Corsair DARKSTAR WIRELESS Mouse Review

This mouse has a fairly angular, right-handed design. Its body is made mostly of matte black plastic and has glossy plastic and metallic accent pieces. There's a Corsair logo on the palm and the word 'DARKSTAR' printed at the base of the right-click button.

This mouse has nine customizable RGB lighting zones, including two zones in the front, one in the logo on the palm rest, and six in the glossy plastic strip that runs across the middle of the mouse just behind the click buttons.

Note that the scroll wheel housing also lights up when turning the mouse on, but it turns off after a moment. The product page states that this light serves as a battery-level indicator.

There are three additional indicator LEDs on the left near the side buttons cluster. These indicators show what CPI profile you're currently using.

This mouse offers decent portability, although it's fairly large and likely too bulky to be slipped into most laptop cases.

On the bottom of the mouse, there's an internal compartment for storing the wireless receiver.

Overall, the Corsair DARKSTAR has impressive build quality. The materials feel high quality, and the body is made mostly of matte plastic with textured side grips and a metallic segment on the left towards the front. There's some minimal creaking when applying considerable pressure to the body and some flexibility on the bottom of the mouse, but this wasn't noticeable when using the mouse normally.

That said, there's some additional flexibility in the side of the mouse that may be noticeable during normal use if you tend to hold your mouse fairly tightly. You can see this side flex in a video here. Additionally, there's a faint rattling sound if you shake the mouse aggressively and a small degree of side-to-side travel in the scroll wheel. However, this is typical with mice with left/right tilt inputs.

This mouse has a fairly standard weight compared to most other mice designed primarily for playing MMO and MOBA titles. It's fairly heavy compared to dedicated FPS-focused mice and isn't as well-suited for playing fast-paced competitive titles.

This mouse is relatively large and has a comfortable, right-handed design best suited for a palm grip or claw grip. Unlike many dedicated MMO models with a 12-button grid layout, this mouse has a six-button layout arrayed in a semi-circular pattern around an open center where you rest your thumb. There are two buttons at the front, two above, and two towards the back. These buttons are fairly easy to reach for large or medium-sized hands. However, the overall size of the mouse makes some buttons—notably the two buttons on the outer edge of the left-click button—challenging to reach, particularly if you have smaller hands.

Corsair advertises that this mouse has a battery life of up to 65 hours when connected wirelessly with its USB receiver or up to 80 hours when connected via Bluetooth.

This mouse includes a decent braided charging cable. This cable glides smoothly across desks but has mediocre flexibility and retains kinks from its packaging.

This mouse has remarkably good feet that glide smoothly on mousepads or desks. They have some sharp corners, which may produce slightly more drag on softer mousepads, and the feet make minor scratching sounds when gliding directly on desks.

• Corsair DARKSTAR WIRELESS
• 2.4 GHz USB-A Slipstream wireless receiver
• USB-A to USB-C cable
• User documentation

Corsair's product page for this mouse indicates that the left and right-click buttons use unidentified optical switches with. Other outlets and users have suggested these are Omron optical switches.

You can customize all of the buttons on this mouse except for the left-click button. This mouse also supports gesture inputs that you can assign to four directional tilts (Left, Right, Forward, and Back). You can customize the tilt angle threshold for each direction between a minimum of 10 degrees to a maximum of 80 degrees. Note that the lift-off distance needs to be set to Low or higher to enable this functionality.

The Corsair DARKSTAR has superb click latency. It delivers an extremely responsive-feeling experience for gaming in all genres and is well-suited for casual or competitive play.

The Receiver result was tested at a polling rate of 2000Hz, and the wired result was tested at 1000Hz. It's worth pointing out that due to the unusual implementation of 2000Hz polling, the click latency is somewhat less consistent than most other mice with a 2000Hz polling rate. For more details about polling rate performance, see the Sensor Latency section below.

This mouse also has a 'Button Response Optimization' setting in the customization software that Corsair describes as a 'calibration tool for click sensitivity.'

Testing was conducted both with and without this setting enabled, and the results are noticeably worse with this setting enabled. For reference, you can see the graph or the video with this setting enabled.

The final results of the Receiver and Latency tests above are with the Button Response Optimization setting disabled.

The Corsair DARKSTAR offers outstanding CPI performance. Its sensor delivers exceptional tracking accuracy, and the physical movements you make with your mouse translate extremely close to your cursor movements on-screen.

This mouse provides superb sensor latency. The sensor reacts exceptionally quickly when you move your mouse, and these movements very closely match the timing of the cursor movements you see on-screen. This mouse was tested at its maximum advertised polling rate of 2000Hz.

Note: During testing, we observed that the Corsair DARKSTAR sensor operates differently at its 2000Hz setting compared to most other mice with 2000Hz polling rates. At its 2000Hz setting, the Corsair DARKSTAR sends two reports to your computer at 1-millisecond intervals, whereas most other mice we've tested with a 2000Hz polling rate send one report every 0.5 milliseconds. While the sensor latency performance is still superb overall, it's measurably less consistent than most other 2000Hz options from other manufacturers.

The available polling rate options are 125Hz, 250Hz, 500Hz, 1000Hz, and 2000Hz.

Using the customization software, you can change the polling rate, set custom CPI profiles, and configure the lift-off distance.

The Corsair DARKSTAR has a rubberized scroll wheel with a textured surface for added grip. Scrolling is fairly quiet and feels precise, and each step is well-defined. The scroll button also has a satisfying tactile feel but requires more force than average to actuate.

The noise made by all inputs, including the left- and right-click buttons and the scroll wheel, are all fairly quiet.

This mouse uses Corsair's iCUE software, which is reasonably well laid out and straightforward. It allows you to customize a range of expected settings, including CPI, polling rate, surface calibration, and gesture control mapping.

That said, some options, like macro programming and button assignment, are somewhat less intuitive to use compared to similar software from other major manufacturers.

Additionally, much like similar software options from other major manufacturers, this software is the source of criticism from the broader community. While we didn't experience any issues during the testing of this mouse, many users online criticize this software for requiring frequent updates and taking up disproportionate system resources, among other complaints. This software may be frustrating if you prefer more lightweight software options or no software at all.

This mouse is fully compatible with Windows, macOS, and Linux, but the software is only compatible with Windows.