Steelseries Aerox 9 Wi-fi Gaming Mouse Assessment

Extra than nearly anything else, the Steelseries Aerox 9 Wi-fi is very little short of a specialized accomplishment. With suppliers striving to lose weight on their wireless extremely-lightweight mice by shrinking components, eradicating unnecessary characteristics, and punching as a lot of holes on the outer shell as achievable, Steelseries has managed to cram a full established of twelve buttons with the Aerox 9 Wi-fi, when even now preserving the pounds less than 100 grams.

Aerox 9 Wireless is maybe the first extremely-light-weight gaming mouse for the MMO/MOBA style at 89 grams, and for those that are on the lookout for this specific toolset, there is almost nothing fairly like it. Sure, there have been other MOBA-targeted gaming mice, notably ones from Razer, but the Aerox 9 is the lightest of them all, and the assure of approximately 180 hours battery lifetime is only icing on the cake.

Style and Convenience

The Aerox 9 Wi-fi shares lots of structure factors from Steelseries Rival 5, a common gaming mouse introduced sometime past year. Only listed here, the outer shell functions the regular honeycomb design to obtain the ultra-light-weight standing, and the aspect buttons are totally replaced with twelve chunky little buttons to assist in your MOBA adventures.

The most spectacular section about the design and style is how properly these buttons are positioned and how straightforward it is to use them. They are stacked on prime of just about every other into a compact house, but are simple to tell apart many thanks to their refined distinct characteristics. The major row is scaled-down and recessed into the shell, the middle row has a easy curvature on the prime, though the base row buttons are a little bit broader.

Now, I do not assert to be a heavy MOBA player, and have only evenly dabbled in Dota 2, so I can’t notify you how powerful these buttons would be for the duration of a match. Even so, I resorted to tuning these buttons to aid me in editing in Photoshop and Premiere Pro, offering every single of the buttons a independent command or a macro to speedily execute features that would otherwise consider me a number of important presses. Of program, it does consider time for the muscle-memory relationship to settle in, but after a several times of use, I could conveniently remember which button did what, and obtain them without even looking at the mouse. Actually, following modifying with this mouse, it will be difficult for me to go back again to a common 1, and I guess that claims a lot about how intuitive the buttons have been to use.

Aerox 9 Wi-fi also nails the comfort and ease, specifically for being these kinds of a significant and chunky machine. It will fill out your overall palm thanks to the extra buttons, and the sizable bulge in the center of the machine provides sufficient balance. Once again, the measurement and shape of the mouse took some receiving made use of to, but the light-weight of the device assisted in not weighing it down as well much all through rapid actions.

The side buttons are rigid more than enough and do not simply click effortlessly, which is effective in its favor as your thumb rests squarely in the middle of them. In the course of heated gaming classes, I did not come across myself clicking on any of the buttons in any way, and their delicate, clicky mother nature ensured that every single button press was audible and perfectly registered.

The only section I foresee some consumers not liking is the punch holes that prolong ideal into the middle of the remaining and appropriate mouse buttons. I have a palm grip design and style, and so I did not come to feel the holes on my fingers a great deal. But all those with other grip designs, these kinds of as the claw variant, could possibly discover the punch holes jarring and not comfortable. It can make for wonderful aesthetics but obtaining punch holes on the mouse buttons are not constantly practical. This is a thing the Superb mice faced significantly criticism for and they immediately moved away from that style and design for their new mice.

There is lots of RGB on the Aerox 9 Wireless, which shines from the bottom of the mouse, all the way by way of the back. The RGB lighting is divided into a few individual zones and can be custom made completely making use of the Steelseries GG program.

In terms of make high-quality, the mice felt strong and quality in the arms, and for $149.99, we have come to count on that from Steelseries. There is a bit of sway on the two mouse buttons but I really don’t believe they would break or occur free with major use, nor do they significantly wobble when applying them. The honeycomb design exposes the inner components of the mouse, which is thankfully secured with IP54-rated AquaBarrier which covers the gadget from dust, oil, dust and drinking water. Living in an spot where design pops up on a weekly foundation, the dust and particles defense is normally welcome for a mouse with these kinds of a style.

Underneath the mouse you will locate your common PTFE glides, together with a circular a person for the sensor. We are not guaranteed if the sensor glide aids in bettering efficiency, but it does not appear to hurt in any way, so it is a good indulgence to have.

The mouse has twin-connectivity – Bluetooth 5., and 2.4Ghz wireless applying Steelseries Quantum 2. wi-fi know-how, which it claims transmits info “faster than ever before”. Of class, there is no tangible way of measuring this but it felt no diverse from prior Steelseries mice, or even other wi-fi mice from distinct brands.

Software and General performance

The Aerox 9 Wi-fi can be custom-made using the Steelseries GG companion software program. You have the usual functions to tinker all-around with, like environment upto 5 CPI amounts, regulate mouse acceleration/deceleration, set the polling price, and far more.

There are also two important features that aids battery daily life. Moreover the Slumber Timer and Illumination Dim Timer, you also have a Higher-Performance Method and Illumination Sensible Manner. The Significant Efficiency Manner looks to merely switch off the RGB mild and lock a couple battery-linked solutions (without having significantly affecting effectiveness), although the illumination Smart Method turns the RGB off when the mouse is moving, and turns it again on when it truly is stationary.

And speaking of RGB, as per common, Steelseries has divided them into three separate zones, which implies that you can customise the lighting of every single of the zones with various colors or RGB design. You can also disable illumination on a per zone basis, offering you an added resource to preserve battery lifetime if you do not desire much too much RGB bling on your mouse. Individually, I turned off the RGB that appears on the again of the mouse as I will not be on the lookout beneath the mouse that usually, seriously.

Each and every of the 16 buttons on the Aerox 9 Wi-fi are customizable, like the left and suitable tilt of the scroll wheel. These buttons can be set up with macros, or commands from your preferred MOBA sport, or even Windows and Mac perform keys, and have all of these saved into separate profiles.

A single point I wished Steelseries had finished was to include things like button presets for different MMO/MOBA games like it reveals on the formal web site, on the software program alone. I am sure this would have been a great help for players to quickly set up the mouse for a sport, instead than punch in each and every command manually.

The mouse takes advantage of the Steelseries TrueMove Air Sensor that it co-produced with PixArt. It is the exact same sensor which is found on their just lately launched Prime Mini collection, and capabilities 18,000 CPI, 400 IPS tracking, and 40G acceleration. As envisioned, the mouse had no problems holding up with my frenetic movements in Halo Infinite. I was ready to decide pictures with the sniper rifle with relative precision, and landed up with the very same all round precision price of ~50% that I do with most other mice.

The Steelseries mechanical switches are great and sharp. They do not have any pre or submit vacation, so just about every click feels snappy and responsive. They are quick to depress as well, which some could possibly discover a tad little bit on the softer side. Personally, I like a thing that’s brief and rapid rather than a little something which is cumbersome, so the Aerox 9 Wireless switches had been promptly more comfy to me.

The aspect buttons are not mechanical, which was envisioned as that would increase unnecessary body weight to the gadget. But they do have a sleek ‘thud’ to them, and are as fulfilling to click as they are responsive. They just take some effort and hard work to depress, so that you do not unintentionally simply click on them as your thumb lies specifically on major of them.

The scroll wheel feels solid and has apparent methods, so it should support properly for gamers that count on it to navigate all over match menus. The scroll wheel simply click and tilt are also sharp and snappy, and feels solid to use in video game.

Battery Everyday living

The Aerox 9 Wi-fi claims a whopping 180 hrs of battery existence, but Steelseries by no means specifies – in any of its push substance – just how a person is intended to use the mouse to realize all those outcomes. So, for the to start with several days, I utilised the mouse with the RGB illumination established to 100% and saw the battery lifestyle dwindle at an alarming fee. I shot down from 90% to 75% in a number of hrs, and expected charging about the middle of the second work day. I then dropped the RGB illumination to its most affordable environment and saw much better final results but not to a level wherever I can confidently say that the mouse would very last me for probably even 80 hrs. So, it would seem that you will have to transform off the RGB absolutely to reward from the additional battery daily life, which is a bit disappointing as not lots of would want to compromise on their RGB bling.

Competitors

Aerox 9 Wireless’s largest competitor is the Razer Naga X, which features 16 programmable buttons, optical switches, and Razer’s 5G Advanced Optical Sensor. It is also lighter than the Aerox 9 Wireless at 85 grams, but it is a wired mouse, so the extra little bit of fat on the Steelseries is virtually negligible.

The Razer Naga X is also substantially cheaper at $79.99, so it will be upto you to choose if you want to shell out the further top quality for a wi-fi mouse.