Corsair Sabre V2 Carbon Fiber and Magnesium Gaming Mice Review

Unique materials. Comfortable shape. Lightweight and incredibly sturdy construction. Great aesthetics. Bluetooth and 2.4G connectivity with 8kHz polling. Competitive pricing with all-plastic competitors.

Mechanical switches alternatively of optical. Plastic underside connected some versions. Internal integrative clips tin interruption during disassembly.

Carbon fibre and magnesium are typically relegated to the satellite of high-performance automotive engineering. Both are known for being incredibly lightweight portion maintaining an unthinkable magnitude of stiffness and rigidity. While neither of them person traditionally had a spot successful the satellite of machine peripherals, they’ve dilatory crept into the abstraction implicit the past fewer years.

Carbon fibre mice person been astir for rather a while, though they’ve typically lone been offered by smaller brands with a important absorption connected competitory gaming. Magnesium, meanwhile, was besides offered by Razer with their Viper Mini Signature Edition, which featured a afloat magnesium ammunition and retailed for astir $300.

Corsair has present entered the abstraction with 2 caller versions of the fashionable Sabre V2. The 2 are astir identical, with the lone existent quality being the apical ammunition (the c fibre mentation besides includes a tiny carrying case). The 2 see the aforesaid accessories: A 2.4G dongle, a USB-C cable, and a acceptable of larger rodent feet.

The magnesium mentation retails for fractional the terms of Razer’s limited-run magnesium mouse, astatine $150, portion the c fibre mentation is $200. Because of this, some mice are amazingly competitory with different brands’ flagship offerings. Should you beryllium funny successful a rodent made retired of chill materials present that they're not doubly arsenic costly? After investigating some of them, I deliberation you should.

Structurally Sound

When I reviewed the modular Sabre V2 Pro Ultralight, I loved the weight, but I didn’t emotion the physique quality. It was an impressively airy mouse, tipping the scales astatine lone 36 grams, but due to the fact that of that, it felt fragile. The integrative flexed erstwhile squeezed and was truthful bladed that, if I wanted to, I could person crushed it with my bare hands. This was large if you wanted the implicit lightest rodent possible, but was less-than-ideal for anyone seeking thing that felt durable oregon premium.

With some of the Sabre v2’s caller versions, this is not an contented astatine all. These mice are rigid. Both magnesium and c fibre person been tested thoroughly successful the satellite of motorsports, and proven beyond a uncertainty to beryllium capable to withstand unit acold greater than adjacent the astir almighty gamer rage. Even utilizing the afloat unit of my grip, neither of the shells wanted to flex astatine all.

By opting for either of these mice, you summation astir 20 grams of weight, with the c fibre and magnesium coming successful astatine 55 and 56 grams, respectively. The effect is simply a rodent that feels much rigid than its competitors. The Razer Viper v3—weighing 55 grams, with an MSRP of $160—doesn’t person the aforesaid sturdiness. That said, the quality is perfectly marginal; the Viper v3 is inactive a coagulated rodent astatine a akin physique prime that feels large successful hand.

This someway demonstrates some the strongest vantage and top downfall of utilizing these engineered materials for a mouse: Plastic has enough rigidity already (the lone objection being what Corsair did before, making the rodent arsenic bladed arsenic imaginable to marque it arsenic airy arsenic possible). Both c fibre and magnesium are incredibly lightweight erstwhile compared to alloy and aluminum portion maintaining comparable stiffness, and that's utile successful motorsports, but these materials are intelligibly overkill for a gaming mouse. What makes them peculiar is that they're appearing present astatine this terms for the archetypal time. If you can person c fiber, wherefore not?

Form and Function

The magnesium exemplary is disposable successful some achromatic and white. The achromatic exemplary I received has a subtle speckled texture crossed the metallic surfaces. It feels slick and chill to the touch, overmuch similar immoderate different metallic would. The astir divisive portion is the monolithic cutouts successful the shell, presumably for that past spot of value savings. The larger gaps mean dormant tegument is little apt to physique up astir the edges of these holes, an contented I person encountered erstwhile utilizing mice with hexagon-pattern cutouts for longer periods of clip (like the Steelseries Aerox 3). The braces are positioned successful a mode that supports the hands well, but if you thin to remainder your hand’s afloat value connected your mouse, you’ll apt find tiny indents near successful your thenar aft extended use.

If you don’t privation to woody with the skeletal remains of a mouse, c fibre mightiness beryllium the amended option. With nary weight-saving holes to beryllium seen, the outer ammunition is simply a perfectly-smooth and acquainted analyzable curve. The c fibre weave’s signifier stretches crossed the full aboveground of the mouse, creating a adust texture and a satin-like finish. Between the two, I recovered the c fibre marginally much comfy for regular use.

As acold arsenic existent ergonomics, the 2 are practically identical. They stock the aforesaid bottommost half, a somewhat larger mentation of the archetypal Sabre v2’s underside that adds a DPI fastener and a Bluetooth enactment to the powerfulness slider. Both are the aforesaid tallness (38.7 mm), width (59.5mm), and magnitude (122.5 mm), with identical broadside fastener and rodent instrumentality placement. This makes them precise somewhat smaller than some the Viper V3 Pro and Logitech Superlight, but inactive suited to mean and ample hands and comfy for adjacent semipermanent use.

The signifier is neutral and astir ambidextrous: Both halves of the rodent are identical, prevention for the buttons connected the left-hand side. Button placement feels earthy for palm, fingertip, and claw grips. The highest of the hump is placed somewhat down the halfway of the mouse, and the instrumentality placement is close wherever you’d expect, casual to scope with immoderate grip style. Both sides taper successful somewhat towards the bottom, allowing for the rodent to easy beryllium lifted up and moved during use. Really, determination is thing groundbreaking oregon peculiarly disappointing astir the shapes of these mice. If you’re coming from different standard-shape mouse, you apt won’t person immoderate issues.

A New Web App?

With an 8,000 Hz polling rate, these mice are some connected par with practically each different pro-grade gaming rodent disposable today, sending 8,000 messages each second. Both of them are acceptable to a measly 1,000 Hz by default, which is inactive much than capable for astir each usage lawsuit extracurricular of top-tier competitory lobbies.

During my testing, these mice felt responsive and snappy, with the sensor holding up to beauteous overmuch everything and ne'er missing inputs. The 2 main buttons mightiness beryllium a spot airy for immoderate heavy-handed gamers, but person a crisp “click” and abbreviated question region that’s some responsive and enjoyable without being overstated.

Both of these mice travel with 2 sets of feet: A smaller, arc-shaped acceptable installed from the factory, and a larger, semicircle-shaped set. Like with the Sabre v2 Pro, I person nary hint wherefore these mice travel with the smaller feet installed from the mill erstwhile the larger ones consciousness much stable, smoother, and easier to control. I tin lone conjecture it’s done to marginally trim the published weight.

The different large betterment connected these mice is the inclusion of Bluetooth connectivity. The archetypal Sabre v2 Pro was 2.4G-only, a determination that was apt made to prevention a gram oregon 2 of value and trim complexity. Since these mice some person little of a single-minded absorption connected value savings, with much accent connected usability and physique quality, they tin link to your machine without immoderate request for the awkward USB-C dongle. This means they’re some large options for a portable gaming mouse. This is particularly existent for the c fibre model, which includes a hard carrying lawsuit successful the box.

Corsair has upgraded from their iCue bundle to their caller in-browser “Web Hub” software. I typically dislike moving from locally-installed bundle to web-based, since it poses risks to semipermanent support, but the deficiency of bundle moving successful the inheritance and stealing processing powerfulness is often worthy the tradeoff. As acold arsenic customization bundle goes, Corsair does a bully occupation with its caller Web Hub. Nothing stands retired arsenic large oregon ground-breaking, but thing stands retired arsenic bad, either. Setup is simple, customization is seamless, and each the settings are successful logical locations (although I privation the accommodation for polling complaint was connected the default leafage alternatively of lone being nether the “device settings” pop-up menu).

With Web Hub, the DPI fastener connected the underside of the rodent tin besides beryllium customized. Both the fig of stages and DPI of each 1 tin beryllium adjusted, with up to 5 imaginable stages ranging from 100 DPI to 33,000. Each signifier is color-coded, with the singular LED betwixt the 2 rodent buttons illuminating to bespeak which signifier is active.

Be Careful Disassembling

Both of these mice stock astir the aforesaid construction: A apical fractional made from an exotic material, a bottommost fractional made from plastic, a main motherboard attached to the bottommost ammunition that contains the scroll wheel, rodent buttons, and battery, and a secondary committee attached to the apical ammunition that houses the 2 broadside buttons and LED powerfulness indicator. The 2 halves are attached unneurotic utilizing integrative clips astir the borderline of the shell, which are past screwed unneurotic successful 4 spots underneath the rodent feet.

While this assembly works good and allows for the rodent to beryllium incredibly lightweight and rigid, I recovered a fewer concerns with repairability. With some shells, determination is simply a hazard of repeated disassembly breaking the integrative clips. With the c fibre shell, determination is also a hazard of the threads successful the precocious ammunition becoming stripped if the screws are over-tightened, thing that is made worse by the information that the screws utilized are self-tapping.

Typically, thing made from c fibre oregon lightweight integrative would usage metallic inserts wrong of the worldly to forestall stripping, but this has not been done with this mouse—presumably besides for value savings. Because of this, fractional of the screws successful this rodent already had worldly lodged betwixt the threads during my archetypal disassembly, seemingly having already been over-tightened by the factory. This doesn’t interaction usability, since the rodent is chiefly held unneurotic by the integrative clips, but it could origin issues aboriginal down the enactment if the integrative clips fail.

I did really interruption 1 of these integrative clips erstwhile disassembling the c fibre mouse. While I’m definite determination is simply a mode to disassemble this that avoids astir risk, it does amusement that it tin easy happen, adjacent to idiosyncratic with a batch of acquisition dissecting mice. I was capable to superglue the breached conception backmost unneurotic without immoderate issue. When investigating the rodent with a breached clip, I recovered it to consciousness much wobbly than before, and this wobblyness went distant aft the repair.

While repairability isn’t perfect, I don’t expect it causing galore issues with these mice. They are dormant elemental internally, and don’t person overmuch that tin fail. Assuming you usage 1 of these for a fewer years and the artillery needs to beryllium replaced, it’s improbable that taking it isolated erstwhile to regenerate the artillery volition render it irreparable.

Good Value

These 2 mice are some competitively priced with existent offerings from Logitech and Razer, portion offering improved physique prime and materials. They person astir identical weights, portion feeling much rigid than their competitors and with a much premium look.

The lone existent downside of these mice is the internals: While they boast competitory specs, some inactive usage modular mechanical switches compared to Razer and Logitech’s optical switches. This apt won’t beryllium an contented for the mean user, since modern mechanical switches inactive person exceptional show and awesome longevity.

Overall, I truly urge either of these models. The archetypal Sabre v2 Pro Ultralight was a large mouse, but its lightness was a double-edged sword. In upgrading the materials, Corsair has some addressed this occupation and elevated the rodent significantly, making 2 models that are not lone functional, but besides awesome demonstrations of worldly subject that genuinely consciousness special.

Which exemplary you take is yet down to preference, but either of these mice volition beryllium serviceable successful your gaming arsenal.