SteelSeriesAerox 9 Wireless - Holey RGB Gaming Mouse - Ultra-lightweight Water Resistant Design - 18 Buttons – Bluetooth/2.4 GHz - 18K DPI TrueMove Air Optical Sensor

I wanted to update my aging and discontinued mid level multi-side button Logitech mouse for my living room and bedroom PC's, where I do all my gaming.. it didn't work on just the bare recliner arm very well, so I needed to use a small wooden circle with an attached bean bag (for stability) sitting on the arm for smooth tracking.. I also wanted a mouse with a rechargeable battery and that could do wired, wifi, AND bluetooth as I have a second Mini PC in my living room and could use the mouse itself to switch between controlling either one... (and it works well for that actually, I have it connected via Bluetooth to the mini PC and Wifi and wired to the gaming PC and just flip the switch on the mouse to the appropriate position).I generally use a PS5 controller for more action oriented fps games (tho heartily agree that mouse and keyboard is the superior aiming control, I'm just a more casual single player game type). I'm usually in a recliner when gaming, so prefer to have a mouse with extra buttons so that i don't have to rely on a keyboard in my lap unless absolutely necessary..tho not usually this many buttons as I at first thought this mouse was going to be unwieldy due to having SO many side buttons.. but I was pleasantly surprised upon trying the mouse and finding it fit my medium sized hands just right and all those side buttons (3 rows of 4) were actually easy to find and use with my thumb... no issues there at all thankfully.it's a really light mouse, which really isn't a detriment for me but I could see someone wanting one that perhaps feels a bit more substantial for more competitive play maybe.. and really, that's my only thing I can critique it for really.. of the two I bought, one just stopped being recognized as a usb device by any PC.. I suspect it was a manufacturing issue, bad chip.. havent had any issue with the replacement or the second mouse at all..so, there's a lot really good about this mouse.. I don't usually leave reviews unless it's really deserved as I'm admittedly lazy, lol. let's go over the good...first, the software works great. Pairing and firmware updates can be a bit specific as they want you to plug the wifi dongle into the provided usb-c adapter via a usb-c cable rather than put the dongle directly into a usb-c port.. but it's a small inconvenience and only for initial or repairing or rare firmware updates.. and I wished the program opened up directly to the programming screen rather than the marketing page.. but it's super powerful software with tons of features, used for all their products.. you can have game profiles that automatically switch when you launch a game and as many as you like.. and any type of setting you can think of is there.. all buttons are programmable aside from the connection switch of course.. and tons of commands, windows shortcuts and combos, macros.. etc.. same for the LED lighting, which has three zones and tons of choices.. (tho I have it minimally set to a quick light up when a button is pressed to save battery life). but it works and has zero issues.. (unlike the awful Armoury Crate crap which is a slow memory hog that caused crashes on my beefy gaming pc)the mouse can be used via bluetooth, usb-c (recharged, wired), and wifi.. now with bluetooth, you can't do any programming or profiles and it eats a bit more battery life than the low power wifi.. but not much. battery life is really great. It's been maybe two weeks since my last charge for my living room mouseand i've got the minimal led and switching between bluetooth and wifi to control different PC's.. i use it almost daily and it's only at 55% at two weeks! it also charges fast..so yeah, I do lose some extra functionality like changing profiles and such if using bluetooth but I personally don't need it, just basic regular functionality, for the second mini PC as that's just for media like youtube or plex while I'm gaming on the living room tv.another great thing about it is the sensor.. I can use this on any surface.. I think it's a proprietary one, not sure.. just know I now can just use my pants leg or recliner arm as my mouse pad where my last laser mouse still needed a separate surface for smooth tracking...so I highly recommend this mouse.. it's well built.. it's not at all huge but everything fits my medium sized hands great and the side buttons are not an issue at all and easy to find and use.. it's got great battery life and I really like the software as well.. it's got a use anywhere sensor and the worst thing I can possibly say about it is that it might be a little too lightweight for some is all. that's it. I also bought an Apex pro tkl wireless that was on sale for the living room (as it also has the same bluetooth/wifi/wired/recharge functionality) and i love that too and there are features in the software where you can co-ordinate the LED lighting if you want.. or have a game control it.. I just use the lighting for more practical low light reasons over any flashy ones and to help preserve battery life but both have excellent marks on that..it's a bit pricey but for what ya get, it's fairly worth it and you can always wait for a sale as well.I've been using the Aerox 9 for[laying Baulder's Gate 3 and never need to use the keyboard.. love it!cheers!

I want to preface that I am an outlier. I have an amazing blend of long fingers, flexible joints, and short palms. For the pianists out there, I have a 10in span on my right (mouse) hand.Apropos of the above, you will see that many others have commented that the ergonomics of this mouse are poor, to say the least. This is a tragic understatement of the embarrassing design of this mouse.I'm most comfortable between a fingertip or claw grip, I often find I swap between the two. However, I am plenty comfortable with a traditional palm grip, especially for longer and larger mice. I **cannot** find a comfortable grip with this mouse. Holding it in a claw or fingertip grip means I'm either holding it short of the mouse buttons, or I must completely curl my thumb in a very dramatic claw to actuate the side buttons. In either pose, the "2" button is nearly impossible to detect, as it abnormally small compared to every button near it. Trying to hit just the "2" button and no other button is a nightmare,and considering that many games have "sour" buttons, wherein hitting the wrong button will cause a delay in the intended action, this is simply unacceptable. Exacerbating all these issues, these buttons are among the squishiest and least tactile of any mouse buttons I've ever used. Redragon slop has better feedback than these, and they cost 1/3rd the price.I tried to hold the mouse on a canted angle, to see if I could work around this with a bit of adjustment. Never you mind that this is already a bad idea (see movement angles) but when I did so I quickly found that the left and right click buttons were simply too short to accommodate a sort of mid-body grip that canted angle required.In my experience, there is no way for me to comfortably actuate all 12 side buttons and keep a comfortable grip on the mouse. If the "1" "2" and "3" buttons were replaced by the "4" "5" and "6" buttons (and another row were added at the back to make up for the loss) maybe I could recommend this mouse.tl;dr, it is an awkward and comically incompetent design. I've never bought anything SteelSeries before and I highly doubt I'll ever buy anything from them again.EDIT: It's been just about 2 weeks since I started using this mouse and it no longer stays paired with the provided 2.4ghz dongle. Pairing with BT works fine, but has some noticable latency. That could just be my BT card, but the lack of connectivity with the dongle is unacceptable after only 14 days of use. Even more damning, I have been busy with work, so I've only spent about 20 or so hours with the mouse.Another issue I've noticed is that the battery level is incredibly unreliable. It will flash red for low battery after about 15 minutes of use, but it seems to still have a "normal" battery life. Time will tell if that's another canary in this coal mine.ymmv, but I'm going to steer everyone away from these mice in the future. Razer mice might die within a year or two but at least they'll make it longer than 2 weeks and can actually report their battery level with some accuracy. The only positive I can give this is that their software is less blighted than Synapse, but you cannot save or switch profiles to the mouse.