Corsair Harpoon Wireless RGB Gaming Mouse

Conclusion

It would be easy to imagine that all mice are the same. After all, they have a sensor, four or more buttons, a scroll wheel and usually some form of lighting.

A quick glance at the three mice we’ve reviewed today and you can see that whilst the basic recipe might be the same, in actuality, you can end up with very different products indeed. Both the M65 Elite and Ironclaw are wired, with the latest PixArt PMW3391 sensor and its whopping 18000 DPI limit. They’re also right-handed, although even here the Ironclaw is a larger mouse than the M65. The M65 though has adjustable weighting, but all three – including this Harpoon – are extremely light. Whilst the M65 Elite and Ironclaw are variations on a theme, the Harpoon Wireless RGB is treading its own path.

The design might be familiar though. Corsair already provides a regular Harpoon that is wired and has a 6000 DPI sensor, but has the benefits of being incredibly cheap. The addition of wireless technology – here branded as Corsair Slipstream – normally means a hefty bump in the price tag and even the most basic wireless mice usually cost a packet. The Harpoon Wireless RGB though is very affordable, without any obvious compromises made to hit that attractive price point (MSRP $50 minus tax).

Although it’s a right-handed design, it barely has any curve to speak of and the side buttons aren’t hidden beneath a lip, so it’s comfortable to use right-handed, but also not too bad for the Southpaws amongst you. Both sides are heavily textured and rubberised which, in conjunction with its status as a true featherweight at under 100g allows you to be in complete control at all times and game for far longer than the dire ’45 minutes with a break’ warnings that we all ignore anyway. You’ll never get fatigued using it. The scroll wheel is smooth, the Omron switches are as good as their legendary status and near complete ubiquity would lead you to believe – think Cherry MX but for mice – and the 10000 DPI optical sensor that beats at the heart of the Harpoon tracks true with none of the inertia or annoying software interference that can spoil some sensors. It’s very nice indeed.

Where it really scores big points with us though is the attention to detail that has gone into the design to convert the Harpoon chassis from a wired setup to a wireless one. Often charging wireless mice is a bit like charging your phone, with a mini USB that doesn’t really fit and certainly won’t stay in if you move it. The Harpoon, however, neatly gets around this by having a large connector which is kept in place with two grooves below the scroll wheel. It takes no time at all to move from wireless freedom to wired charging, and the solidity of the solution means you’re never going to get disconnected at an inconvenient time. If you didn’t know better you wouldn’t guess it was wireless at all. Furthermore, the addition of storage space on the underside ensures you won’t lose the small wireless receiver if you’re taking it with you to a gaming convention or just around your friends. Finally, the wireless performance is exceptional. The batteries are claimed to last 40 hours with standard lighting and nothing in our testing indicated that this is an overly hopeful runtime. The Corsair Slipstream technology promises to keep your response time at or below the 1ms that we’re used to getting from our wired mice and, again, it was as responsive as the very best wired mice we’ve tested.

If you’ve ever wanted to free yourself from the tyranny of cabled mice but feared that either your performance or your wallet will suffer the consequences, then the Harpoon Wireless RGB will dispel those worries like summer sun burning off the morning mist. It’s light, comfortable, responsive and accurate, whilst the wireless features are amongst the very best on the market, particularly when it comes to the charging solution, and for those reasons it wins our OC3D Enthusiast Award.

  

Discuss the Corsair Harpoon Wireless RGB mouse in our OC3D Forums.