Can the ShuttlePro v2 build on its previous generation and make life so much easier for editors and designers?
Key Specs:
Retail Price: £89.99 - Purchase Here!
15 Programmable Buttons
Fully Customisable
Jog/Shuttle Wheel For Precise Movement
What Is The Contour Design ShuttlePro v2?
The Contour ShuttlePro v2 represents Contour's flagship model within their famed Shuttle range of products, designed to help editors and designers with precise movements in a range of programs.
With a price of £89.99, it's by no means cheap, but it's worth considering that Contour have built this with specialists in mind. It's built to last and with all of its capabilities, might just be worth splashing out on.
Contour Design ShuttlePro v2 - Design & Build Quality
As the ShuttlePro v2 is something built for a specialist and rather niche sector of the peripherals market, it's unlike something I've seen before and is absolutely intriguing once you first get it out of the box.
It's mostly plastic in construction, with the whole unit fitting comfortably on my rather small desk with wiggle room for both a mouse and full-size keyboard. If you're looking to use this on a smaller desk, it might also be worth investing in a smaller keyboard to make life that little bit easier when moving around your desk.
The plastics used are certainly hard-wearing and I've got to hand it to Contour for making such a great-feeling product. Individually programmable buttons feel tactile and firm to the touch, which makes a nice change to the rubberised buttons I've been used to on some products recently. There’s a lot more assurance and feeling that you’ve pushed the buttons down and inputted the wished command.
The two jog wheels in the middle of the mouse are different enough to distinguish between without looking down during usage, meaning your focus won’t ever be diverted from your work. Around the outside, you’ve got a striped rubber wheel that only turns slightly for more intricate work on audio or video, whilst in the middle, there’s a metal wheel that turns fully round as many times as you need to, with nicely-placed recesses there to also make the ShuttlePro v2 a joy to use.
Contour Design ShuttlePro v2 - Performance In Everyday Usage
Now, the ShuttlePro v2 isn't going to be something that's used instead of your normal mouse, although it can be used to perform tasks such as navigating through system menus or through web browsers. Personally, I found there to be a learning curve to use it for these tasks and therefore stuck to what's it primarily meant for.
In editing YouTube videos for our UNTITLED Reviews channel, in short, the ShuttlePro v2 was a joy to use. When having to cut video at a specific point during a voiceover, the two jog wheels worked well in pinpointing that specific point. You don't get that kind of accuracy with a normal mouse, even one with a mega DPI rating. Also when using Audacity, the two jog wheels worked well for editing pieces of audio for voiceovers or podcasts.
Something that is also noteworthy to discuss are the button placements. After a little bit of usage, I found it easy enough to get to the buttons I wanted, regardless of whether I used the handy labels that came within the box or not. For Audacity certainly, the button placements made perfect sense and were rather intuitive to use.
Contour Design ShuttlePro v2 - Programmable Software
One major point to make about the ShuttlePro v2 is that it requires an installation of their software and drivers (these are here: https://www.contourdesign.com/support/software/) before you can use the product. Even then, it was an absolutely painless install with a small ZIP file and simplistic layout.
That simplistic layout is something key to take note of, resembling a normal Windows Properties menu. This makes it so much easier to navigate than some software that is wrapped up in loads of different menus. Contour have done a great job with making software that is straight to the point and requires very little effort to get around.
Contained within the software is a long list of programs and associated mapping presets for the ShuttlePro v2, meaning that it's compatible with a whole host of programs, regardless of if you're on MacOS or Windows. It's as simple as selecting a product from the list and applying; once you open that program, the ShuttlePro should work pretty much instantly.
Changing button mapping is also pretty damn easy, involving clicking the button you wish to change the function of and then mapping the function from a list given, or any multi-layered combination you wish to input. This means that the ShuttlePro v2 is insanely versatile beyond the installed functions, making it suitable for any environment.
So, Is The Contour Design ShuttlePro v2 Worth My Money?
In short, absolutely. If you're wanting a product from one of the industry's leading ergonomic peripherals providers, the ShuttlePro v2 is worth every penny. Its intuitive software works wonders with the actual product itself, and makes for a fantastic user experience.