MacJunky
Well-known member
Cooler Master MM720 versus the CM Storm Spawn - A cynical and biased comparison
But more seriously, I have some text here. You are also warned that it comes with some pretty heavy bias and unresearched opinions, and that this is more of an initial impressions since I have not owned it for long as of writing this. I am also not delving into the deep end of latency, sensors, switch construction, etc.
As a bit of background:
I have had my CM Storm Spawn since January 2014 and have been using it daily with a fingertip grip style. It is still working very well and I am extremely happy with it.
I might also mention that I am by no means experienced in the gamer mouse world. I bought this MM720 because I am starting to think about my Spawn's age, and wanted a spare nice mouse around as a backup and for other computers as needed. I seem to recall skipping the Xornet II because it was not a need and I was seeing some negative reviews at the time leaving the impression that it was inferior. Is that true? Not sure, unfortunately never tried one.
"But you hate modern cheap feeling things, RGB, and the honeycomb aesthetic! Why did you buy a MM720?!"
Because I want a CM Storm Spawn and this is the closest I can get right now. Even if this shape is brought back for another round, I don't even want to imagine how much worse it will get as an evolution of the MM720. People always have to go messing with good things for the sake of change. I am not old, I am old-school and not compatible with these modern things.
Regardless, on with the show!
The MM720:
I am not going to rant about the RGB because it can be turned off and it is better than bright blue. The honeycomb is what it is, lets not go there right now.
Jumping in randomly the cable feels a lot like individual wires stuffed into a synthetic woven sleeve. I hope that being so free inside might help the wires handle repeated flexing better than being stiffly held inside a traditional jacket. It seems to stay out of the way and isn't much fuss. In it's freshly unwrapped state it is a bit wild looking compared to my Spawn's well-trained cable, but no beef here and it is settling down pretty quickly.
I am mildly concerned about trying to keep it clean, but being an indoor cable the dust won't cause much if any abrasion when embedded in the fibres between wipe-downs.
The left and right buttons on the MM720 feel very light/flimsy yet I can rest my fingers on them without actuating the switches. The comparatively hair-trigger buttons on my Spawn have a much more solid feel. Before you ask, yes, with the Spawn I am occasionally caught off guard accidentally clicking because I put too much weight on the buttons. I am okay with that and would take it over the MM720 as it sits. Personal preference. Is my Spawn broken in from nine years of use? Probably, but the buttons were like this from the beginning, I always had to be a bit careful with them.
The DPI Cycle button on the bottom functions, but is just not as handy for on-the-fly switching as the Spawn's dual top-mounted buttons. The workaround is to only enable two or three speeds and don't play games where you might want to actually switch on the fly. Is it that big of a problem? I suppose not, just somewhat annoying for edge-case scenarios.
This MM720 has a mushy feeling scroll wheel. Initially it was quietly thumpy and mushy scrolling up (forward) with mush highlighted by a light clicking sound scrolling down (back toward the user). After breaking-in the scroll wheel in both directions a little more the clicking is gone. My Spawn's scroll wheel feels much more defined in both directions but does make a sharp clicking noise as it rotates. I will concede that the Spawn's audible clicking is perhaps bordering on obnoxious in some situations and I can understand it being off-putting for some. The MM720 almost scored half a point here, but mushy scroll wheels are a cardinal sin.
The matte finish of this MM720 is quite soft and smooth straight out of the box, though perhaps once your fingers wear a nice hole in the finish you might get to something grippy underneath. The included stick-on grips initially feel slimy and unpleasant, though probably just the very fresh surface and or residue from manufacturing. The feeling is similar to the un-worn areas on the rubber moulded into the sides of the Spawn so I can't really take any points away for that.
The areas on the Spawn's rubber that have worn-in are very grippy, so hopefully the same becomes true of the MM720's stickies.
The case is solid under any sort of normal use, even pushing and squeezing it does not produce much creaking or flexing.
I am pleased that the MM720 comes with a spare set of feet! Especially considering that CM hid two of the three screws under the larger piece and I am probably going to wreck it while trying to remove it.
Gaming:
I am no streamer or eSports competitor, so Ground Branch is the title of choice! The MM720 works well enough, it was not distracting me even though I still have a preference for the Spawn. The Lift off Distance is pretty great, I think that is the best feature of this mouse.
I had a similar experience playing original Ghost Recon, Unreal Tournament 99, and Star Craft: Brood War. If we move into a vacuum devoid of other mice for a moment, the MM720 performs well despite being a bit light for my taste.
Software:
Modern-day software is often frustrating, and MasterPlus+ is no exception. I was about to complain about the MasterPlus+ installer being 315MB, but once installed the program was not using much RAM when it was sitting idle in the System Tray... Until later when it ramped up to 150MB. Version 1.8.7's installed size appears to be a whopping 912MB on my system. In 2023 this sounds like mountains out of mole hills, until you remember that this is software to change a couple settings and control the lights in your mouse.
MasterPlus+ does seem to have a bug on my system where I cannot drag the edges to make the window smaller, it only gets bigger. It is very big on a 34" ultrawide display. At one point it had a glitch where parts of the UI went missing or were blank, restarting it fixed that and I am not sure how to replicate it yet. It is a horribly bloated and slow disaster, CM's attention must have been focused on making the mice light instead of their software.
This next one is not a fair direct comparison because MasterPlus+ handles other hardware too, but just for the sake of saying, the Spawn software installer is 7.3MB, and 12.4MB installed. So far it looks like it uses around 10MB RAM running and 2.3MB for the launcher thing in the System Tray. It is glorious, just like the Spawn.
Fortunately the MM720 can also be used without MasterPlus+, though I had an issue where after uninstalling MasterPlus+ both forward and backward buttons were assigned to back for some reason, even though they were working normally immediately before uninstalling it. I have never had these sorts of issues with the Spawn's software.
They sure don't make these things like they used to.
Price:
Hard to beat, I mean come on, this is a pretty niche design we are talking about here. You can get a lot worse for a lot more.
Conclusion:
I am pretty sure the only points the MM720 gets are for the price, cable, and the lift off distance. This LOD is actually a nice and welcome change from the Spawn. The optical switches not covered here are likely to last longer and should have also gained it some points... if the interfaces with them were better.
Cooler Master deserves some points for at least giving us the option of glossy or matte finishes, even though glossy black plastic is EVIL. They also get points for having a mouse with this wider shape in the first place! For whatever I might complain about I am still aware that the Spawn/Xornet/MM720 design is in a class of it's own for people with hands and grip styles like mine.
In all fairness I could turn off the lights, fill the holes, texture the exterior, and add weight just like how the front of the box and manual say to 'Make It Yours'. However it will never have the two dedicated DPI adjustment buttons on the top and that is unfortunate.
If the MM720 was my first introduction to this style of mouse I am sure I would be quite pleased, but I have already been spoiled by a better mouse. It should go without saying that I would still rather use the MM720 than their other current offerings or those from other companies.
Is it a bad mouse? Absolutely not.
Is it on par with the Spawn? No.
Did this design deserve a left-handed version? I think so.
But more seriously, I have some text here. You are also warned that it comes with some pretty heavy bias and unresearched opinions, and that this is more of an initial impressions since I have not owned it for long as of writing this. I am also not delving into the deep end of latency, sensors, switch construction, etc.
As a bit of background:
I have had my CM Storm Spawn since January 2014 and have been using it daily with a fingertip grip style. It is still working very well and I am extremely happy with it.
I might also mention that I am by no means experienced in the gamer mouse world. I bought this MM720 because I am starting to think about my Spawn's age, and wanted a spare nice mouse around as a backup and for other computers as needed. I seem to recall skipping the Xornet II because it was not a need and I was seeing some negative reviews at the time leaving the impression that it was inferior. Is that true? Not sure, unfortunately never tried one.
"But you hate modern cheap feeling things, RGB, and the honeycomb aesthetic! Why did you buy a MM720?!"
Because I want a CM Storm Spawn and this is the closest I can get right now. Even if this shape is brought back for another round, I don't even want to imagine how much worse it will get as an evolution of the MM720. People always have to go messing with good things for the sake of change. I am not old, I am old-school and not compatible with these modern things.
Regardless, on with the show!
The MM720:
I am not going to rant about the RGB because it can be turned off and it is better than bright blue. The honeycomb is what it is, lets not go there right now.
Jumping in randomly the cable feels a lot like individual wires stuffed into a synthetic woven sleeve. I hope that being so free inside might help the wires handle repeated flexing better than being stiffly held inside a traditional jacket. It seems to stay out of the way and isn't much fuss. In it's freshly unwrapped state it is a bit wild looking compared to my Spawn's well-trained cable, but no beef here and it is settling down pretty quickly.
I am mildly concerned about trying to keep it clean, but being an indoor cable the dust won't cause much if any abrasion when embedded in the fibres between wipe-downs.
The left and right buttons on the MM720 feel very light/flimsy yet I can rest my fingers on them without actuating the switches. The comparatively hair-trigger buttons on my Spawn have a much more solid feel. Before you ask, yes, with the Spawn I am occasionally caught off guard accidentally clicking because I put too much weight on the buttons. I am okay with that and would take it over the MM720 as it sits. Personal preference. Is my Spawn broken in from nine years of use? Probably, but the buttons were like this from the beginning, I always had to be a bit careful with them.
The DPI Cycle button on the bottom functions, but is just not as handy for on-the-fly switching as the Spawn's dual top-mounted buttons. The workaround is to only enable two or three speeds and don't play games where you might want to actually switch on the fly. Is it that big of a problem? I suppose not, just somewhat annoying for edge-case scenarios.
This MM720 has a mushy feeling scroll wheel. Initially it was quietly thumpy and mushy scrolling up (forward) with mush highlighted by a light clicking sound scrolling down (back toward the user). After breaking-in the scroll wheel in both directions a little more the clicking is gone. My Spawn's scroll wheel feels much more defined in both directions but does make a sharp clicking noise as it rotates. I will concede that the Spawn's audible clicking is perhaps bordering on obnoxious in some situations and I can understand it being off-putting for some. The MM720 almost scored half a point here, but mushy scroll wheels are a cardinal sin.
The matte finish of this MM720 is quite soft and smooth straight out of the box, though perhaps once your fingers wear a nice hole in the finish you might get to something grippy underneath. The included stick-on grips initially feel slimy and unpleasant, though probably just the very fresh surface and or residue from manufacturing. The feeling is similar to the un-worn areas on the rubber moulded into the sides of the Spawn so I can't really take any points away for that.
The areas on the Spawn's rubber that have worn-in are very grippy, so hopefully the same becomes true of the MM720's stickies.
The case is solid under any sort of normal use, even pushing and squeezing it does not produce much creaking or flexing.
I am pleased that the MM720 comes with a spare set of feet! Especially considering that CM hid two of the three screws under the larger piece and I am probably going to wreck it while trying to remove it.
Gaming:
I am no streamer or eSports competitor, so Ground Branch is the title of choice! The MM720 works well enough, it was not distracting me even though I still have a preference for the Spawn. The Lift off Distance is pretty great, I think that is the best feature of this mouse.
I had a similar experience playing original Ghost Recon, Unreal Tournament 99, and Star Craft: Brood War. If we move into a vacuum devoid of other mice for a moment, the MM720 performs well despite being a bit light for my taste.
Software:
Modern-day software is often frustrating, and MasterPlus+ is no exception. I was about to complain about the MasterPlus+ installer being 315MB, but once installed the program was not using much RAM when it was sitting idle in the System Tray... Until later when it ramped up to 150MB. Version 1.8.7's installed size appears to be a whopping 912MB on my system. In 2023 this sounds like mountains out of mole hills, until you remember that this is software to change a couple settings and control the lights in your mouse.
MasterPlus+ does seem to have a bug on my system where I cannot drag the edges to make the window smaller, it only gets bigger. It is very big on a 34" ultrawide display. At one point it had a glitch where parts of the UI went missing or were blank, restarting it fixed that and I am not sure how to replicate it yet. It is a horribly bloated and slow disaster, CM's attention must have been focused on making the mice light instead of their software.
This next one is not a fair direct comparison because MasterPlus+ handles other hardware too, but just for the sake of saying, the Spawn software installer is 7.3MB, and 12.4MB installed. So far it looks like it uses around 10MB RAM running and 2.3MB for the launcher thing in the System Tray. It is glorious, just like the Spawn.
Fortunately the MM720 can also be used without MasterPlus+, though I had an issue where after uninstalling MasterPlus+ both forward and backward buttons were assigned to back for some reason, even though they were working normally immediately before uninstalling it. I have never had these sorts of issues with the Spawn's software.
They sure don't make these things like they used to.
Price:
Hard to beat, I mean come on, this is a pretty niche design we are talking about here. You can get a lot worse for a lot more.
Conclusion:
I am pretty sure the only points the MM720 gets are for the price, cable, and the lift off distance. This LOD is actually a nice and welcome change from the Spawn. The optical switches not covered here are likely to last longer and should have also gained it some points... if the interfaces with them were better.
Cooler Master deserves some points for at least giving us the option of glossy or matte finishes, even though glossy black plastic is EVIL. They also get points for having a mouse with this wider shape in the first place! For whatever I might complain about I am still aware that the Spawn/Xornet/MM720 design is in a class of it's own for people with hands and grip styles like mine.
In all fairness I could turn off the lights, fill the holes, texture the exterior, and add weight just like how the front of the box and manual say to 'Make It Yours'. However it will never have the two dedicated DPI adjustment buttons on the top and that is unfortunate.
If the MM720 was my first introduction to this style of mouse I am sure I would be quite pleased, but I have already been spoiled by a better mouse. It should go without saying that I would still rather use the MM720 than their other current offerings or those from other companies.
Is it a bad mouse? Absolutely not.
Is it on par with the Spawn? No.
Did this design deserve a left-handed version? I think so.
