Review Samples Provided By SteelSeries
Gaming peripheral icon, SteelSeries had a pretty strong start to 2021 with the release of their Prime line of gaming mice. The Prime Gaming Mice are designed with eSports in mind and offered some pretty intense components to really own that title.
Now, there is the Prime Mini Gaming Mice that offer the exact same specs as their counterparts but in a smaller frame and lighter weight. There’s the Prime Mini Wireless and the Prime Mini (wired), which allow for players with smaller hands or those who use a claw or fingertip grip to find that comfortability that larger mice may not offer.
The end result is a truly fantastic set of mice that give players the precision and comfort needed for any and all situations.
What's In The Box
Both of these mice come in very stylish-looking boxes that show off each mouse in all of its glory. Inside you’ll find your mouse, its instruction manual, and its removable USB Type-C cable. If you opt for the wireless version, you’ll also find your dongle and extender piece inside as well.
I love the fact that SteelSeries doesn’t have too much going on within the box as far as extra cardboard or wrappers go. Sometimes I feel like most of my unboxing time is handled by unwrapping things and tossing out their protective junk. These boxes offer great protection without the need for extra recyclables.
Aesthetics and Build Quality
Each mouse is very pleasing to the eye. Keeping with the eSports tone they don’t go bananas with the RGB, giving them a mature look. The scroll-wheel features a nice outline of RGB on each side which allows for users to customize them by using the SteelSeries GG app.
From within the app, you can customize a few lighting patterns like steady, breathing, or colorshift as well as the colors that make those up. When it comes to the wireless version of the Prime Mini, your lighting reacts to your movement of the mouse, giving it a flickering effect which I found really cool.
The mice feature a matte black plastic housing that blends very well against the brightly illuminated scroll-wheel. On the tail-end of each is SteelSeries’ logo featured in a matte dark grey. It’s pretty safe to say that these mice look absolutely solid in terms of aesthetics, and the same can be said about their build quality.
Both feel great in the hand with no creaking or shifting. Giving them a squeeze, you don’t feel like you’re going to turn them to dust in your hand. These can take getting knocked around a bit and that’s really something that you need to have in a mouse, especially one catered to the eSports demographic.
As far as its other parts go, the mice are pretty solid on those fronts as well. The 100% Virgin Grade PTFE glide skates work fantastically regardless of if you use a mousepad or not. That too rings true for the TrueMove Pro Gaming Sensor which also works just as well on a pad as when on a bare desktop.
I’m someone who doesn’t necessarily like using a pad so this was a dream come true for me. Some mice work well enough without one, but not many work as flawlessly as these ones do.
Gameplay
When it came to testing these mice out, I really wanted to see not only how they did in gaming sessions but in my daily life. I wouldn’t say that my hands are on the smaller size but they aren’t huge. I am a fingertip gripping user though so I wondered how well they’d fare for me at all times.
Luckily for me, these were the most comfortable mice I’ve ever used. The smaller size of them really allows users with different gripping styles to experiment with them as well. Daily use has been great as I’ve used them for anything and everything I’ve done on the computer.
I think one complaint I could say is that both mice differ in their amount of clickiness, specifically in the left and right mouse buttons. The wired one feels easier to press and less clicky while the wireless feels more clicky and requires just a bit more pressure. Both feel great but it is worth noting that they seem to be pretty noticeably different.
One of the bigger selling points of these mice is their ultra-lightweight designs and I gotta say, they’re pretty weightless. The combination of the lightweight design and the glide skates really makes these things feel like they’re just an extension of your own hand.
That aspect translates very well in gameplay, especially in shooting games which is where I mostly tested out how well they actually work. I did a few rounds of Fortnite, Hell Let Loose, and Splitgate. I’m extremely versed in Fortnite and HLL but haven’t ever played Splitgate so I really focused my energy there. I felt that Splitgate gave me a chance to test the mouse out in a setting where I didn’t have any built-up comfortability in gameplay so that I could just feel the mice without preconceived notions.
From my first match, I fell in love with just how great the gameplay with each mouse was. Maneuverability is smooth, responsiveness was instantaneous, and button clicks felt responsive. I really did well in my matches and even came out of it feeling pretty effective in the game itself.
Each mouse has 5 CPI levels and 4 polling rates as well as macro profiles that you can save upon having played with each mouse’s different settings. While I’m not usually someone who plays around with the background stuff too much, I’m very pleased that it’s simplified for each one.
One thing that blew me away about the Prime Mini Wireless was just how long the battery life is. This battery is marketed as lasting up to 100 hours, and that’s no joke. This thing operated on a half charge for over a week, with me using it every single day. I have a HyperX Pulsefire Dart, and that thing couldn’t get me through a week on a full charge.
As for the wired Prime Mini, I love that its cable (like the Wireless) is removable as well as super light. It’s pretty cool to see these peripheral manufacturing companies incorporating more of these lightweight and thinner braided cables into their designs. For a while there it felt like we only ever got those heavy braided cables that started to fray anyway and caused major dragging.
What It Could Have Done Better
As I said, there’s a pretty noticeable difference in the tactile feedback you get in the button presses between the two. It’s unclear as to if the Wireless incorporates more expensive or further premium parts inside or what. I know that they’re both marketed as using Prestige OM Switches, so it’s interesting to feel a difference. Besides that small gripe though, these are top-tier.
Verdict
SteelSeries really brought the heat with the Prime Minis by giving a couple of specific groups of gamers a chance to use something that actually feels comfortable. The use of premium components and the performance aspects only makes these mice even more desirable against what other brands offer.
It’s also great to see a company embrace a more mature design as most of us may be feeling a little bit of RGB fatigue. Even with the one odd difference I found in the two mice these are still some of the best ones you can buy today. SteelSeries hit the nail right on the head with these ones.
