener.
The bottom line is that I recommend the R.A.T. TE whole-heartedly to anybody interested in the market for a PC mouse willing to spend more than the basic price tag. It’s a smart evolution of the previous model’s transforming antics, and even if that makes it somewhat less of a showy talking piece, functionally it’s still the same great design - with better software elevating it further still.
