The Akitsu,
This mouse is a first step from Arbiter to create a mouse; It is a 38 gram small mouse met to fit the fingertip and claw shape but also allowing for fitment of people with small hands to be able to palm it. On top of its good sensor and it being 38 grams, it has a fantastic dongle with a LCD screen that informs you about the current DPI, battery life and HZ. This review is based off the founders edition of the mouse, there has since been a 2nd batch which has fixed some of my issues with the mouse (Just as a disclaimer)
Unboxing and First Impressions
The unboxing of this mouse was actually quite enjoyable, it has a small little magnetic latch that confused me for a second but was simple and satisfying to open once i figured it out. The design on the box looks really nice along with when opening the box you are greeted with everything you could need, the mouse itself; the dongle; the cable; and grip tapes and extra PTFE skates which was a nice touch that a lot of company’s seem to skimp out of which is the skates and grips. The mouse itself has a simple but clean design over the mouse buttons with the mouse itself being black. There is a small bit of carbon showing right above the scroll wheel which I thought was a nice touch
First Day of Use
I immediately had a major issue with this mouse which was that the side buttons completely would get stuck and you would have jimmy them out to work again, throughout the day it slowly fixed itself but was a major issue at first. The mouse shape itself is not bad, I do palm with small hands and tend to use smaller mice such as this one but the sides are a bit weird in comparison to a straight forward shape like the ULX. It is a simple but clean design and the coating does feel nice although I did end up putting the grip tape on which is probably my favorite grip tape I’ve ever received with a mouse although it does get dirty quick.
Full Overview of the mouse.
There are some major issues which I do hope are fixed in the second batch, the scroll wheel is really just not it, it is extremely low in the mouse and feels like its hard to scroll on. The mouse wheel button is mushy and hard to press and the scroll wheel texture just isn’t my favorite either, in general I feel as though the entire scroll wheel needed to be remade along with the side buttons needed some fixes as well. The mouse clicks are a bit on the heavier side with louder clicks which isn’t necessarily a bad thing but more of a personal preference. The Akitsu does feel nice in my hand, the coating is well put and the shape isn’t bad in the slightest. In my opinion, it is a cheaper but slightly changed shape from the ULX but I wouldn’t take it over the newer batches of the ULX due to how the sides cave in.
Final Thoughts
I genuinely had extremely high hopes with this mouse and I did enjoy using it for a little over a month but the QC issues, i genuinely just cant over look them and it made me swap off of the mouse due to them. I hope these are fixed in the second batch but I do feel this mouse can be completely solid and a fair competitor to the ULX aslong as everything is fixed and just made better. It is a mouse I would recommend if those things were fixed but I cant recommend the first batch of this mouse. Thank you for reading and by no means am I shitting on this mouse, it is great in its own standard and I genuinely wouldn’t have used it for a month if I hated it but it defiantly does need some work and I hope that what they promised with the batch 2 is true.
