There are gaming-centric mice with buttons, and then there’s the UtechSmart Venus MMO Gaming Mouse for Windows XP or greater computers; testing is taking place on my Windows 10 desktop computer. The mouse features a full complement of top buttons with a scroll wheel button, as well as 12 side buttons, numbered 1 – 12. Almost all of these buttons are programmable.

In the box is the mouse itself with six foot long braided permanent cable with gold-plated USB connector, weight case, replacement skids in case the ones already on the mouse wear down over time, multi-language instructions, and mini CD. Inside the mouse is a set of eight removable weights so you can customize how heavy or light the mouse is. Once you weight the mouse to your satisfaction, any or all spare weights can go in the included weight case.

Although this mouse comes with a mini CD with drivers and software, you’re probably better off doing what I did and going to http://utechsmart.com/download and downloading the latest version from there. Note that the software on the Website is in a single .rar file, so you’ll need something like 7zip to extract it.

The setup.exe file starts the UtechSmart 16400DPI Venus Gaming Mouse Setup Wizard; just follow its instructions. Once finished, you’ll have both the driver installed and UtechSmart Venus Gaming Mouse software that allows you to tweak and program every feature of the mouse. These features include button functions, resolution (aka, Dots Per Inch, or DPI), polling rate, acceleration, LED lighting colors and “breathing” speed or lack thereof, and all kinds of other functionality. The level of customization available here is truly impressive. Up to five profiles can be stored directly on the mouse, so of course you can use different settings and button functions for up to five different applications or games. Interestingly, there’s also a small profile button on the bottom of the mouse that can be used to switch between your stored profiles if you need to do it in the middle of a game and don’t want to switch out to the mouse software.

While the UtechSmart name may not be well known outside the MMO community, the company clearly knows what they’re doing when it comes to mice. The design of this mouse is both attractive and comfortable with a nice textured matte finish. From the buttons to the scroll wheel, everything responds exactly like you’d expect. While the 12 numbered side buttons are on the small side for obvious reasons, with some practice, you’ll definitely start to get a feel for each of their locations, plus I never found myself accidentally hitting any of them no matter how hectic a game I was playing. All of that paired with the surprising low price for a gaming mouse of this quality adds up to something well worth checking out if you’re in the market for a good wired mouse with amazing customization options.

Thanks to UtechSmart for the review unit.