HyperX Pulsefire Surge: a powerful RGB mouse

Ergonomics

The Pulsefire Surge falls into the category of "almost ambidextrous" mice. Ambidextrous, due to its perfectly symmetrical shape, "almost", because of its additional buttons only placed on the left edge. Like the Logitech G203 and G305, The G-Lab Kult Promethium, Tt eSports Black V2 or Dream Machines DM1 Pro S, this design ultimately reserves the Pulsefire Surge for right-handed audiences.

Lefties wishing to take advantage of buttons on the right edge will prefer real ambidextrous such as the Logitech G900, the SteelSeries Sensei 310, the Razer Lancehead and Lancehead Tournament, the Cooler Master MasterMouse Pro L, the Roccat Kova ...

Apart from this divisive constraint, it must be recognized that the design of the Pulsefire Surge turns out to be rather well studied. Despite a fairly simple shape, it is pleasant to take in hand thanks to well thought out curves: slightly concave main buttons, curved edges making it easier to hold; for a symmetrically shaped mouse, it's a nice surprise. The quality of the materials is not to be outdone, with a matt and pleasant coating under the fingers for the shell and an elastomer layer on the plastic of the slices, promoting adhesion.

Combined with the rather reasonable mass of the mouse (about 104 g on the scale, cable placed outside the tray), we obtain a mouse easy to lift and therefore rather well suited to the game in low sensitivity, where sudden movements and repositioning on the carpet are legion. However, we are a bit hungry, since the mice of this size (120.2 x 62.9 x 40.7 mm) now manage to go under the 100 g mark and are therefore even more manageable. The glide remains happily satisfactory thanks to the large PTFE pads.

In terms of grip, the HyperX Pulsefire Surge is especially designed to be held with the fingertips or with just the base of the palm rested. A more relaxed position is nevertheless possible during calm activities, in office automation for example.

Resolutely simple in its form, the Pulsefire Surge does not forget to flatter the retina with an RGB backlight illuminating the translucent border around the hull as well as the logo located on the top. The proposed effects are few, but fluid and very bright. They can also be deactivated.

HyperX has chosen Omron switches for the main buttons of its Pulsefire Surge. A good choice which translates into free clicks and a guarantee of 50 million activations which should in principle ensure several years of frantic pressure. The edge buttons are a little more flexible, but remain sufficiently responsive. A third additional button finds its place above the wheel and is used to modify the sensitivity of the sensor on the fly (up to 5 levels configurable in the mouse software). Finally, the wheel itself is quite classic; flexible, but well notched, it is clickable, but is not associated with side buttons.

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Precision

The Pulsefire Surge takes advantage of PixArt's latest optical sensor, the PMW3389. Even more advanced than the PMW3360 which equips a large number of gaming mice, it supports accelerations up to 50g and speeds up to 10.16 m / s! Insofar as the PMW3360 already displays very high performance and is not faulty despite figures a little less flattering, it is not surprising to find that this new sensor convinces us just as much. After the race for the highest sensitivity would now come the race for speed and acceleration? We will not complain about it, since who can do the most can do the least, but we would prefer to take advantage of more useful improvements, such as a reduction in the minimum height of stall of the sensor in the event of an uplift or even better surface recognition. Indeed, optical sensor requires, glass or other transparent or reflective surfaces should be avoided. In all cases, it is better to favor the use of a mouse pad to get the best out of your mouse, especially for playing.

In terms of sensitivity, the PMW3389 climbs to 16,000 dpi, compared to 12,000 dpi for the PMW3360. Again, this is just a battle of big numbers, since already at 12,000 dpi, a movement of less than a centimeter is enough to cover the entire width of an Ultra HD screen (3,840 x 2,160 px). In short, useless as it stands, but that does not detract from the qualities of such a sensor.

In practice, the agility of the Pulsefire Surge combined with the precision of its sensor makes it suitable for the fastest games and gives it good versatility. We appreciated it as well in FPS as in titles a little more posed, strategy or management, for example.

Small negative point, however, during our tests, the mouse seemed to go to sleep after ten seconds of inactivity, which resulted in a frozen pointer for about a second during recovery. A very painful behavior in office automation when you take back your mouse after typing text on the keyboard. No settings about a possible automatic standby being available in the mouse software, we were not able to get rid of this problem.

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Conclusion

Handy and precise, the Pulsefire Surge is intended for all hands and is suitable for many styles of play. Too bad it is not entirely ambidextrous, but right-handers looking for a small efficient mouse will be in heaven.

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