First thing that struck us at first encounter with CM Storm Sentinel Advance was its size and shape. In era of miniaturization it comes as real refreshment to see full sized mouse. By its shape and size it resembles mostly to “good old” Logitech MouseMan Wheel or Microsoft IntelliMouse Explorer models. Thanks to its shape CM Storm Sentinel Advance is suited for users with larger hands that use mouse for prolonged periods of time (read: gamers). Long left and right buttons can be pressed at both ends so this mouse can be used as you would smaller models. Of course, best practice is to cover mouse with whole hand so hand can rest on mouse.

Hearth of Sentinel Advance is dual laser sensors with 5600DPI that are packed behind one opening instead of two, as it was the case with legendary Logitech Dual Optical. Thanks to this feature, sensitivity can be set for each axis: X and Y independently. These options will be important as more and more games support wide screen formats. Predefined modes have values for DPI: 1100, 2600, 3800 and 5600. Since this mouse has 64KB of its own memory, five profiles can be stored so you can use your profiles anywhere. Macros can be also stored in this memory along with scripts and configuration files so you don’t have to spend time on necessary reconfiguration. Change of LED light according to selected profile is something that gamers have already become accustomed to. Of course drivers allow full customization even when it comes to LED lights so you can set CM Storm Sentinel Advance exactly to your taste and desires. OLED display at the top side shows current DPI setting, but it has another interesting option: it can display custom Gaming Clan Logo created with CM Storm software. We wouldn’t be too surprised if this option becomes main selling points of this mouse, at least when it comes to professional gamers.

Eight programmable buttons are more than enough for all functions that almost any gamer will ever need especially if we consider presence of Rapid Fire Tactical mode. Nevertheless, we didn’t like the fact that 3 buttons are present around the wheel. This problem was obviously recognized by Cooler Master engineers which added to one of those buttons (left) little bulge, but we reckon that it won’t be enough for most players to notice that small difference in the heat of the battle. Mouse wheel offers small resistance so it can be used for scrolling long document, but this will not be welcomed feature among most of the gamers. You should check this before purchase since this can be fault of our sample model. Most gamers, anyway, use keyboard shortcuts for weapon change.

Mouse that aspires to be the best gaming mouse should have small weights that can be used to balance mouse according to each players needs. CM Storm Advance has five 4.5g weights. They look similar to all other mouse weight that we saw so far, but real shame is that Cooler Master didn’t provide a small box for weights that are not in use. In addition, weights are not placed in cartridge like on Logitech G mouse series. Since weight configuration is not something that will be changed too often, these are not serious problems.