Can Galax’s Slider 01 slide you to victory?
View(s):By Mahesh De Andrado
What does the Slider 01 have going for it?
Good looking packaging? Check
The mouse is fairly large and weighs around 120g. It’s not a heavy mouse per se, but it can hold its weight if you do a lot of flick shots. The mouse comes with a braided USB 2.0 cable which is a nice touch for a mouse in this price range. A key point that Galax highlights is that the Slider 01 focuses on ergonomics, protecting the user from RSI (repetitive stress injury). The buttons on the mouse can be customized to your liking using Galax’s XT Gear app. The fact that all of the buttons can be configured for a mouse of this price range was another plus I saw. If you don’t have the app installed, the Slider 01 can be used out-of-the-box with presets. For that added flair, the Slider 01 also has RGB lighting with upto 16.8 million colors allowing you to add that extra touch if you’re color coordinating your PC or laptop workspace.
Behold! The Galax Slider 01 in all its glory.
The heart of the Slider 01 is an optical sensor capable of DPI ranging from 1200 to 7200. Realistically though, I found that a DPI (dots per inch) count of 1600DPI was most suited for me and anything higher resulted in my accuracy dropping, both in game and for general use. Galax also states that the sensor gives you precise tracking on a wide range of surfaces. Having used the mouse on a regular mouse mat and on my table, their claim seems to hold true.
While it’s not a laser sensor, the optical sensor in the Slider 01 does a decent job at tracking across various surfaces
Using the Slider 01 (a sentence I never thought I’d say)
Galax says that the Slider 01 is ambidextrous, but from my experience, it is very much a mouse meant for southpaws. I usually go for a mix between a claw grip and a palm grip and the shape of the mouse actually helps me do that. Because it’s larger than my regular mouse (a Strix Pugio), I immediately noticed the difference in fit and it took a bit of time to adjust to the shape. As stated above, the Slider 01 has 8 buttons. So you get your left and right buttons, middle click, two side buttons, DPI + and DPI – and an additional button on the left mouse button itself.
What does this button do?
Curious to see what these buttons could do, I installed the XT Gear software. While it doesn’t win any awards for having a polished, sophisticated interface, it does give you access to all the bells and whistles to customize the Slider 01 for your liking. The app will automatically detect all Galax peripherals connected. In my case, it showed both the Slider 01 and Slider 03. Selecting the Slider 01 takes you to the configuration page for the mouse, which was exactly what I was looking for.
Galax’s app interface could use some polishing up, but it gets the job done
The Base Settings tab allows you to remap the buttons and you can choose from a plethora of functions such as swapping the button order, changing DPI, media controls, shortcuts, and even creating custom macros. I was quite impressed with the level of functionality offered and spent a considerable amount of time playing around with the buttons to make sure I set it up just as I wanted. For example, I set the second side button to open “My Computer” making it faster to access my files.
I heard you like to customize buttons
If you want even more configuration, you can head to the “Advanced Settings” tab. Here you can configure pointer precision, scroll wheel speed as well as your fire speed (if you decide to map a button as a fire function in game) as well as the DPI of the mouse. Each DPI level has a corresponding color and the mouse will change color depending on the selected DPI. if you want a different color for your selected DPI, that can be configured as well. If you don’t want a DPI level, you can disable it as well.
Even more controls
For all you RGB fans, the LED Settings tab gives you control over the lighting of the Slider 01. You can choose out of 14 modes and change the colors of certain modes as well. My favorites are Ambiilight and Water, but if you want a single color with no effects, that can be done as well. Don’t like RGB? Then you can just turn all the lighting off.
Light em up up up
Once all these settings have been configured to your heart’s content, you can apply the settings and export it if you want to use the mouse on another device. You can also choose from one of four profiles if you want to have a clear differentiation between work and play.
Did Galax give me a winner?
I loaded up a few of my favorite games such as Genshin Impact, Apex Legends, Overwatch, and Witcher 3. While certain buttons can be mapped to ingame controls, most were not. For example, I was able to map the attack/shoot button which is usually the left mouse button to one of the side buttons, but I wasn’t able to map any other ingame keyboard function to it. Then again, I wasn’t really concerned about it as I don’t play MMORPGs and as such, the default control layout is perfectly fine with me.
In terms of the mouse’s performance, I was once again quite impressed. It’s not as accurate as my Strix Pugio, but playing around with it for a day or two saw my aim improving on it, meaning that I was getting the hang of it. I’ve been using the mouse for about two weeks now at the time of publishing this article and it has almost become my daily driver mouse, which says a lot. While the shape of the mouse was not that much of a hassle, if you have sweaty palms, you’re going to have a bit of a tough time as the mouse tends to be on the slippery side. So you’ll probably have to have a cloth with you to wipe your palms.
That aside, I was quite happy with the Slider 01 and would recommend it for someone looking for a relatively inexpensive (especially in this economy) mouse that has customizable buttons, good tracking and also looks good as well.
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