At a look
Skilled’s Ranking
Professionals
- 18 simply programmable buttons
- Weighs solely 89 grams
- Fast and responsive
- Twin Bluetooth 5.0 and a couple of.4Ghz wi-fi
Cons
- Some buttons on the facet grid are laborious to succeed in
Our Verdict
The SteelSeries Aerox 9 Wi-fi is light-weight and fast, and contains loads of customizable choices for critical MMO/MOBA players. It’s among the best mice we’ve examined.
The SteelSeries Aerox 9 Wi-fi is a uncommon discover amongst gaming mice in that it has 18 programmable buttons however weighs simply 89 grams. These two components alone ought to delight players—particularly MOBA and MMO gamers searching for extra buttons to deploy instructions and macros. Even higher, the Aerox 9 Wi-fi backs this up with a fast 18,000 CPI sensor and twin Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity.
The key sauce to its light-weight design is a honeycomb-mesh masking that runs virtually all the size of the mouse. Aside from holding its weight in examine, this design additionally provides the Aerox 9 Wi-fi a futuristic look, and supplies an excellent birds-eye view of the flashy RGB lighting inside.
The Aerox 9 Wi-fi can be extraordinarily snug—so long as you utilize a palm or fingertip grip. Should you’re extra of a claw-grip participant, this mouse in all probability isn’t for you, since its punctuated high generally is a little awkward in opposition to your fingertips.
SteelSeries Aerox 9 design and construct
Opening the field, my first impression was that the mouse is pretty massive, however has a minimalist profile. There aren’t any fancy curves, flaps or flares such as you would possibly see in different gaming mice.
The 18 buttons appear very nicely positioned for one’s fingers. Aside from the 2 foremost ones on the highest, there’s a button that’s simply reachable by your center finger on the top-center behind the mouse wheel. This button allows you to cycle via 5 totally different CPI profiles that alter the mouse’s sensitivity ranges.
The mouse wheel itself has three buttons in a single, together with each left and proper tilt buttons, however the principle physique of buttons is a grid of 12 positioned on the left-hand facet. This grid is accessible through your thumb and is coloured grey, which contrasts properly with the mouse’s black matte aesthetic.
The Aerox 9’s high mesh design will probably be acquainted to players who’ve used the equally designed SteelSeries Aerox 5. Should you haven’t, you’d be forgiven for considering it compromises performance. That is merely not the case. Regardless of its plenitude of holes, the mouse is remarkably sturdy. The highest mesh didn’t transfer an iota once I examined it, holding its type throughout intense gameplay.
The SteelSeries Aerox 9 Wi-fi boasts a honeycomb high that helps the mouse obtain its 89 gram light-weight design.
Dominic Bayley/IDG
The RBG lighting can be a winner. It’s internalized within the mouse physique, nevertheless it’s no much less spectacular than in mice which have exterior RGB lighting. It’s cut up into three pyramidal zones, which produce some dazzling results as the sunshine ripples across the mouse’s inside circuitry.
Having the ability to peer inside and see all that circuitry unnerved me slightly at first, since I usually preserve a cup of espresso simply inches away from my mouse pad and was slightly involved about spillage. However based on SteelSeries, the internals are protected by an IP54-rated Aquabarrier, which helped put my thoughts comfy.
One shocking advantage of the distinctive “open high” design was that my hand bought much less sweaty on sizzling days. And not using a stable lump of plastic beneath it, the additional aeration proved very snug in prolonged gaming classes.
SteelSeries Aerox 9 Wi-fi Efficiency
SteelSeries has armed the Aerox 9 Wi-fi with its extremely succesful proprietary 18,000 CPI TrueMove Air sensor, which incorporates 400 IPS monitoring and 40G acceleration. Admittedly, it isn’t as fast because the Razer Naga Professional’s 20,000 DPI optical sensor. Nonetheless, it’s confirmed itself worthy in different aggressive SteelSeries gaming mice and it carried out nicely in my checks.
Making an attempt out the Aerox 9 Wi-fi in Name of Responsibility: Black Ops, it felt mild and simple to maneuver. The sensor had no issues maintaining with my fast hand actions, be they lengthy or brief. The mouse’s monitoring additionally appeared extremely correct, and pinpointing targets was a breeze. Plus, the stable, high-shaped high offered loads of stability in my palm grip once I wanted to make repetitive actions.
Serving to the Aerox 9 glide easily throughout my desk are PTFE glide skates on the underside. There’s one in the back and front, in addition to one across the mouse’s sensor. These labored like a dream, even once I wasn’t utilizing a mouse mat.
The honeycomb design provides the Aerox 9 further aeration, making it very snug in prolonged gaming classes.
Dominic Bayley/IDG
The principle buttons felt snug, too. They’ve a contoured middle that cradled my fingers completely in a pure grip. Nonetheless, they aren’t the widest of buttons, and players with massive fingers might want slightly extra room right here.
Whereas most premium gaming mice function comparably quick switches, there might be refined variations in how they reply and of their sturdiness. SteelSeries has given the Aerox 9’s Golden Micro IP54 mechanical switches an 80 million click on sturdiness score, which is 10 million clicks greater than the Razer Naga Professional. To me, they felt tender and clicky. Additionally they had minimal journey, which was splendid for video games by which I wanted to click on quick.
To check the facet grid of buttons (that are with out mechanical switches), I mapped instructions in an outdated favourite MMORPG, Gloria Victis. On the entire, the grid was a pleasure to make use of and tremendously simplified my gameplay. The vast majority of buttons have been straightforward to search out and responsive. Nonetheless, I did discover myself having to stretch my thumb out to succeed in for buttons 3 and 6—this regardless of SteelSeries having neatly organized the buttons in three clearly outlined strains. Nonetheless, this was by no means a serious drawback that affected my gameplay.
On the upside, the grid buttons are fairly agency, so that you’re unlikely to set off them by mistake while you don’t need to.
Aerox 9’s twin connectivity contains each Bluetooth 5.0 and a couple of.4Ghz wi-fi choices. As a laptop computer reviewer, I discovered this performance extremely helpful for leaping between laptops. I might preserve the dongle inserted for gaming in a single rig and use Bluetooth whereas writing a assessment on one other. You will want to ensure your laptop computer has a USB-C port to plug within the Wi-Fi dongle, although.
The SteelSeries Aerox 9 is rated for 150 hours of battery life, which is a good period of time that gained’t see you speeding to plug it in each time you play. The caveat is that that battery life is the utmost when RGB lighting is switched off, so anticipate it to empty down lots quicker when lighting is activated.
SteelSeries GG Software program
Should you usually end up spending time customizing a gaming mouse, make it this one. With so many buttons to map, the Aerox 9 Wi-fi generally is a sport changer in MMO/MOBA video games the place you seldom have sufficient. Conveniently, the 18 buttons might be assigned instructions or macros on the stage of the SteelSeries GG app, quite than having to fiddle round inside every sport’s controls menu. This may prevent a heap of time.
For Gloria Victis I mapped out instructions for Work together, Kick, Show Map, Sheathe/Unsheathe Weapon and Bandage Ally, and I nonetheless had many extra buttons left over that I might have programmed in. This took simply two minutes however made a world of distinction to my gameplay.
Right here we see all of the programming choices for mapping buttons to Gloria Victis.
Dominic Bayley/IDG
RGB lighting zones, mouse sensitivity and responsiveness will also be shortly modified in SteelSeries GG. For mouse responsiveness, you possibly can effective tune and alter the polling fee and the mouse’s acceleration or deceleration to discover a desired setting.
When you’ve set issues precisely the best way you need, you possibly can then simply merely save the profiles within the “configuration” column on the left-hand facet of the app. Switching mouse profiles earlier than video games is so simple as clicking on the fitting profile—it actually couldn’t be extra simple.
SteelSeries Aerox 9 Wi-fi: Must you purchase it?
The SteelSeries Aerox 9 Wi-fi is an ingeniously designed wi-fi gaming mouse that options 18 programmable buttons however weighs simply 89g. The mouse’s intensive button choices, fast sensor and twin connectivity ought to make it a extremely engaging mouse for each aggressive and informal players, particularly MMO and MOBA players who can map instructions and macros all day lengthy. We are able to’t suggest it extremely sufficient.
