Endgame Gear XM1 Gaming Mouse Review

A Closer Look & Performance

The XM1 comes packaged in a nice and compact box, nothing too fancy. You don’t really get anything in the box beyond a flyer that shows you how to adjust the CPI levels and polling rate. It’s all pretty straight forward stuff though. Otherwise, the mouse is plug and play ready, but you can use the software to tweak the four onboard CPI profiles if you really want to.

The mouse is hard-wired with a fairly slim and lightweight USB cable. It has a good length to it too, so it can reach the back of a PC and across a good-sized desktop space easily enough.

Simplicity

The design is really straight forward with the XM1. They haven’t tried giving it big wings on the side or flared trim on the front or any of that stuff. It’s not trying to look like a “gamer” product, it’s just formed to be light, comfortable, and reliable. The whole thing is finish in a simple hard plastic shell that feels pretty smooth, albeit it has a matte black appearance.

It’s a good size too, not too big and not too small. It should be broadly comfortable for younger and older games, big hands, small hands, etc. It really is that average and rather classic mouse shape. No surprises here really, just a simple looking mouse shape.

Control

Down the left side, you’ll find a pair of buttons. They’re just your standard navigation buttons really. What I do like is that they’re slightly curved, so you can press them in as normal, or you can slide your thumb up the side of the mouse to trigger them; which I often do while I’m gaming.

Endgame Gear

The only branding you’ll notice on this mouse is the white logo on the back. I honestly expected this to light up with RGB when I connected the USB cable. Nope, not a single light. Of course, I know it doesn’t have RGB now that I bothered to read the specifications. Honestly, it’s a breath of fresh air, as we all know RGB doesn’t make you a CS:GO pro; sorry if that’s news to you. Go faster stripes do improve car performance though, so not all is lost.

Omron

The Omron switches are obviously nice, they’re the Cherry of the mouse world I guess. Rated for 50m clicks, even your most enthusiastic League of Legends player isn’t going to rattle those ones to death any time soon. They’re fast and light, which is nice for those clicking frenzies. I can fire off a lot more APM on these than I can on the heavier switches in my Roccay Tyon, but you still get a good well-defined click with them too; best of both worlds really. It uses their “patented analogue switch contact algorithm” to give a sub 1ms response time too, and from my experience, I’d say it does feel very snappy, subjectively at least.

Wheel

The mouse wheel is actually pretty small, and it’s heavily recessed too. It feels a little cheap. Well, maybe that’s not a totally fair way of putting it, it feels quite light would be a fairer assessment; maybe a little of both. It has a light “notch” to it when spun, so it’s nicely suited to selecting weapons. It has enough friction that it’ll stop spinning the moment you let go though, so don’t worry about overshooting your selection… come to think of it, perhaps that’s why they made it feel so light.

Light

At around 70-grams, you’re hardly going to get tired pushing this around your desk all day. There is certainly a rise in ultra-light gaming mice at the moment. Corsair, Cooler Master and a few others have taken a shot at it. Albeit, Endgame Gear don’t appeal to have sacrificed the outward shell to trim the weight down.

PWM3389

Some mice bias the sensor a little to the front. However, the optical sensor is located in the dead centre here. It’s the award-winning PWM3389 from PixArt too. A quick Google will find you nothing but praise for this sensor too. It’ll track up to 16,000 CPI and there are four profiles built-in; 400/800/1600/3200.

CPI Adjustment

There’s a small button at the bottom of the mouse, allowing you to change the CPI. Furthermore, you can load up the desktop software and fully customise all four CPI levels to suit your needs. The default ones are fantastic though and worked well even on a large 4K monitor. But “why the bloody hell is the button down here!” I hear dozens of you asking. It’s an eSports thing mostly. The last thing you want to do mid-shootout is to accidentally change the CPI level. You could argue you may want to change it on the fly, but well, there are mice out there that offer that function. There are very few mice out there that offer it this way around. If you want your setting locked in for a game of CS:GO, then this is the mouse for you.

Get a Grip

The ergonomics of this mouse are really straight forward. Honestly, you can hold it however you bloody like. I have really long fingers and quite wide palms, so very few mice really fit my palm. However, this one is pretty snug, I can butt my palm against the back and still rest my fingers on the length of the mouse.

Claw or hybrid grip? Not a problem either, if anything this is even better. The sides of the mouse are undercut too, so you can easily pick up the mouse from the desk. Handy if you’re using a low CPI and a lift-off technique. Plus, with a 2mm lift-off height, the sensor is well suited to that too.

Perfection

Coming back to the sensor, however, I really can’t praise it enough. Zero jitter, no angle-snapping, no acceleration at any speed. It’s honestly as good as they come. Plus, with those large slipmats, the mouse glides like it’s on rails, which is great for making light and nimble direction changes while gaming.