Peripheral Vision: Genius GX Gila Gaming Mouse

Whether you're a hardcore gamer or just casual, chances are you’ve felt how difficult choosing the right mouse can be. While we've all been taught that a mouse is an extension of our hand, finding the right fit can be a seemingly endless challenge. Today, we are tackling this challenge and taking a look at Genius's professional gaming mouse, the GX Gila. It’s an imposing little monster — some of its features include: Adjustable weight system, up to 8200 dpi, 16 million RGB backlight system in 3 areas, rubber coating and 12 buttons that can be bound via the included software.

While that’s certainly an impressive list, the most important aspect of any mouse is how it feels. The GX Gila is quite small, but heavy for its size, with a symmetrical shape suited for both left- and right-handed players. While it's possible to both claw and palm this mouse, I found that palming the mouse felt slightly uncomfortable during gameplay, probably due to my large hands.

The weights themselves come inside a lovely little case, and you've got six of them. Changing the weight of your mouse is a breeze: you press a button underneath to reveal a small compartment, inside which you will find a little rubber triangle with six circular holes. You simply take the triangle out, pop a weight in one of the holes and place it all back inside the mouse! I really like the idea of being able to change the weight of the mouse because I'm very sensitive to mice that are too light or heavy.

One amazing inclusion with the GX Gila is the spare feet for when your current get damaged or worn down. I cannot stress enough how hard it is to find replacement feet for a discontinued mouse later on down the road.

Next up: the 12 programmable buttons, bindable to any command or keystroke via the included software. While it’s great to have so much freedom, this is unfortunately where the mouse under-performed for me. You see, four (two each side) of these buttons are located at the front end of the mouse on each side of the left and right click. I’ve tried to use them within multiple games, but their location is just too strange and awkward. Either my muscle memory refuses to learn their positions, or they're just really hard to reach! I wish they were located on a different part of the mouse, but I understand that some players will love this feature. My experience, however, was less fruitful.

Another design choice I don’t really understand would be three more buttons in a triangle pattern that are located below the scroll wheel. While I’m able to pass off the previously mentioned buttons as my hands being too big etc, I really don’t understand how you’re meant to press these buttons while playing any kind of game and I’d go as far to say that this mouse has a total 9 buttons not 12 because of this. Additionally, the two thumb buttons on the left hand side of the mouse are quite small compared to other mice. This sadly means my big old thumbs have a little trouble clicking accurately, as sometimes I do push mouse 5 instead of 4. While I did mention that both right- and left-handed players can hold this mouse just fine, the thumb buttons are only on the left-hand side, which of course is to be expected.

Other noticeable features include the almost industry standard braided cable, rubber & plastic finish for sweat prevention and a little DPI counter on the top of the mouse to indicate which profile you are using. The last thing to be mentioned is the Sniper Button located on the top/middle of the mouse. While the name of this button suggests something fancy for when you are playing FPS games, It really only serves as a DPI switcher or any other function you bind to it.

Using the installed software, you're able to easily create and assign macros to any of the 12 buttons via the "Manage Macro" & "Assign Buttons" tabs. The "Advanced Setting" tab gives you complete control over DPI, polling rate and the standard windows controls, however one very useful thing to mention the ability to change the lift off distance. We previously mentioned in the Razer DeathAdder 2013 review that it had a high lift off distance that could not be changed, but I'm very happy to announce that the GX Gila allows you to change this setting with a simple click of a button, you’ve also got a choice of 5 settings! Setting 1 is very very low and setting 5 is pretty high but still a lot less then the Razer DeathAdder 2013! While the software does not save your settings into the cloud, it does save them onto the on-board memory of the mouse so you can take the GX Gila to any computer!

At the end of the day, Genius’s GX Gila packs quite a punch in a small form factor, in addition to the fully functional and easy to use software. However the strange placement of the extra buttons will annoy quite a few users, so bare that in mind. With all that said and done, I would still recommend you keep this mouse in mind when looking for an upgrade, especially if you don’t have large hands or dislike ergonomically designed mice like the DeathAdder series.

Genius’s GX Gila is available from multiple sellers such as Amazon for around $74.00