Wireless mice have come a long way in recent years. In the past, I always had to compromise on latency and accuracy in exchange for the freedom of wireless. The cable drag of a wired mouse is one of my pet peeves, so it has always been a worthwhile trade-off for me. 2022 will see the introduction of a high-performance RGB lightweight wireless mouse. That's where the Roccat Burst Pro Air comes in.

The Roccat Burst Pro Air features the popular cutout look with shiny RGB lighting, but no actual cutouts. Instead, a transparent layer of honeycomb motifs allows the RGB goodness to shine through and look like a cool high-tech product. The way the hexagonal pattern casts shadows and allows the lights to shine through has a real sci-fi feel to it, reminiscent of the tech builds of games like "Ark."

As with any mouse with this much RGB lighting, your hands will cover much of it. At least with this mouse, the light is diffused and extends right up to the scroll bars and mouse buttons, making it a bit more transparent than other mice I've tried. Also, because there are no cutouts, it is not as light and airy as other mice, but there is no danger of things falling through the holes.

Despite the lack of actual cutouts, this mouse is nicely lightweight; at 81 grams, it allows and encourages quick movements like flick shots and twitch reactions. While I will never be able to develop pro esports skills, I think there is merit in reducing this gram count to allow for speedy movements.

This is also backed up by the precision of this mouse. As mentioned earlier, latency is not a big issue with modern wireless mice, and the Roccat Burst Pro Air is a good example of this. The fairly standard receiver picked up the position accurately, and there was no latency whatsoever to be recognized. It glides very nicely on a mouse mat, but not so much on a bare table, and the Roccat Swarm software can check signal strength and help remedy any problems.

Buttons can also be remapped within the Roccat Swarm software, but there are not many of them. The main left and right buttons are clicky and work well. Therefore, there is no question as to whether or not an action has been taken. The two side buttons are similarly operative, but are easy to press inadvertently. In addition to these, there is a standard scroll wheel and perhaps the largest DPI change button in mouse history. While a bit bare-bones, it has the core features that many gamers, especially FPS fans, are looking for. At this price, however, it is reasonable to ask for a little more.

The software also allows you to change other settings like RGB lighting, angle snapping, and power saving. We also appreciated that the mouse's battery life is displayed as a percentage, and we found the battery life to be fairly standard. However, we found that even with power saving enabled, if the computer was on, the mouse battery would drain before disconnecting to conserve battery power. Therefore, it is common to return to the PC and find a wireless mouse with a drained battery, which is not ideal. As long as you don't forget to recharge the batteries or turn off the PC, this probably won't be a problem.

The Roccat Burst Pro Air is a pretty solid gaming mouse, a futuristic beetle made for the hand. It has a few less buttons and could use a few more power-saving modes. However, the clicky buttons, excellent wireless connectivity and responsiveness bring a lot to the desktop for many gamers.