Corsair M65 Ultra Wireless Review

Conclusion

Being identical in all regards except for the wireless capability to the M65 Ultra we’ve only just shown you, our thoughts about the majority of the elements remain the same. We’ll let you know about the unique elements in three paragraphs time if you’ve already read our wired review.

Firstly the M65 is as comfortable as it has always been. I’ve got fairly large hands and the chunky nature of the M65 body fits them perfectly. It is a tall body, but also broad too, which gives the mouse the air of something squat and muscular as the wider shoulders trick the eye into making it seem shorter than it is. The placement of the side buttons means they fall easily beneath your thumb, and that large sniper button is extremely easy to press when you need it. However, it has enough resistance that you’ll never catch it when you don’t mean to and suddenly find your crosshairs slowing to a crawl in the middle of an intense firefight.

On the subject of buttons the main pair are Omron switches as we would expect, but instead of being a mechanical switch they are Omron’s new optical models. The key difference here is that with a mechanical switch there is always a small delay whilst the switch stops wobbling about before you can click it again, but with a light-based switch that doesn’t exist and so it’s ready for your click in an instant. That could very well be the difference between the champagne and laurels of a glorious victory, or the sad trudge off after an ignominious defeat.

The last party piece of the M65 Ultra is the six-axis gyro within which lets you define a tilt angle in 10° increments and then use a flick of the wrist to activate whatever you desire. This gives you another four buttons on the mouse without requiring it to look like one of the MOBA specific models which more closely resemble a calculator. We’d require far more time with the M65 Ultra than we have to put it to its fullest use, or perhaps to just be comfortable enough assigning mission-critical functions to it, but even for simple things such as activating recording on Shadowplay, or saving the most recent footage, taking a screenshot, or pausing the game, it works so smoothly you’ll wonder how you ever lived without it. We’re sure that it will be days before someone is using it for very complex functions.

Corsair Slipstream Wireless technology has been up with the very best on the market since its introduction, and it’s a testament to its bandwidth and reliability that even with the 26000 DPI Marksman sensor we didn’t get a single missed movement or unexpected one throughout our time with the M65 Ultra Wireless. You have plenty of range if, for some reason, you’ve only got a back panel USB slot spare. Naturally as with all wireless devices the nearer you can have it the better, but the Slipstream has enough range potential for anyone who hasn’t got their monitor in a different room to their tower. One might imagine that such a beefy sensor and optical buttons might cause battery life to plummet, but we used the M65 Ultra Wireless solidly for a couple of days, with lighting, and still had 40% battery life available.

The new Corsair Marksman sensor is something about which they are rightfully proud, giving you the option of the sleek and minimalist Sabre, the M65 Ultra, and now the M65 Ultra Wireless all equipped with the 26000 DPI behemoth. With a £110 price tag the M65 Ultra Wireless is near the upper end of the mouse world, but with the gyro movement, monstrous sensor and optical buttons it’s also at the upper end in feature set and wins our OC3D Performance Award.

  

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