A tough decision: healthy wrist or healthy score?

Lately, I’ve been getting cramps in my right wrist after long gaming sessions. After all, I spend hours gaming with my hand tilted inwards. This posture can lead to inflammation and pain. To relieve the strain on my forearm, I bought a vertical gaming mouse. Before that, I didn’t even know they existed. So I was all the more happy when the mouse arrived: tall, beefy, with RGB lighting and a CPI switch.

Mouse

EUR37,14

Trust GXT 144 Rexx

Cable

19

Mouse

EUR37,14

Trust GXT 144 Rexx

Cable

19

Great feeling comes at a price

My first impression? The mouse feels very pleasant. It’s easy to grip and, thanks to its 45-degree slant, my forearm’s resting on the table in a natural position. But the tilted mouse also forces me to make unfamiliar movements. While moving my regular mouse to the left and right is intuitive, my hand is at an angle with this vertical mouse. If you want to look to the left in a game, you’re no longer moving your hand to the left, but what feels like inwards, towards your forearm. This will take some getting used to.

I’ve also noticed that the vertical mouse is heavier and doesn’t glide across the mouse mat as smoothly as my regular one. But what’s way worse is that it keeps tipping to the side because of the high centre of gravity. As a result, the sensor doesn’t read my movements accurately.

In games that require precision, these inaccuracies are fatal. I miss stationary enemies in PUBG, click on the wrong mobs in World of Warcraft and fire my ultimates into oblivion in Smite. My performance worsens, and I get killed in situations where I technically have the upper hand.

These aren’t growing pains

Despite the frustration, I’m giving the vertical mouse another chance. For weeks, I put up with this torture in the hope of getting used to the new hand position. Unfortunately, I can’t get to grips with the tilting problem. Even four weeks in, I’m missing targets more than I’m hitting them. My kill/death ratio’s looking like Ubisoft’s share graph after they released Skull & Bones: going downhill.

In search of solutions and some consolation, I look into what others think of vertical gaming mice. Scanning YouTube and Reddit, it soon becomes clear that most people feel the same as me. It seems the mice are just too clunky, too heavy and too imprecise. There are only few positive voices out there.

Good for work, but not for play

Vertical mice are mainly used in an office environment. And that’s where I’m putting mine to work now, too. After all, my mouse movements don’t have to be particularly fast or precise at work. Plus, I’m enjoying the advantages of ergonomics without the disadvantages of lacking precision.

For gaming, I’ve gone back to using my usual gaming mouse. With it, my headshots are precise and I’m slowly building up my K/D again. To take the strain off my forearm, I’m trying out stretching exercises. Or taking a quarter-hour break for every hour of playing time, as is generally recommended. Let’s see how long I can keep up the discipline.