With both Bluetooth and 2.4GHz capabilities, the budget-friendly SteelSeries Rival 3 Wireless is a bit of a head turner.

Complementing the usual black and white colours for their mice, for the second generation of the Rival 3 Wireless mouse, SteelSeries is offering more avant-garde aqua blue and lavender purple alternatives. We received the aqua version of the mouse to try out.

And it looks fantastic. The box doesn’t do the aqua colour of the mouse justice. It also features a lightly textured matte finish that makes it stand out even more.

The mouse is symmetrical, so if you are a lefty who, out of principle, feels the need to use a mouse in their left hand, you can with this mouse. You may have trouble using the two buttons on the left side, but that’s what you get for being awkward (and I say this as a lefty- that uses a mouse in my right hand).

The mouse comes with two AAA batteries in the box, which fit in a compartment under the palm area. SteelSeries states that the batteries should last you 175 hours using the 2.4GHz dongle or 450 hours with Bluetooth. You can even remove one of the batteries to reduce the weight by 11g if you want to make the mouse lighter. Personally, I found the weight, at 106g, to be about right.

Tucked away in the battery compartment is the 2.4GHz USB dongle. It’s good to see a device that has a place to store the dongle, so you don’t lose it if you are on the go. Whilst the mouse is Bluetooth as well, you will get better response times (polling rate) using the dongle.

The SteelSeries GG software (available as a free download from the SteelSeries website) is a bit pushy, wanting to become your gaming hub. It would be nice to have a more streamlined app that just looked after your device rather than wanting to look after your entire gaming life. The GG app “Engine” area is where you can update your SteelSeries devices and adjust options.

For the Rival 3, you can customise the six buttons with keystrokes or macros, set the DPI (including the middle button sensitivity toggles), adjust movement acceleration/deceleration, angle snapping and polling rate. There are also options to extend battery life, smooth Bluetooth cursor movement, and enhance wireless stability if you are getting interference. The GG software saves options to the mouse once set, so you can use it on other devices without the app.

There is an LED light in the scroll wheel, but this only seems to light up when pairing with Bluetooth. The only other time it seemed to light up is to warn when the battery is getting low. I’d expect, though, for lighting to be minimal with a battery-powered mouse to extend the time between battery replacements.

Using the mouse is a breeze. It’s very responsive and glides across your mouse mat on its three PTFE feet. The buttons have a reassuringly positive click about them and are built to last, with SteelSeries boasting that the mouse uses sixty million click switches.

For what purports to be a budget-friendly peripheral, the SteelSeries Rival 3 Wireless Gen 2 mouse certainly stands out. Not only does it look good, but it also feels solid. Having to replace the batteries is a bit of a downer, but you can’t have everything with a sub-AU$100 mouse. Overall, it’s a stylish mouse that performs well and offers excellent value for money.