Roccat Lua vs Cougar 450M

Its rather small size and lower than usual height allow for a substantially comfortable grip. The sides have a dent which helps fingers positioning. Additionally, the sides are smoothly textured so you shouldn’t ever feel like your hand is losing its grip.

Unless you have small hands, this is a mouse that is meant for people who use either the claw or fingertip grip. In addition to being a small mouse and having low height, it's also extremely light, weighing only 68 grams. This makes it easy to control with a fingertip and claw grip as it relies on the mouse being as agile as it can be.

Even though it’s a budget mouse, it has high quality components to ensure that the mouse can last for years. There are no unnecessary moving parts while button clicks are clear and don’t give out after heavy use. The body of the mouse consists of rubberized coating at the top and textured plastic on the sides which gives it a quality feel.

The software is very simple and easy to use. It lets you change the DPI steps, double click speed, vertical scroll speed, polling rate, very basic lighting control and the choice of hand-mode. In addition, it has the option to reassign its buttons, but since the Lua has only four buttons it’s practically useless as the main three are almost always invariable.

The Avago A3050 optical sensor that the Lua uses has small, unnoticeable prediction and doesn’t carry over perfect tracking at high speeds (depending on the chosen DPI setting, over 60-120 inches per second or 1.5 m/s-3 m/s). But unless you use it at extremely low sensitivity, it shouldn’t be a problem. When reaching such speeds, some negative acceleration may be noticed.

Roccat has good Linux drivers.

Uses an ambidextrous design that actually feels as if it is and ergonomic design no matter what hand is using it.

There is a button right behind the scroll wheel that will allow for on-the-fly CPI switching.

The cable is braided so it doesn’t bend easily.

The DPI button, which is located on top of the mouse, is actually a profile changing button and can be tied to button configuration or lighting options.

This mouse has some basic sensor-related customization.You can modify the polling rate, DPI amount, lift-off distance and even angle snapping. The angle snapping is an on/off choice instead of a slider. Its UIX companion software has an extensive list of customization options, notably long for a budget mouse. It includes lighting options, button rebinding, macros, DPI changing, multiple profiles and several other smaller features that even other non-budget mice don’t have.

The Cougar 450M uses the Avago 3310 sensor and presents no jitter, acceleration or smoothing. The DPI choices ranges from 50 all the way up to 5000 with increments of 50. For this sensor, every DPI step of 50 should work equally well, so you don’t have to worry about keeping track of native DPI settings.

Being an ambidextrous mouse, it avoids unconventional shapes and stay true to the classic mouse design. To facilitate control and finger grip, it has a slight incline located at the side and its sides are covered in textured plastic.

The mouse has an ambidextrous design, making it a possible choice for left-handed users. It also has extra buttons on both sides, so they can be used on both use cases.

It’s Avago optical sensor is a solid performer recognized many mouse enthusiasts. You can rely on it to track precise movement without worrying about acceleration or jitter.

Despite the low price point, this mouse still maintains a respectable list of features. It has a good shape, reliable sensor and plenty of customization options. It bridges the gap between low cost and high quality while still being well built.