Corsair’s Katar line of mice has been pretty consistent over the years: they are simple, work well, are light, and don’t have any extra features or markups that aren’t necessary. The Katar Elite Wireless, Corsair’s newest Katar mouse, weighs only 2.24 oz (69g). This makes it the lightest mouse in the Katar line and one of the lightest mice on the market right now.
Basic mice that are very light aren’t for everyone, but they do have a place among the best gaming mice. The Katar Elite Wireless is lighter than the last generation and has a few small improvements, like a rechargeable (sort of) 100-hour battery and a maximum polling rate of 2,000 Hz. It also has customizable RGB lighting, which is done in the most boring way possible, and a surface that just begs to get fingerprints on it.
1. How the Katar Elite Wireless is made and how it feels
The Corsair Katar Elite Wireless is a wireless mouse that is light and doesn’t look like much. In fact, it looks a lot like its predecessor, the Katar Pro Wireless, except that the finish is smooth instead of textured and the Corsair logo is made of RGB lights. Other than that, its body is almost the same as the Katar Pro Wireless and the Katar Pro XT. It is about 4.56 inches (115.8mm) long, 2.53 inches (64.2mm) wide, and 1.49 inches (37.8mm) high.
The Katar Elite Wireless isn’t very small, but it is smaller than most mice. It has a low hump and tapers toward the back. This makes it a little better for claw and fingertip grips, but palm grips can still use it. This could be used with either hand, even though it’s made for right-handed people. It has two thumb buttons on the left side and a body that’s just a little bit off-center.
The Katar Elite Wireless’s top has a smooth, matte finish that feels good, but it shows fingerprints and oils from your skin very easily. This is not only ugly, but it also makes me worry about how long it will last and how much wear it will get.
The sides have a small amount of texture. The mouse has six programmable buttons: left and right mouse buttons, two thumb buttons, a DPI switch, and a scroll wheel that you can click. Even the DPI switch, which is shaped like a hexagon and is bigger than most, is in a good place and easy to press. The cover of the scroll wheel is textured and made of rubber. It has a few tiny notches.
2. Performance of the Katar Elite Wireless
Ultra-lightweight mice work best for games like first-person shooters, battle royale games, and esports in general that require a lot of fast swiping and quick but precise flicking. The Katar Elite Wireless doesn’t have a “ergonomic” shape, but it’s small and light enough that you won’t even notice it. Its light weight makes it comfortable and easy to use, and it won’t make you tired after long hours of gaming.
The Katar Elite Wireless felt less “on with my hand” than the Razer DeathAdder V3 Pro because it was smaller and had a more generic shape. However, it didn’t take more than a couple of minutes into my first Overwatch 2 match for me to forget I was holding a mouse. The mouse’s quick, smooth movements made it easy to line up precise shots quickly, and its small size and light weight made it easy to pick up and move when I needed to quickly cover a large area of my desktops (both physical and virtual). Omron optical switches are built into the Katar Elite Wireless, which has a spring-loaded design with “zero gap” between the switches and the main buttons. All of the mouse’s six programmable buttons were easy to press. The side buttons were well-placed and easy to reach with my thumb, and the DPI shift button was big enough that I didn’t have to move my hand to get to it. The main mouse buttons, on the other hand, were maybe a little too easy to press. I often pressed them by accident with just a little bit of pressure, especially when I moved the mouse quickly.
Not all gamers will be able to use the Katar Elite Wireless, though. With only six programmable buttons (including the scroll wheel click and DPI shift), it felt very basic in MMOs and MOBAs, and its small size and light weight made it hard to control in tasks that required sustained precision (such as Photoshop).
3. The Katar Elite Wireless’s hardware and software
The Katar Elite Wireless is a pretty simple mouse, but all of its six buttons can be programmed, and Corsair’s iCue 4 software can be used to change a few other settings. iCue 4 also automatically updates the mouse and its 2.4GHz wireless USB-A dongle with new firmware, so it’s worth opening at least once.
In the Katar Elite Wireless’s iCue 4 menu, there are different sections for button remapping, lighting, and hardware (on-board memory-based) button remapping. There is also a place to change the mouse’s DPI levels and a tool for calibrating the surface. The mouse has two RGB zones: the Corsair logo and the DPI switch. However, you can only change the lighting effects for the logo. iCue 4 lets you change how the DPI RGB lights up to show the current DPI stage. You can set five DPI stages that can be toggled through, plus an extra “sniper” stage that lets you change DPI on the fly.
All View
The Katar Elite Wireless is so simple that if you want something light, you might as well get something cheap and wired, like the 2.08oz (59g) HyperX Pulsefire Haste, which costs around $30. Or, you could get something like the Glorious Model O Minus, which is a little bit nicer and has less bloated software. You can also get it wirelessly for $80.
