Roccat Burst Pro Air

Wireless mice have come a long way in recent years. Once they were always a compromise on latency and precision in exchange for wireless freedom. Cable drag on wired mice is one of my most hated things, though, so it's always been a worthy trade-off for me. Nowadays you don't actually lose out on latency or precision to go cable-free, anyways, and  in 2022, we're seeing a trend of proficient RGB lightweight wireless mice. That's where the  Roccat Burst Pro Air comes in.

The Roccat Burst Pro Air features the popular cut out look with RGB lighting shining through, but without the actual cut outs. Instead, this has a transparent layer with a honeycomb motif allowing the RGB goodness to shine through, and it looks like a cool piece of tech. The shadows on the hexagon patterning with the lights coming through has real sci-fi vibes, and reminds me of the tech builds in games like Ark. 

Like other mice with this much RGB lighting, your hand still does cover a lot of it. At least here the light diffusion and extension right up into the scroll bar and mouse buttons has it shine through a bit more than other mice I've tried. It also doesn't have any cut outs, which means it's not quite as light and airy as some of those mice, but that also means I don't constantly worry about things falling into the holes. 

Despite no actual cut outs this is still a nicely lightweight mouse. Coming in at 81 grams, it's still got that levity that allows and encourages faster movements, like flick shots or twitch reactions. I have accepted I'm never going to have pro esports skillz, but I can still see the benefit of shedding those grams for speedy movement.

This is backed up by the precision of this mouse. As discussed earlier, latency in wireless mice nowadays isn't that big of an issue, and the Roccat Burst Pro Air is a great example of this. I've had no issues with the fairly standard receiver picking up positions accurately and without any real perceivable latency. It glides very nicely on a mouse mat, but not so well on a bare table, so the surface you're using may also come into play. The Roccat Swarm software, while annoying as all these things are, also lets you check the signal strength and help improve it if you're having problems, which is a nice feature to see.

Inside the Roccat Swarm software you can also remap the buttons, but there aren't very many to speak of. The main left and right buttons have a crisp click to them and a  solid actuation. So there's no question on whether or not you've made the action. The two side buttons are similar in certainty, but can be a bit easy to hit accidentally. Aside from this is a standard affair scroll wheel and possibly the biggest DPI change button a mouse has ever seen. It's a bit bare bones, but does have the core of what most gamers would be looking for, especially FPS fans. At the price though, it would be fair to ask a little more.

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This software also lets you alter other settings like RGB lighting, angle snapping, and power saving. It also shows a percentage battery for the mouse, which is appreciated, and the battery feels fairly standard in how long it lasts in use. However, even with power saving active I found that if my computer was on, it would run the mouse battery down before it disconnected to save battery. This meant that quite often I would return to my PC to have a drained wireless mouse, which isn't ideal. For anyone who can remember to charge it, or turn their PC off, it probably isn't an issue.

The Roccat Burst Pro Air is a pretty solid gaming mouse that looks like a futuristic beetle made for your hands. It's a little light on the buttons for choice, could definitely use a better power saving mode, and maybe some tweaks to its bottom pads for a better slide on more surfaces. But the clicky buttons as well as the great wireless connection and response still bring a lot to the desktop for many gamers.