Cooler Master Storm Sentinel Advance Gaming Mouse Review

A Closer Look at the Cooler Master Storm Sentinel

Overall, the look of the Sentinel is exactly what you would expect from a modern gaming-grade mouse. Its looks are subdued with a plain black finish and there aren’t any odd angular flourishes like we have been seeing from the likes of Logitech’s and Microsoft’s competing products as of late.

Wrapping around the Sentinel is basically one large rubberized pad which should provide a ton of surface area to keep your hand firmly in place irregardless of how sweaty your digits get. We should also mention that it is a true right handed mouse and we highly doubt that any left handed user will find it comfortable.



Speaking of the ergonomics and overall design of this mouse there is a perfectly placed thumb rest on its left side to help position your hand. Honestly, this design reminds us a lot of the Logitech MX Revolution, a mouse which we find extremely comfortable for extended usage so it is good to see Cooler Master incorporating it. This makes the Sentinel more comfortable by allowing it to conform better to the natural curves of your right hand than a traditional mouse.


Cooler Master has added an interesting design tweak to this mouse as well. The back arch is not what you call very high and is fact fairly flat….just like many Razer mice are. It seems Cooler Master took a look at the competition and then took the best features of many different best in class mice and melded them all together to make the sentinel. Unfortunately, this along with some of its other design features means that it may not be optimal for either the people who like to palm their mice or the “grippers” out there. Indeed, while it could suit either, the Sentinel seems geared towards both types of gamers but this stance could blow up in Cooler Master’s face as neither camp may end up appreciating the hybrid ergonomics.

When it comes to the input buttons of this gaming mouse, Cooler Master certainly went all out in some areas and skimped out in others. As expected it has the typical Forward and Back buttons on the left side of the mouse. These two buttons are perfectly positioned to make pressing either one extremely easy. The thumb rest which helps position your thumb in the sweet spot does go a long way in this area…but it is the little things like button placement which can make or break a unit.


On the top of the device you have a two small buttons located directly behind the wheel which are used for on the fly DPI changing. They too are perfectly positioned so that you can easily reach them, BUT will accidental pressing of either one should be an extremely rare occurrence. However, it should be noted that the one on the left has a small raised bump to help you know which button you are about to press without having to look down.

The button in front of the wheel changes from one of your preset profile settings to another and thus controls what all the buttons do when pressed.


All of these buttons are perfectly refined and work extremely well but we found something a bit unexpected about the wheel. In a most unexpected move -and unlike many in this price range- the Sentinel’s wheel can only scroll vertically and cannot do horizontal scrolling by rocking it side to side. For many gamers this is like buying a brand new sports car only to find a tape deck in the place of the CD player or MP3 jack. While it is unlikely that you will need a multi purpose wheel for most games, this minor oversight will be a handicap in more mundane day to day tasks.

Making those preset profiles even more useful is the fact that this unit has 64k of onboard memory. This onboard memory alloys you to have a maximum of four independent and highly configurable preset profiles stored onboard. These presets do not need any software to be installed for them to work….they just work as soon as you plug in the mouse. Of course to set up of these profiles you will need to use some of Cooler Master’s intuitive software interface to talk to the mouse and program the “Sentinel-X” memory.