Forty bucks is a night out at your favorite restaurant.
It's a brand-new AAA PC game, if you shop a Steam sale with savvy.
It's also the cost of Cougar's Surpassion FPS gaming mouse.
Budget-friendly given the feature set, this $39.99 gamer still asks you for enough cash to fund your next dinner date.
If it can't net you a savory chicken dinner in PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, that's money wasted—but the Surpassion proves itself an able-enough clicker for PUBG and similar games, if what you're looking for is just the basics.
This mouse challenges the no-frills sensibilities of the same-price HyperX Pulsefire FPS($34.63 at Amazon), as well as the more ornate luxuries of mice like the Roccat Kova, by driving all of its customization features onto the hardware itself, not relying on a software utility for tweaking its settings and colors.
If this kind of no-nonsense functionality is what you're after, you'll find it a decent buy.
If the Hand Fits...
Measuring 1.49 by 2.55 by 4.72 inches (HWD), the Cougar Surpassion is smaller than the Roccat Kova and the HyperX Pulsefire FPS.
It boasts a typical wasp-waist design, albeit one that favors only right-handed users.
The left side bears a half-hourglass figure, while the right side of the shell is indented at the front and protrudes as you go down its scored-rubber grip.
Accounting for ring-finger and pinky placement, its asymmetrical shape means lefties won't find it comfortable.
In contrast, the Roccat Kova($124.99 at Amazon) and, to an extent, the Logitech G Pro Gaming Mouse($129.95 at Amazon), are suitable for right- and left-handed players alike.
At 3.4 ounces, essentially the same weight as the HyperX and Roccat mice we mentioned, the Surpassion is airy for its size.
It's slightly heavier (by fractions of an ounce) than the Logitech G Pro, but it weighs less than the 3.8-ounce Razer Basilisk($109.66 at Amazon) (an Editors' Choice pick) that my hand is used to.
One thing to note: Because it's so light, the Surpassion slid a bit across my desk of its own accord during several heated gaming moments.
The Surpassion should have a full life ahead of it, given its genes.
The left and right buttons make use of premium Omron gaming switches, rated for 50 million clicks.
That's a cap that would take more than 10 years for even the most intense users to reach.
Sandwiched between the left and right mouse buttons is a backlighting-control button.
Clicking this button, you cycle through 14 different lighting options.
(The lighting emerges from around the scroll wheel, and through a Cougar logo in the shell under the palm.)
Among these effects is a breathing animation that fades through seven colors, including red, green, and blue.
Another loops natural transitions between those same colors.
A third option shuts off the lighting completely.
The remaining effects are static, single-color lighting modes pulled from the Surpassion's palette of 13 possible colors.
(It's not a full RGB array.)
Since this mouse does not use a Cougar-specific utility, we think it actually has more potential than some of Cougar's other peripherals.
That's because it doesn't make you wrangle with the ho-hum UIX System software that the company's higher-end gaming peripherals, such as the Attack X3 RGB($129.90 at Amazon), rely upon.
You'll customize the button functions, if you so desire, from within your game menus, or in Windows' own settings.
The cable is rubber-coated and uses a gold-plated USB 2.0 connection.
While it may be disappointing that it isn't braided, in my experience with the Cougar Surpassion it seemed durable enough when chafed and yanked.
Any $40 mouse will demand compromises; I'm glad it was to the cable coating and not, say, the resolution or the lighting control.
The Real Beauty Is Inside
The one special feature that distinguishes the Surpassion from its rivals is a small (roughly 0.5-inch by 0.75-inch) LCD screen on the underside.
It displays an up-to-date reading of the mouse's tracking resolution in dots per inch (DPI) and the polling rate, and you can change these parameters using two circular buttons on either side of the screen.
The sensor in the Surpassion is a PixArt PMW3330, whose resolution goes up to 7,200 dots per inch (dpi).
By comparison, the competing Roccat Kova uses a 3,500dpi Pro-Optic R6 sensor that can be cranked up to 7,000 in a so-called "Overdrive" mode, while the HyperX Pulsefire FPS uses a 3,200dpi PixArt 3310 sensor.
A higher resolution is beneficial when used in conjunction with a QHD (2,560-by-1,440-pixel) or UHD (3,840-by-2,160-pixel) display.
Of course, with a full HD (1,920-by-1,080-pixel) monitor, 7,200dpi is plenty sensitive enough for tracking your cursor from one side of the screen to the other with only a slight twitch of the wrist.
Under most circumstances, the highest DPI setting isn't going to be the most comfortable one to use, anyway.
On the Surpassion specifically, you can set the tracking resolution as low as 400dpi, though I found that the sweet spot on a 1,920-by-1,080 display was 1,600dpi using the mouse for work and gaming alike.
You can adjust the polling rate, too, with the button to the right of the Cougar Surpassion's tiny screen.
Starting at 125Hz, the range extends all the way to 1,000Hz, meaning the position of the mouse is reported to the computer 1,000 times every second.
Opting for a lower polling rate is bound to result in a higher latency setting.
You won't have to worry about that with the Surpassion, though.
As long as your PC hardware is relatively up-to-date (as in, not a Compaq Presario from 20 years ago), your best bet is to keep the polling rate locked at 1,000Hz.
These specs are par for the course in the world of gaming mice.
The Razer Basilisk and its MMO counterpart, the Razer DeathAdder Elite($64.99 at Amazon), each wield up to 16,000dpi sensitivity and 1,000Hz polling rates.
They are also more expensive than the Cougar.
In terms of raw specifications, the Surpassion is superior to other gaming mice that run parallel to its cost.
Frugality Over Functionality
Given what it's up against, the Surpassion's specs suit it well.
When it comes down to it, though, those numbers have to translate to real-world comfort and performance.
The short answer is that, for $39.99, this mouse is worth the price of admission.
Some will pan it for its lack of supporting software; others will praise the creativity of the hard-coded customization features and the nifty underside LCD.
Of course, the Surpassion doesn't stack up to the awesomely equipped Logitech G903 Lightspeed($99.99 at Amazon), but you could buy one for each hand (and each foot) for less than Logitech's elite mouse costs.
And whereas the closer-in-price Razer Basilisk has a braided cable, a better sensor, and RGB lighting that you can personalize with precision via its Synapse 3 software, the Cougar Surpassion has none of that and is, as a result, the more economical option.
If simplicity and attractive, no-fuss lighting are what you are after—and you're a righty!—the Surpassion is well worth a look.
The Bottom Line
Packing a unique DPI indicator on the bottom, the Cougar Surpassion gaming mouse brings headshots and kill streaks to FPS players on a budget.
