MSI Clutch GM51 Lightweight Wireless Mouse Review

A Closer Look

The MSI Clutch GM51 Lightweight is a really nice-looking mouse, but it also feels pretty great too. From taking it out of the box, it feels really nicely made and durable. The 85 grams weight isn’t exactly the lightest I’ve seen, with many mice closer to 50 grams these days. However, this one does promise a staggering 150 hours of battery life thanks to its 550 mAh battery, which seems like an acceptable tradeoff. And make no mistake, this still feels pretty light anyway.

The left side looks really nice, but actually, that’s only part of what’s really going on here, so let’s turn the power on a little earlier than usual for one of my reviews.

Bam, look at that funky display, its lights are certainly some of the more unique I’ve ever seen. However, the LED is functional too, as it’s cut into a diamond texture on the side of the mouse, it’s actually providing a good grip too. MSI calls this the MSI Diamond LightGrips and credit where it’s due, that’s pretty clever.

Down the right side, you’ll find even more of those LightGrips, again adding… well, both grip and light, what a shocker that is eh.

There’s an MSI dragon on the back, which is also RGB-lit.

The diamond grip design is also found on the lovely scroll wheel too, its a very pronounced texture, but it makes it very easy to index and control too, which is obviously a good thing. The mouse wheel has a nice action to it overall, fast, precise and it’s got a good click that isn’t too muddy.

The LMB and RMB are nice and responsive, with a good tactile click that is as snappy and responsive as you would hope it to be. It allows for nice fast action clicking and doesn’t have any unwanted pretravel.

The overall ergonomic shape is superb too, with some deep curves on the sides that promote a comfortable grip for right-handed users.

There’s a nice bulbous shape to the back, and it snugs into the palm of your hand comfortably. The LightGrips and lightweight design make it easy to lift the mouse. Plus its balance point is right on the LightGrips, so it doesn’t rock back and forth while using a lift-off technique.

The GM51 has really good glide too, thanks to its lightweight and low-friction design. There are six PTFE feet on the underside of the mouse, so it’ll skate along nicely on hard and softer gaming mats. Of course, there’s plenty more going on down here too, with a profile button here you can change DPI levels, button configurations, RGB modes and more, but you’ll want to customise those profiles in the desktop software. Don’t worry, the settings save to the mouse, so you can ditch the app if you want to.

The connectivity mode is here, offering Bluetooth, Off and 2.4G. The off mode can be set while using the mouse in its USB-wired mode too.

Then we have that battery life, MSI claim 150 hours or more, which is extremely impressive. I doubt that figure includes blasting the RGB at full brightness, but if you travel with your laptop and use this in Bluetooth mode, you’ll not be reaching for a charge very often. For most people though, the RGB will be on, and you’ll be using the superior 2.4G wireless mode. As you can see, the mouse has two connectors on the bottom, allowing it to change in the included dock…

And here is that dock! Cool little design that acts as a charging base, a display stand, and a USB extender dock for the USB dongle. If you wanted to you can use the USB dongle directly into your PC or laptop, it’s pretty compact.

And if you prefer, you can use a USB Type-C cable to use the mouse in a wired mode or to charge it directly. What I do love though is the fast charging, a 10 minutes charge will give you 9 hours of usage (RGB off).

The only thing that bests all of that is the truly class-leading sensor. The PixArtPAW-3395 optical sensor is an absolute beast. 26,000 DPI is incredibly high and allows for superbly fast tracking with incredible precision. However, that precision is maintained at any speed, giving you pixel-perfect tracking that’s suitable for the most competitive gaming environments.