Setting up the mice was a doddle, the GG software detected them and downloaded their firmware updates, which can be completed over the air rather than needing to connect the mouse with a Type-C cable; this is just a small quality of life improvement but useful non-the-less.
RGB lighting on the mice is really good, it’s diffused well, illuminates a lot of the mouse, and comes with a really clever tricks to preserve battery life, which is that the lighting switches off as you move the mouse, there’s no point illuminating the palm of your hand, is there? Having said that, there are two LEDs on the underside of the mouse that don’t appear to do anything other than waste power, they don’t illuminate the skirt of the chassis, they’re barely visible through the mesh of the mouse, they’re just shining into the mousemat underneath it.
Battery life isn’t all that good, it’s a far cry from the 180 hours that SteelSeries claims. Their website doesn’t specify under what conditions it needs to be used to reach the 180 hours, but it most likely requires it to be in Bluetooth mode and definitely have the RGB illumination disabled. We found it was closer to 10-15 hours using the 2.4GHz connectivity and with the lighting turned on, so if you’re using it all day for work and then switch to playing games after your shift, you might find it needs charged up daily. Allowances can be made in the pursuit of a lightweight mouse but 10% of the quoted battery life? Not great. Charging, however, is very quick, allowing you to get a good boost of battery life in a surprisingly short period of time, and if you are forced to use the mouse in the meantime, the Super Mesh Cable is highly flexible and doesn’t drag on the surface of your desk.
The heart of the device, the TrueMove Air sensor, with its 1-to-1 tracking, 18,000 CPI to track every single movement, up to 40Gs of acceleration and tilt tracking, all add up to feel excellent whether you’re owning noobs in Overwatch, producing a PowerPoint presentation or just messing around in Farming Simulator, it just works and works very well.
Moving onto comfort, we’ll discuss the two separate devices in their own paragraphs.
The Aerox 5 Wireless is the lighter of the two, weighing in at only 73g, and you can feel every inch of their weight-saving efforts. It glides around on the mousemat with zero friction (more-so due to the large PTFE glides on the bottom but the weight is important too), it’s beautifully balanced and fits the hand well for most grip styles, but the chassis does feel a bit too long for my own personal grip style, it pushes my hand backwards which makes the side buttons sit in the wrong place, as well as my fingers resting on the diamond cut-outs on the right and left click rather than the flat plastic at the front. The side buttons feel too close together, and the grey button towards the front is way too far forwards, it just isn’t in the correct place at all for my grip style.
Moving onto the Aerox 9 Wireless, which shares the exact same chassis as the 5, is 14g heavier due to all of the extra buttons on the side, of which there are 12. The same issue exists here, where the mouse feels too long, drawing your hand away from the front of the mouse, though with the 12 buttons on the side, my thumb did find itself right in the middle, capable of pressing most of them without adjusting my grip too much at all; maybe the chassis design makes sense for this model. The Side buttons feel surprisingly good considering their small size, they don’t move around much under the thumb and have a snappy, deliberate click, allowing you to still grip the mouse with your thumb in place but not accidentally press a button.
Merging the two again, the right and left click which are placed on top of the next-gen Golden Micro IP54 switches, rated for at least 80M click durability, feel properly nice. They’ve got an audible click with a lot of push-back so they’re ready to be clicked again immediately. The scroll wheel, which can be clicked left and right for additional macro options, unfortunately has a bit of an issue; it’s too easy to click, though it does feature a nicely defined click as you roll it over, and it’s quiet at the same time.
Testing a manufacturer’s wireless transmission protocol is no easy task without a very expensive laboratory, many test samples and umpteen other things, but we can give you our experience with it. The Quantum 2.0 Wireless technology performed perfectly for us, not a single problem. We did try to move the mouse away from the PC, into another room in fact, and it still performed just fine. There’s also the Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity to give you that additional flexibility, connecting to your iPad or MacBook, for example, without a dongle.
RGB lighting on the mice is really good, it’s diffused well, illuminates a lot of the mouse, and comes with a really clever tricks to preserve battery life, which is that the lighting switches off as you move the mouse, there’s no point illuminating the palm of your hand, is there? Having said that, there are two LEDs on the underside of the mouse that don’t appear to do anything other than waste power, they don’t illuminate the skirt of the chassis, they’re barely visible through the mesh of the mouse, they’re just shining into the mousemat underneath it.
Battery life isn’t all that good, it’s a far cry from the 180 hours that SteelSeries claims. Their website doesn’t specify under what conditions it needs to be used to reach the 180 hours, but it most likely requires it to be in Bluetooth mode and definitely have the RGB illumination disabled. We found it was closer to 10-15 hours using the 2.4GHz connectivity and with the lighting turned on, so if you’re using it all day for work and then switch to playing games after your shift, you might find it needs charged up daily. Allowances can be made in the pursuit of a lightweight mouse but 10% of the quoted battery life? Not great. Charging, however, is very quick, allowing you to get a good boost of battery life in a surprisingly short period of time, and if you are forced to use the mouse in the meantime, the Super Mesh Cable is highly flexible and doesn’t drag on the surface of your desk.
The heart of the device, the TrueMove Air sensor, with its 1-to-1 tracking, 18,000 CPI to track every single movement, up to 40Gs of acceleration and tilt tracking, all add up to feel excellent whether you’re owning noobs in Overwatch, producing a PowerPoint presentation or just messing around in Farming Simulator, it just works and works very well.
Moving onto comfort, we’ll discuss the two separate devices in their own paragraphs.
The Aerox 5 Wireless is the lighter of the two, weighing in at only 73g, and you can feel every inch of their weight-saving efforts. It glides around on the mousemat with zero friction (more-so due to the large PTFE glides on the bottom but the weight is important too), it’s beautifully balanced and fits the hand well for most grip styles, but the chassis does feel a bit too long for my own personal grip style, it pushes my hand backwards which makes the side buttons sit in the wrong place, as well as my fingers resting on the diamond cut-outs on the right and left click rather than the flat plastic at the front. The side buttons feel too close together, and the grey button towards the front is way too far forwards, it just isn’t in the correct place at all for my grip style.
Moving onto the Aerox 9 Wireless, which shares the exact same chassis as the 5, is 14g heavier due to all of the extra buttons on the side, of which there are 12. The same issue exists here, where the mouse feels too long, drawing your hand away from the front of the mouse, though with the 12 buttons on the side, my thumb did find itself right in the middle, capable of pressing most of them without adjusting my grip too much at all; maybe the chassis design makes sense for this model. The Side buttons feel surprisingly good considering their small size, they don’t move around much under the thumb and have a snappy, deliberate click, allowing you to still grip the mouse with your thumb in place but not accidentally press a button.
Merging the two again, the right and left click which are placed on top of the next-gen Golden Micro IP54 switches, rated for at least 80M click durability, feel properly nice. They’ve got an audible click with a lot of push-back so they’re ready to be clicked again immediately. The scroll wheel, which can be clicked left and right for additional macro options, unfortunately has a bit of an issue; it’s too easy to click, though it does feature a nicely defined click as you roll it over, and it’s quiet at the same time.
Testing a manufacturer’s wireless transmission protocol is no easy task without a very expensive laboratory, many test samples and umpteen other things, but we can give you our experience with it. The Quantum 2.0 Wireless technology performed perfectly for us, not a single problem. We did try to move the mouse away from the PC, into another room in fact, and it still performed just fine. There’s also the Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity to give you that additional flexibility, connecting to your iPad or MacBook, for example, without a dongle.
