Of all the devices that I get to test and review at DDNet, the brand I tend to return to for daily use after the testing is done is SteelSeries. They tend to be the devices that are the most ergonomic, durable, and simply fun to use. This is a roundabout way of saying that I’m already using SteelSeries mice for my gaming and work. This new one, the Aerox 3 Wireless Gen 2, is also very good. I’m just not sure I actually needed it.
The Aerox 3 doesn’t deviate too far from the mice that were already working well in SteelSeries’ favour. It’s supremely lightweight, with a mesh-like body that achieves two things; reducing the weight even further, and letting the “cool” (gamer-cool, at least) glow escape from the bottom of the mouse. The Aerox 3 has a robust, comfortable design and while I’ve actually used mice that are even lighter, such as the recent EPOMAKER Carbonis – the extra gram or two actually seems to work in SteelSeries’ favour, helping you to achieve fine control over the cursor movement (which means being able to stop it dead in place when you need it to as well).
The specs are on-point for the price range, too. The Aerox 3 Gen 2 offers a 4,000Hz polling rate, a 26,000 DPI sensor (which I maintain is too sensitive to ever be worthwhile, but of course it is possible to set it lower), and solid mechanical switches that are perfectly calibrated so you won’t accidentally click because they’re too soft and sensitive, but you’re not going to tire your finger out from too much resistance, either.
The mouse comes in three colours – White, Black and Pink. I got the boring colour (black), though I do feel like this is actually the best option cause, firstly, black is a good canvas for the lighting from within the mouse to sit on, and secondly because I think the somewhat transparent plastic used on the mouse doesn’t lend itself well to colour.
The size is good, for bigger hands in particular, and the buttons are placed well around the place. You’d expect that kind of confident mouse design in a company that has had mice as its bread and butter for so long now, and the Aerox 3 doesn’t disappoint there…
But the battery life is absolutely shocking, and this really does need to be said, unfortunately. Steelseries will claim that you’ll get 200 hours of battery life out of the thing in Bluetooth mode (and a little over half that when paired to the more gaming-friendly 2.4GHz wireless connection). In practice, it’s less than that, assuming you’re using the lights. I had to recharge the battery, from full, after two days from my first charge. There are some devices that I don’t mind needing to recharge frequently. My Nintendo Switch 2, for example, isn’t giving me three days straight on a single charge, and I’m fine with that. But I expect my mouse to work, over long periods of time, without having to remember to constantly plug it in. I feel like I need to keep a second mouse charged in the background for those times I forget to charge the Aerox 3, and as silly as it sounds given how little effort is required to plug something in to charge, it feels like it’s adding busywork to my setup.
After testing the EPOMAKER Carbonis recently, and getting used to having that little screen on the body of the mouse telling me things like the DPI and battery life, I do find myself now missing it from the SteelSeries mice that I’ve gone back to. It’s not a dealbreaker by any means, but having a screen on this thing telling me that the battery is getting close to depleted might have helped remind me to charge it overnight.
With all of that said, the Aerox 3 is a well-built mouse that is clearly going to last years, and the calibrations are spot on for me. I don’t play FPSers competitively, so I’ll never need quite that level of precision from my mice, but I can get lost in a complex battle in Total War, Age of Empires, or the Warhammer games, and never notice the mouse struggling to keep up with me. And, thanks to the ergonomics, I can use it all day (or at least until the battery runs out) without my wrist getting sore.
SteelSeries might want to think about some kind of clever innovation to truly step their mice forward in the future (though I have no idea what that innovation might look like), but the clear confidence that their engineers have in this design is well-earned.
