The new Steelseries Aerox 5 wireless gaming mouse is as much fun as a mouse. Just look at its honeycomb casing through which a generous amount of RGB lighting shines uninhibited. Retailing for a staggering $ 269, this mouse will raise your eyebrows for a variety of reasons.
For that princely sum, get a quick, lightweight mouse with splash-proof switches, three ways to connect, and a massive 180-hour battery, but no charging disc. I’ve been using Steelseries Aerox 5 for several weeks and it’s definitely a good gaming mouse, but is it special? How $ 269 a little special?
Steelseries Aerox 5 Wireless Gaming Mouse Review
Aside from a few extra buttons, the Aerox 5 looks pretty generic when it comes to hole gaming mice. It is made of matte plastic molded in an almost symmetrical shape that, in theory, could work for left-handers if not for all the buttons on the left side. It fits comfortably in the hand but is more conducive to the grip of the fingertips or the palm due to its length and short height. The mouse buttons on the front are gently lowered to grip the fingers, while the thick, tactile buttons on the thumb on the side are easy to reach and squeeze.
Two additional thumb buttons stand out immediately; a silver clutch button that acts as a sort of “shift key”, while a larger button like a paddle is on top of the traditional thumb buttons. Even with my long fingers, I found a stretch to get to the clutch paddle unless I resorted to a claw grip. Unfortunately, this makes my thumb buttons unreachable, as my hand is now far forward in the mouse.
Similarly, the longer horizontal palette felt bad in its limited up / down click where I was constantly waiting to press it inward. The best use case I found for this palette was for lazy scrolling of long pages. If you play a lot of MOBA and role-playing games, I’m sure you’ll find a more creative use for this palette. All buttons can be reprogrammed in the Steelseries GG software and saved in mouse memory.
Now, due to the very “perforated” nature of the Aerox 5’s honeycomb housing, it’s very light for a full-size mouse: it only measures 74 g. In addition, Steelseries redesigned the internal PCB, reducing it by 50% thinness. The battery is also an impressive 6 g which, according to the company, is 14 g lighter than those found in other mice. All of this translates into an incredibly lightweight mouse that is so easy to throw. The large 100% PTFE sliding skates allow the Aerox 5 to slide and slide with enormous ease. This makes it perfect for lovers of competitive contraction shooting games.
However, I am wary of these exposed mice due to the amount of regular spills of water and coffee that occur on my desk. Steelseries assures me that Aerox 5’s new AquaBarrier technology will withstand water, dust, oil and dirt to damage internal bits. Obviously I couldn’t test it and only a lot longer than I’ve had can validate the longevity of the Aerox 5.
Something a little disappointing about this honeycomb housing is the RGB lighting. Called PrismSync lighting, it’s certainly vibrant and bright, but since all four LEDs are at the base down, you don’t get a very powerful light show through the honeycomb housing above. It would have been much better to focus the lights on the interior components and the back of the housing to get a good light show.
To be fair, when you use the mouse, it will be covered anyway, so let’s talk about performance. Steelseries uses an 18,000 DPI TrueMove Air optical sensor with 400 IPS and 40G acceleration. The reality is that most of us never exceed 2000 DPI anyway, but the higher resolution makes the mouse feel much more accurate even with low settings. You can adjust things like DPI, takeoff, and acceleration to the GG app, but suffice it to say it feels great. Blows and swings are recorded immediately and tracking of enemies in games was accurate.
The Aerox 5 uses Steelseries Quantum 2.0 Wireless that allows you to connect without delay via a 2.4 Ghz USB dongle. The dongle is a USB Type C that is great if you’re using Apple MacBooks, but not so much for most computers that have one or no Type C port. Fortunately, there’s a USB Type A to A converter included the box. There is also Bluetooth 5.0 for wireless connection to compatible devices. In my case, Quantum Wireless for my computer and Bluetooth for my MacBook Pro work. A simple switch on the base allows you to change without any problems.
I had no connection issues in my test time and I honestly wonder why anyone is already bothered with wired mice as the latency is virtually indistinguishable. However, wireless means batteries and charging. This is not a problem here though. The Aerox 5 manages a good 180-hour battery life if you only use Bluetooth connectivity. This is significantly reduced to 80 hours with Quantum 2.0 wireless.
In my case, I swung between the two while using the mouse with my working MacBook 16 and my gaming PC. This resulted in about 8-9 days between charges. Not bad, but certainly not set up and forgotten like the amazing 450 hours of the Razer Orochi V2. Fortunately, the Aerox 5 has a USB Type C port that makes charging easy. It can also be charged quickly in 15 minutes, resulting in 40 hours of play. beautiful. I have no complaints about the longevity of the Aerox 5.
Verdict
The new Aerox 5 is another solid addition to the growing list of lightweight, perforated, wireless gaming mice. It is lightweight, comfortable, has great connectivity and performance and the battery life is good. Steelseries certainly makes some of the most comfortable and accurate gaming mice and this one is no different. But is it enough to justify the $ 240 price tag? There are a lot of solid gaming mice, even fantastic ones for less; Razer Viper Ultimate, Roccat’s Kone Pro Air and Rairs Champion Saber Corsairs come to mind. There’s nothing particularly WOW about the Aerox 5 – it’s just a solid gaming mouse. And there are many of these.
Steelseries Aerox 5 Wireless
I like
Great feeling in the hand
Excellent build quality
Three ways to connect
Good battery life
Excellent performance
I DON’T LIKE IT
More expensive than it should be
The extra buttons are too complicated