XM2 but lightweight + magnesium? | @wlmouseofficial Strider Review
FEATURING: @TjExclusives Kin X
Disclaimer: Product was sent to me by WLmouse for review but all opinions will be my own.
Product Details
– PAW3950 HS
– Omron Opticals/TTC Nihil Transparent Black Dot
– Magnesium chassis + plastic base
– Out of the box 8k polling
– 45g +/- 2g
– $145
Overall Build Quality & QC
Incredibly solid, zero shell movement or creaking at all with the base aside, the base is what you’d expect, would flex when pressed but unrealistic. My units QC was spot on, no issues with mine.
Shape
The shape of the mouse is 99.99% identical to the Endgame Gear XM2, very good for claw and aggressive claw. For those that are unfamiliar with the XM2 shape, it’s essentially a Sora V2 but with a wider back hump and the sides narrow down into the base more, ass fatter than the sora.
Material & Coating
Magnesium alloy + abs plastic base. Not much else to say. The cutouts and texture on the buttons help with the grip but isn’t super pleasant to touch, I’d prefer no engravings but it’s fine I guess… The coating kinda just feels like metal, it’s more matte and chalky than the solid colour Beast X coatings, it’s nice to grip but not grippy rubberised or whatever.
Mouse Buttons
Scroll Wheel – Steps are a little weak for me but they’re easily noticeable, not a huge fan of the skinny scroll wheel and would prefer a slightly lower placement, click is crisp and moderately weighted.
Side Buttons – Placement is beautiful, size and how much they pop out is also pretty much perfect, if you aggressive claw towards the rear or ftip claw hybrid it might be positioned too much towards the front of the mouse causing missclicking. Clicks are crisp and very spammable with little to no pre travel.
LMB & RMB – Tiniest of pre travel, a small amount of post travel and decently crisp spammable clicks featuring omron opticals, they sound very metallic and pingy as always due to the magnesium + omron optical combo, but definitely performs well, personally not a big fan of omron opticals but hey, they perform flawlessly. The side to side play here is very minimal but is present, and clicks throughout the whole button is pretty consistent.
Skates
The Strider comes with 4 preinstalled dot skates, not the best if you play on a softer mousepad as the bottom of the mouse scraped the pad so you would need to add more dots, the other full size skates in the package are SLOW AS FUCK. They’re literally mud skates, so I would recommend using aftermarket dots with these. The stock dots are fine but just not super buttery and smooth on cloth, performs fine on glass but there’s just better.
Software & Performance
3950 implementation is a good natural speed, sensor placement is a bit towards the back for my liking. Mouse uses an easy to use web driver and definitely feels responsive. The battery life feels standard, I got around 10 hours of use with 4k polling and a lot on 1k (like 20-30+ hours for sure)
Conclusion
If I wanted the XM2 shape, I would definitely purchase this over the XM2 itself and that’s solely because of the weight, so if you like the shape but don’t care about the weight, I think the XM2 is still the better option, it’s just a beautiful mouse with top tier clicks and build quality all coming in at a cheaper price, you are paying for material here and lightweight goodness. For $145 it definitely is an OKAY price, not too expensive, not a banger deal. Every aspect of this mouse is done to a very solid level and definitely is a strong contender when looking for similar options, just not a super special unique perfect mind numbing experience or anything like that.
