Trust GXT 980 Redex

As you may have read in my review of the Trust GXT 834 Callaz keyboard, I've been testing and taking a look at all three of the latest peripherals in Trust's GXT line-up. This time, I'm going to be focusing my efforts on the GXT 980 Redex wireless mouse, which offers some top of the line features, despite its quite basic appearance.

Before I get into the intricate details, let's start with the build and the appearance of the 980 Redex. This is a lightweight mouse that is constructed using good quality plastic in all black. It features quite a basic design style, it doesn't boast any ergonomic curves to suit the shape of your hand, it's a traditional mouse shape in body, bar the two thumb buttons on its left side. This means you get a left click, a right click, a scrollable and clickable mouse wheel, the two aforementioned thumb buttons, as well as a small middle button. From the first glance, you'd see the 980 Redex as quite a run-of-the-mill peripheral, but there's a lot hidden under the hood that elevates its potential.

And I say this as the 200-10,000 DPI (which can be customised widely to suit your exact preference), the 100 IPS tracking speed, and the 125-1000Hz polling rate all make this into a very responsive device that will serve you well regardless of whether you're a fan of climbing the ranked ladder in Halo Infinite and desire precision or instead favour starting a new campaign in Civilization VI for some more relaxed gameplay. Sure, the 980 Redex lacks that little bit of bulk that some mouse users favour, but it is designed in such a way that it sticks to your mouse pad and effortlessly glides along it with ease, picking up every move you make along the way.

The buttons themselves are also responsive and well-constructed, and offer longevity with their 80 million clicks promise. As a long-time user of a Razer DeathAdder Elite, the jump to the 980 Redex has meant having to adapt to one less middle button and a slightly smaller mouse body. But, otherwise the build quality and hand feel have been equally as good, if not better at times. This is only accentuated by the fact that the 980 Redex is also a hybrid mouse, meaning you can use it both in a wired and wireless instance.

When it comes to using the mouse wired, it's pretty straightforward, you plug the USB-C side of the cable into the mouse and then the USB-A side into your PC. That's it. You don't need any accompanying software to get the mouse going, you can just plug and play. To go wireless, assuming the mouse has had a chance to charge up its (maximum of 50 hours) battery, you simply need to remove the top panel off the mouse to find the USB dongle tucked away, plug that into an open USB port in your PC, and then you can remove the charging/wired cable to game wirelessly. Once again, it's that simple. You don't need any accompanying software, it's just a plug and play kind of device.

However, assuming you do want to customise, the 980 Redex has a few options. First of all, if you intend to avoid all things software, you can flip the mouse over to slightly customise the DPI and even switch the mouse on/off, or slightly fiddle with the LED lighting with two physical three-stage sliding buttons. DPI can be switched between 100, 500, and 1000, to suit how responsive you want your mouse to feel, and the other button allows you to turn the mouse on/off, or use it with LED lights enabled, or without any LED lighting. You can't customise the lighting patterns without installing an accompanying piece of software, but if you do, you can fiddle around with the lights a little bit.

I say only a little bit here, as the customisation in the software suite, especially when it comes to the LED lighting, solely revolves around the pattern it displays, you cannot customise the actual colour scheme. Regardless of whether you choose breathing, lightning, rainbow wave, static or any of the other modes, they will all rotate around the same rainbow colour palette, which while less distracting than the RGB in the Callaz keyboard, still suffers from the lack of ability to choose exactly what colours you want your mouse to display. Still, this is an inconvenience at the end of the day, as the same software does allow you to fiddle with DPI settings to a finer degree, change the individual inputs of each button, and even has the option for Macro settings for those who like to delve into that. It's quite a capable software that is easy to understand and get to terms with.

But generally, in a similar vein to the Callaz keyboard, the Trust GXT 980 Redex mouse is a truly capable and impressive device. Sure it lacks some of the refined features and design elements that the more premium mice offer, such as more buttons and rubbery grips, but for the most part this is a gadget that will serve you well, not just as a starting or an affordable piece of tech. There are parts of this mouse (its responsiveness, hand feel, basic fundamental design) that make me want to use it, and for that reason I can't help but feel thoroughly impressed by this device.