Released in late 2022 as an update to an earlier design, the Corsair Scimitar RGB Elite has proven to be a popular and well-reviewed gaming mouse. In fact, our own review scored it an 8. While it’s still a top choice in gaming mice, the competitive trend towards low-latency wireless options is undeniable. Corsair has responded in kind with the Corsair Scimitar Elite Wireless MMO Gaming Mouse, creating a near identical offering, minus the cable.
Corsair Scimitar Elite Wireless MMO – Design and Aesthetics
In the box you get the mouse, 2.4GHz USB wireless receiver, a Torx- or star-style Allen key for positioning the 12-button adjustable key slider, a 6-foot USB-C to USB-A 2.0 cable, and some paperwork. Other than the large, optionally lit Corsair logo and the dozen side buttons, the design of the Corsair Scimitar Elite Wireless is fairly conservative for a gaming mouse.
On the top of the mouse are the two optical-switch left- and right-click mouse buttons, a middle-click button scroll wheel, multi-purpose LED indicator, DPI toggle button, and an LED-lit Corsair logo. On the front is a USB-C port that can be used for both charging and data. On the left is the key slider.
Underneath the mouse are four replaceable 100% Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) mouse feet. The synthetic fluoropolymer of tetrafluoroethylene, which is similar to the brand name Teflon, allows the mouse to glide effortlessly on most surfaces. It’s not the lightest mouse at around 112.5 grams, but it’s still on the lower end of the average, and thanks to those mouse feet, ranks among the fastest and smoothest tracking mice I’ve ever used.
Rounding out the underside of the mouse is a storage area for the USB wireless receiver, a profile button, and a three-position switch. The switch moves between the sub-1ms slipstream wireless USB dongle connection, off, and the low-latency Bluetooth 4.2 + LE connection.
The left and right mouse buttons make more of a clunk than a soft click, which is especially noticeable in the heat of gaming action when not using headphones. The side buttons make a more muted click.
The scroll wheel is reasonably fast and smooth, with subtle tactile bumps at each partial turn. Pressing down on the scroll wheel is similarly smooth, with a higher-pitched click than the mouse buttons.
The good news is that because of their relative firmness, I don’t find myself accidentally pressing the side buttons often, even in the heat of a game. That said, after prolonged usage with my thumb resting there, I definitely feel the presence of the divided side buttons.
The columns of side buttons alternate between textures. The first and third columns are smooth, while the second and fourth are textured. Smooth or textured, the side buttons are nowhere near as pleasing as having a uniform surface, so you’ll want to make sure you’re going to make good use of the extra buttons before investing in a mouse like this.
There are two lighting zones, one for the side buttons and one for the multi-purpose LED indicator and Corsair logo. These lighting zones, much like almost everything else, can be customized in Corsair’s iCue software.
Corsair Scimitar Elite Wireless – Software and Customization
iCUE is Corsairs’s PC monitoring and RGB lighting control software for use across its range of products. Both the Scimitar RGB Elite Wireless and its Slipstream Wireless USB Receiver show up as individually addressable and configurable devices within the software.
For the Slipstream Wireless USB Receiver, you can check for firmware updates, which devices it’s paired with, USB Wired Polling Rate – which defaults to 1,000 Hz / 1 ms, but can go as high as 2,000 Hz / 0.5 ms – and Slipstream Wireless Polling Rate, which is locked at 2000 Hz for a single device connection. For the mouse, you can customize key assignments, configure and set lighting effects, set DPI presets and stages, calibrate for your mouse surface, and view or adjust various device settings. These device settings include firmware updates, the USB wired polling rate (if not using wireless), the Slipstream wireless polling rate, wireless and battery status, LED brightness, sleep and power saving modes, and what’s assigned to each of the five onboard memory slots for moving between lighting and button assignments.
The iCUE software is pretty much a customizer’s dream, although it’s not always as easy or intuitive to configure everything as I’d like. Still, once I got a handle on how to set things, particularly keybinds, I appreciated iCUE’s relative depth.
While the Corsair Scimitar Elite wireless is marketed for complicated MMO keybinds, I found it works just as well for many other game genres and non-gaming activities. In Fortnite, for instance, I assigned side button 3 to Sprint and side button 6 to Crouch. For greater efficiency when web browsing, I assigned the Page Up to side button 1 and Page Down to side button 4.
I also like to take regular screen captures and it’s a lot easier to assign button 12 on the mouse than pressing Shift + Win + S every time. In short, there’s a way to remap keyboard, language keys, mouse actions, key combinations, and other actions to any of the 12 buttons. You can also program the two primary mouse buttons, the middle click button scroll wheel, and the DPI button for a total of 16 configurable buttons.
Corsair Scimitar Elite Wireless – Features and Performance
With the Scimitar Elite Wireless, Corsair features a 26,000 DPI sensor, 650 IPS tracking, and up to 50G acceleration. Although I’m not exactly what you’d call an elite esports competitor, using the sub-1ms 2.4GHz slipstream USB wireless receiver, I never noticed lag or stutters of any kind in any of the games I played. In short, I was never once let down by the mouse’s physical performance.
I typically like 1,400 DPI for everyday usage with a mouse like the Logitech G502 Lightspeed, but find 1,600 DPI ideal with the Corsair. On Windows 11 Home, using a 3440 x 1440 main display and a desktop that spans to the right to a 2560 x 1080 secondary display, I found pointer movements smooth and accurate at that DPI.
By default, the multi-purpose LED indicator light below the scroll wheel lights up to indicate the color associated with the current DPI level. The DPI toggle button below the indicator light lets you switch between the different DPI levels, which can be as fine as 1 DPI resolution step at a time.
Although not recommended for competitive gaming in place of 2.4GHz USB due to its greater latency, performance in Bluetooth mode was still excellent. Unfortunately, because wireless USB and Bluetooth modes are selected with a physical mode switch underneath the mouse, there’s no way to fast-switch between two devices like you can on some other mice.
Corsair promises up to 150 hours of battery life, which is almost double that of some other top options. From my own experience, I can say that even after many days of use with the Slipstream Wireless USB adapter and LED lighting on, which do put a higher load on the battery, the indicator remained in a “High” status. That compares favorably to some other top wireless gaming mice that max out at around 60 hours and would have ended up at around 25% battery with the same type of usage.
A nice feature is that on my Windows 11 Home desktop, I was able to enable the iCUE option to show the battery gauge in the Notification area. With other wireless mice, you typically have to go into the software to check the battery level from time to time, or wait until it starts flashing low battery warnings on you.