The Legend RETURNS! SteelSeries Sensei Ten Review

The Sensei Ten is SteelSeries’ way of chiming into very exciting mice competition by bringing back the legendary Sensei shape that first made its appearance in 2009 and it’s a great opportunity for them to revive it while upgrading all the components on the inside for all new hardware. Strangely though, this mouse is not following in the footsteps of the super lightweight bodies and open shell designs with holes everywhere of other mice.

First of all, the Ten is a $69 mouse with the matte surface coating instead of the metallic surface of the original Sensei, and it’s a truly ambidextrous shape with thumb buttons on each side that all the lefties will appreciate. But in this space where you put sticky padding to change the shape of the mouse to contour it your hand, what is SteelSeries doing different? It’s almost as if the Sensei Ten doesn’t really have any bells and whistles. It’s not what I would consider it to be lightweight compared to the competition at 92 grams without the cable, making the G Pro the closest price and weight.

Surface & Cable

The shell also does not have any cut-outs, just plain matte, black coating without any color options. Although the surface does not scratch at all, which is awesome, and the side texture is less rubbery than the top. The cable is not para-cord-like, instead it’s simple rubber that is not very good at releasing those kinks. Having played with the XTRFY M4 or the Razor Viper, you can notice the difference a good cable makes. Even my three year old Rival 310 has a better cord, which is softer than the Sensei Ten. It is disappointing because a $69 mouse with a really poor cable is not acceptable. While the mouse feet are not fancy white PTFE, no complaints here as the glide is still pretty smooth. Moving to the bottom of the mouse, it’s also a slightly transparent and interesting as I haven’t seen that before.

Shape

The shape would accommodate all three grip styles and it’s very comfy for my fingertip grip. It is slightly smaller than my Model O but it is very close in size to the Razor Viper, which by the way is only $10 more and is lighter with a better cable and is also a truly ambidextrous body with the thumb buttons are on both sides. I prefer the Viper’s shape over the Sensei Ten because of those middle indentations, whereas with the Sensei Ten the rear bump is a bit more noticeable. The scroll wheel is very low into the body and I prefer this approach with the middle click, but the scroll steps are really light and soft, and I don’t really feel the tactility behind them.

The DPI shift has up to five profiles adjusted in 50 CPI increments with a corresponding blink behind the scroll wheel, which is awesome. The opposite thumb buttons are out of reach so you won’t accidentally press them, while the primary clicks are mechanical switches rated at 60 million clicks and I would consider them to be semi-crispy.

Sensor

Finally the sensor: SteelSeries says it’s their best sensor yet the TrueMove Pro that goes up to 18,000 CPI with true one-to-one tracking throughout the entire range. It is different versus the previous TrueMove sensors because of what they call tilt tracking. From what I understand, that means that if you place the mouse down and it’s not exactly flat on a slight angle, the sensor will still track accurately on any surface. From my understanding in theory, this is great for people who play at lower DPI sensitivity and like to move your mouse a lot and reposition the mouse in your center comfortable position after a large flick. Then after you place the mouse down, it will still track accurately even if the mouse is slightly angled while coming down.

As for liftoff distance, it feels like it’s under two millimeters and the same as the Razor Viper, but my Model O has even lower lift off distance, which I would consider to be better and I’m kind of surprised that SteelSeries does not have the liftoff distance adjustable in the software. The SteelSeries Engine 3 by the way is awesome. You can remap all your buttons, set your five CPI profiles, adjust the RGB illumination for the scroll wheel and the back logo and save all those profiles to the mouse itself.

Conclusion

As for my gaming performance, well it wasn’t anything spectacular because I haven’t really been practicing too much, but I noticed no flaws either. The sensor is great, the mechanical switches are quality and the shape is fine. Plus the 92 gram body is just a reminder that not everyone wants to game with a 50 gram mouse. However, after having used like the Rival 710 or the Model O Minus, I do prefer a smaller mouse like the G pro and the G305 are really awesome too.

But the Sensei 10 is a nice ambidextrous design. In the end, the Razor Viper is a more appealing option to me as the shape fits me better. And I was hoping for something a bit more interesting from SteelSeries, but the Sensei Ten could just be a placeholder until they launch something new in the future that follows the trend of super lightweight and potentially holes in the body to reveal whatever’s inside – I don’t know, we’ll see. Thanks for reading.

 
Buy items in this review from Amazon at the links below:

Sensei Ten: https://geni.us/SENSEITEN

Alternatives:

Razer Viper: https://geni.us/RAZERVIPER

Logitech G Pro Hero: https://geni.us/GPROHERO

Rival 310: https://geni.us/RIVAL310

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