Fnatic Clutch G1 Optical Gaming Mouse Review

Introduction

The nearly endless selection of gaming oriented peripherals is a wonderful thing for enthusiasts, no matter your taste or even your current mood, you can find something that suits you. From dozens of extra buttons to lighting effects that rival a popular club, the choices of extras are endless. Professional E-sports gamers on the other hand aren’t that interested in the flashy gimmicks, but need a rock solid, high performance input device they can rely on in the heat of the moment to bring home a victory. Anyone out there can slap together some silly hunk of plastic with a tracking sensor, a USB cord, and a few LED’s and call it a ‘gaming mouse’ but it takes a little bit more effort to make a truly great peripheral meant for serious business. Enter Fnatic. When the first thing you see opening the box is “Goodbye Mediocracy” on a product made BY some of the most well-known professional gamers FOR professional gamers, you know things just got serious…

ProClockers would like to thank Fnatic for sending us the Clutch G1 Mouse to try out!

Product Video

Fnatic’s Take on the Clutch G1

Made with the sole purpose to give the esports gamer an edge over his opponents, the Fnatic Gear CLUTCH has been designed with performance driven components and interesting features. The curvature of the body is ergonomic yet uncomplicated. It is a result of countless hours spent studying different hand positions and shapes, then carving our ideas as clay models, and having the best one approved by the Fnatic teams. Additionally, the Fnatic Gear CLUTCH features seven programmable buttons, a scroll wheel, three user profiles, a macro recorder, and a customizable LED-lighting system, making it completely customizable to your personal preferences.

About Fnatic

Fnatic is a leading organization in the E-Sports industry. Founded by Sam and Anne Mathews, their home office is in the heart of London. However, they also have offices in Belgrade and Siberia. They also have a professional gaming house in Cologne, Germany. Their players attend over 75 international events every year. Some of these events include Dota 2, League of Legends (LOL), Battlefield 4 and many more. The Fnatic team was awarded Team of the Year in both 2006 and 2009. They’ve achieved great success and have won multiple world championships across many different games. Their YouTube channel is a favorite among E-Sports fans. With over 100, 000 subscribers they provide game highlights and video interviews. With over 2 million followers on all forms of social media, Fnatic is without a doubt, one of the largest E-Sports franchises.

Fnatic Gear Video

Features & Specifications

Features

Pixart 3310 Sensor

This optical LED sensor is the latest on the market and focuses on performance in terms of optimal tracking speed and acceleration, setting it apart from other sensors that push for more CPI (Counts per Inch). It is the best performing sensor on the market and the first choice of sensor for any member of the Fnatic teams.

Omron switches

Omron switches with a MTBF of 10M clicks are chosen for the Left and Right click, ensuring that the CLUTCH’s quality will not fade during its lifetime.

Drag Reduction Cord

The exit of the cord support has been angled upward at a 30 degree angle. This prevents the cord from touching the surface in front of the mouse, reducing the drag of the cord.

Color System

An RGB LED lights up the CLUTCH’s scroll wheel. The RGB LED can be configured in any color preferred by the end-user and offers various brightness modes.

Onboard Memory

Onboard memory stores up to three profiles with three CPI steps each, as well as macros and light configurations. This gives the end-user the ability to smoothly switch between systems without any hassle.

Scroll Wheel LED

Personalize your mouse by customizing the RGB LED in the scroll wheel to any color you desire.

Pro tip - A unique color can be set for each user profile.

Profile Level/CPI Indicator

Pressing the Profile cycle button cycles through three user defined Profile levels. The number of lit LEDs in white corresponds to which Profile level is active.

Packaging & Unboxing

The Packaging of the Fnatic Clutch G1 Optical Gaming Mouse is clean, clear and in full color. Dominated by a picture of the mouse inside, you will only find the brand and model tucked into the corners.

The rear of the box highlights the features and specifications, and tells you what the Clutch G1 is all about.

The Left and Right sides of the box are very clean and simple as well. We get a side view of the mouse on the Left, and the Clutch G1 name on the right side.

The clean and simple theme continues inside the box as well. The Clutch G1 Mouse is tucked into a soft foam block protecting it, along with the quick guide. The mouse Cord is tucked into a cutout under the mouse.

“Goodbye Mediocrity” also applies to the Fnatic Clutch G1’s packaging as well. The custom fit soft foam block is awesome. There is even a layer of the same foam in the lid to prevent any scratches or bumps.

A Closer Look

The Fnatic Clutch G1 Mouse is a pretty simple looking mouse. Two thumb buttons and two buttons behind the scroll wheel are a stark contrast to what might come to mind for most when looking at a ‘gaming mouse’.

The Clutch G1 is a Right handed mouse, so the two thumb buttons are on the left side. By default they are Mouse 4 and Mouse 5 tied to windows forward and back commands respectively.

The sloped right side of the mouse features the Clutch name.

Looking head-on we get a good view of the scroll wheel and two buttons used by default to switch CPI (also known as DPI to most). The scroll wheel lights up along the translucent edges and by default, indicates which CPI speed you are on. The mouse wheel does not allow side scrolling, but this feature isn’t used much in the gaming world anyway.

The bottom of the mouse is pretty bare. Featuring 3 large mouse glides, the Fnatic Gear logo, and all of the usual labeling such as electrical requirements and certifications. The fact that Fnatic took the time and money to get this mouse certified by the FCC and CE shows you they are taking this seriously and not cutting any corners.

Software & Testing

After Installing the Fnatic Gear Clutch Software and rebooting, the software launches into the Basic Settings tab. I did have to restart the computer after installation to get the software to connect to the mouse, so please don’t skip this step. From here you can adjust X and Y axis CPI (DPI), independently from each other if needed, as well as global mouse settings. You can pick level 1, 2 or 3 by clicking it, or by pressing the two buttons behind the mouse wheel. You can also change the USB Polling rate from the default 1000Hz. On lower powered machines such as netbooks, the 1000Hz polling can make a noticeable dent in CPU performance as it is interrupting the CPU to update cursor location every millisecond.

The Button Assignments Tab gives you the option to configure every single button on the mouse, including left and right click. You do have to leave at least one button on the mouse set as left click however. You can save 3 different profiles by selecting the Profile 1-3 buttons at the top of the screen and making adjustments as you see fit.

Buttons can be configured as follows:

Mouse

• Left Click

• Right Click

• Middle Click

• Forward

• Back

• Scroll Up

• Scroll Down

• Single Key

• Double Click

• Triple Click

• Continuous Click

Fnatic Gear

• Push to Talk

• CPI Cycle

• CPI Up

• CPI Down

• Profile Cycle

• Profile Up

• Profile Down

Macro

• Any Saved Macro

Multimedia

• Open Player

• Prev Track

• Next Track

• Play/Pause

• Stop

• Mute

• Volume Up

• Volume Down

Office

• Copy

• Cut

• New

• Open

• Paste

• Print

• Select All

• Save

• Redo

• Undo

Windows

• Computer

• www.

• Close Window

• Find

• Maximize

• Minimize

• Show Desktop

• Run

• Open…

Disable Key

The Color Settings Tab allows the Lights in the Scroll wheel to be adjusted through a large range of colors and effects. These settings are unique to each “Level” under each profile, so you will need to make sure each one is set correctly.

The CPI Lights cannot be changed. And will light one, two or three lights depending on what ‘level’ of each profile you are on. The lights will also shift between orange for Level change, to white for Profile change to let you know where you are.

The last tab is for recording Macros. Recording one is easy enough, just type a name for the macro that is 20 charters or less, hit the little record button and press the keys you want to enter, including mouse clicks and keyboard leys. When you are done. Click the record button again and hit ‘save’. You can now use the recorded macro under the button assignments. The macro recording abilities here are limited compared to many other solutions out there. There is no option to adjust, include or exclude time between buttons, or to add or remove a key press in the middle if you miss one, you will have to start from scratch to do so.

Don’t forget to click apply when you are done setting everything up, you will see the mouse lights blink a few times to confirm changes are saved to the mouse.

Mouse Polling Rate Test

Mouse Rate Checker 1.1b

“This little program measures and displays the sample rate of a mouse, i.e. how often the mouse sends information to your computer. It just measures the time between two “WM_MOUSEMOVE” messages and calculates the frequency. There are programs to increase the sample rate of PS/2 mice to make the cursor movement smoother. To check your mouse’s sample rate, just move the mouse quickly over the Mouse Rate Checker window until the average rate stays constant. It’s possible that the rate is a bit inaccurate, especially at high rates (>=100 Hz). Try to uncheck the “show current rate” checkbox, which should lower CPU usage and close all other applications. If it’s still inaccurate, blame Windows, not my program. Mouse Rate Checker 1.1b is Freeware.”

In testing, the mouse is being tested and calculated out to be polling at the selected speed (after hitting ‘apply’). Here you can see it testing at ~1000Hz as selected. The 125Hz, 250Hz and 500Hz all tested right where they were expected to be as well.

Final Thoughts & Conclusion

Fnatic hit a home run here with the Clutch G1 Optical Gaming mouse. The simple design with quality components, Omron Switches rated for 10 Million clicks to the Holtek processor coupled with the Pixart 3310 Optical make this a mouse that will keep up with the most intense gaming sessions for years to come. The build quality is great, the coating on the outside of the mouse provides plenty of grip, even with sweaty palms, and the ergonomic shape is comfortable to a use like me who uses a palm grip. The buttons are comfortable to reach and don’t require thought to figure out what you are clicking like mice with 15+ buttons. The software gives a ton of flexibility, and enough profiles and options to satisfy the majority of owners.

The mouse itself I absolutely love, and I am very picky about mice. The software is decent, my only real negative comment about it is the Macro recording needs just a few tweaks to make it on par with the rest of the market. The ability to use delays, or manually add/remove clicks would be great, but it is certainly not a deal breaker as it can likely be patched in with a minor software update. As of this writing, the Clutch G1 retails for $59.90 which makes this an excellent deal for what you get.

I’ve used the same mouse for years, and the Fnatic Clutch is putting it in danger of being replaced. That's why I'm giving the Fnatic Cluth G1 Optical Gaming Mouse the ProClockers "Editor's Choice" award. As usual, Excellent job Fnatic!

Purchase the Fnatic Clutch G1 on Fnatic's Website or at Amazon