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We have individually and independently tested 24 of the best gaming mice (and some slight stinkers) over the past 12 months.
Wireless gaming mice deliver the precision of the best gaming mouse without the hassle of wires. No drag, no tugging on the cable when it gets caught under the corner of your monitor, just cable-free action to suit your gaming style. And right now, the best wireless gaming mouse is the Razer Viper V4 Pro, thanks to its light weight, flawless build quality, incredibly smooth sensor, beautiful coating, and lovely dongle. Yes, you read that right.
Deciding which model to buy should be based on the same criteria as buying a wired gaming mouse, such as the number of buttons you need and how light or heavy you want it to be. There are a few wireless-specific questions you'll need to ask, though, like the type of connection and battery life.
10 April, 2026: Swapped some of our picks for newer and better ones. The Razer Viper V4 Pro has replaced the DeathAdder V4 Pro in the top spot, as it has near-flawless build quality and is more performant and lighter to boot. The Mchose G3 V2 Pro has replaced the Logitech G305 Lightspeed as our best budget pick, and we've added the Razer Cobra HyperSpeed as the best small gaming mouse.
9 March, 2026: We have simplified our quick-look table to get you all of our mouse picks as straightforwardly as possible.
4 March, 2026: Added the Logitech G Pro X2 Superstrike to the guide as our pick for the best competitive wireless gaming mouse. This mouse has some genuinely new technology under the hood that allows for super-fast clicks, and will hopefully kick-start a new era for gaming mice. We also added a few more mice to the Also Tested section at the bottom of the guide.
Dave has been mousing since the grinty ball days of the Amiga and was converted to the claw grip the moment he played Shareware Doom for the first time. Having professionally flung them around his test desk for the best part of twenty years, he knows what makes a good wireless mouse, what a responsive gaming mouse needs to be, and just how many buttons you really need on your PC's rodent.
The best wireless gaming mouse
✅ You want no compromises: The Viper V4 Pro packs a truly top-tier sensor into an incredibly well-built shell and somehow also delivers on both battery life and light weight.
❌ You want something fancy: There's nothing particularly fancy-looking about this mouse: no RGB, no extravagant colours or styling, just a solid minimalistic mouse.
The Razer Viper V4 Pro is the best wireless gaming mouse not because it has the absolute best specs we've seen on a mouse—it has those, too—but primarily because it just feels so high-quality in the hand. Seriously, it's practically flawless, from its sturdy shell to its clicky buttons.
Obviously no mouse is completely perfect, and here the drawbacks are that the optical switches are loud and a little hollow-sounding, plus a lack of RGB and other extra features. But apart from those minor niggles, the Viper V4 Pro is a true marvel.
It manages to pack a 50,000 DPI sensor into an incredibly sturdy 49–50 g shell, which is impressive, and that shell feels very pleasant under the palm thanks to its matte coating. The clicks are satisfyingly clicky, and that goes for the side buttons, too, as well as the middle click on the scroll wheel.
That scroll wheel is optical, too, and has the most defined steps we've felt despite them being easy enough to scroll through. The left and right mouse buttons have zero perceptible pre-travel and no wobble at all, so this really is the full package.
All this houses a great sensor that still somehow permits 180 hours of battery life at 1,000 Hz, which is better than most of the top-end competition, and certainly surprising given the specs on offer. That's in part thanks to Razer's new FrameSync tech, which syncs sensor snapshots up with system polling, meaning fewer snapshots required and less juice consumed.
That's all there is to it, really: It's just a stellar all-round mouse that lets you have your lightweight cake and eat it with a portion of top-tier sensor performance. Oh, and you get the orb dongle. There's that, too.
Read our full Razer Viper V4 Pro review.
The best budget wireless gaming mouse
✅ You want a great baseline experience for less: There's little flashy going on here, but the base under-palm experience is great. Provided you don't have giant paws, that is.
❌ You have bigger hands: If you have big hands and use a palm grip or relaxed claw grip, this mouse might be a little small for you.
This egg-shaped mouse is beloved not just for its curvature but also because its a downright impressive mouse for such a cheap price. It's actually a Logitech G305-alike, copying its shape but packing in some more impressive specs for a generally better overall offering.
In particular, with the Pro version of this mouse, we're talking about 26,000 DPI and triple connectivity (Bluetooth, 2.4 GHz, and wired USB-C) all housed in a relatively light 59 g shell. And it's significantly cheaper than the G305 Lightspeed that the G3 V2 is 'cloning'.
If you want to save even more, you can shave off a few dollars by opting for the non-Pro version, but then you're also sacrificing the better PAW3395 sensor for the 12,000 DPI PAW3311. That should still be enough for most gamers, however, and is certainly fine in the budget segment. It's what the G305 Lightspeed offers, anyway, and you're still getting the weight saving.
Apart from that, you're getting the same under-palm experience as with the G305 Lightspeed, which is one that might be a little better suited to claw grips and small or medium-sized hands than large ones that grip with the full palm. It's not a tiny mouse, but if your hands are bigger and you're a palm gripper you might struggle a little.
Overall, though, you're getting some quality components in a lovely eggy shape for a very cheap price. That makes it well worth considering if you're on a budget.
Read our full Mchose G3 V2 review.
The best competitive wireless gaming mouse
✅ You want top competitive performance: The Superstrike's inductive clicks truly push the skill ceiling higher for response times.
❌ You don't like the Superlight shape: There's no difference between the shape of the Superlight 2 and the Superstrike, so if the shape doesn't gel with you, it might not be worth it.
The Logitech G Pro X2 Superstrike is the best wireless gaming mouse for competitive gaming, at least in tactical shooters and games that require lots of fast clicks. It's also a first of its kind: a gaming mouse that has genuine, bona fide analogue tech under its key plates that allow for adjustable actuation.
If you're wondering what exactly that means, think about Hall effect keyboards; it's essentially the same thing going on here, but with a mouse. And instead of the Hall effect, the Superstrike uses induction to measure how far down the left and right mouse buttons are pressed.
The main benefit to this is that you can set each click to, well, click, with just a very light touch, which means there's less time between deciding to shoot and actually seeing that muzzle flash in-game. And in case you're wondering how you'll be able to feel these clicks if they're inductive rather than mechanical, worry not, because Logitech has paired the inductive system up with little tailored haptic motors that feel pretty click-like—not identical, but close.
This, of course, helps with competitive gaming, where a few milliseconds of delay can mean the difference between nailing and whiffing that headshot. The average casual gamer might not have much use for it, but if you're into tactical shooters like Valorant, it is noticeable. Our Jacob Fox attests to as much after putting in dozens of hours into Counter-Strike 2 using the Superstrike and finding it to be a snappier experience than any other mouse he's used.
It can also be useful for games that benefit from lots of clicks per minute (CPM), such as MOBAs.
It's worth noting, however, that if you don't play these high-CPM games tactical shooters that require fast click reactions like CS2 or Valorant, you might do better with the Viper V4 Pro. You can check out our Jacob's comparison between the two if you're struggling to decide.
The rest of the Superstrike other than the new clicks is essentially copy-and-pasted from the previous Logitech G Pro X Superlight 2, warts and all. Those warts are definitely there—including a dodgy middle-click long-press and a now far-from-ultralight 60~ g weight—but it's still a solid mouse shape that most (but not all) people should get on with.
Really, you're not getting it for the shape but for that bleeding-edge click latency-reducing tech, and for that luxury there is a hefty price tag attached. But if you want the best competitive performance in a wireless gaming mouse, it's well worth it.
Read our full Logitech G Pro X2 Superstrike review.
The best lightweight wireless gaming mouse
✅ You care about aim the most: If you want to eliminate every impediment possible from lining up that headshot, the light weight of this mouse should help.
❌ You want tons of battery life: While 70 hours is fine, it's not quite what you can get in some other (but heavier) gaming mice.
The Corsair Sabre V2 Pro Ultralight Wireless is the best lightweight gaming mouse, and that's because not only is it incredibly light but it's also surprisingly sturdy. 'Ultralight' gaming mice have been getting even more, well, light over the last couple of years, and Corsair really seems to be taking that to its limits here.
Weighing just 36 g, the Sabre V2 Pro is 11 g lighter than our previous pick for the ultralight crown, the Turtle Beach Burst II Air, and it's way lighter than most other mice on the market. Even the (fantastic) Logitech G Pro X Superlight and Superlight 2 are over 20 g heavier.
We're not quite sure what sorcery has gone on behind the scenes, but there must have been some spells cast to get the Corsair mouse so light without poking it full of little holes. That's been the MO for a lot of mice: empty out the shell with dozens of holes to get that light weight. Not here: this mouse is full-bodied and feels plenty sturdy.
After your hand and brain get used to the seriously light weight, it doesn't feel too strange and you really start to notice the benefits in FPS games. Having to contend against just 36 g of tech under your fingertips to move your crosshair makes for quicker and easier headshots. The sensor and wireless connection is pretty stellar here, too, which is kind of a prerequisite for competitive FPS games.
Make no mistake, that is the target market here: gamers who are into competitive shooters. And such gamers tend to care little for extra bells and whistles. So Corsair hasn't given the Sabre V2 Pro any. It's just a solid lightweight mouse—no RGB, no extra buttons other than LMB/RMB/middle/forward/back, and not even an installable app for configuration.
The elephant in the room is the new Logitech G Pro X2 Superstrike, which is the best wireless mouse for competitive gaming thanks to its inductive clicks. But that doesn't mean it will be for everyone, as some might prefer the 24~ g shaved off by opting for this Corsair mouse, which is definitely noticeable.
Its software is web-based, which is great because it means you don't have to bloat your PC or keep anything running in the background. Just set your DPI and polling rate (up to 33,000 DPI and 8,000 Hz, respectively), hit save, and you're good to go. It offers a little more than that, but it's really very minimal—just how it should be for a competitive gaming mouse.
Apart from having no dedicated DPI button (you use a button combo to cycle) and only being able to save one profile to the mouse, the only real downside—at least, for most who will probably prefer PTFE feet—is that it comes with UPE skates. These are more durable but they're a little less glide-y, but it's not the biggest difference imaginable.
Slapping on some third-party PTFE skates might be a good shout. But even without that, the Corsair Sabre V2 Pro is far and away the best lightweight wireless gaming mouse on the market right now.
Read our full Corsair Sabre V2 Pro review.
The best MMO wireless gaming mouse
✅ You need more buttons: If you find that you're contorting your fingers to reach some hotkeys, this mouse has a solution.
❌ You want a lightweight mouse: At 161 g, this mouse certainly isn't light. That shouldn't be a problem for MMO gamers and general use, but won't be ideal for competitive shooters.
The best wireless gaming mouse for MMMOs and MOBAs is the Corsair Scimitar Elite Wireless SE. MMO mice have been around for a while now, but few have offered just as much, in just the right way, as this one.
If you're after a lightweight and barebones mouse for clicking heads, this probably isn't the one for you, but if you find yourself having to reach across your keyboard to hit a keybind, an MMO mouse like this is ideal. That's because it shoves a whole bunch of bindable buttons on the side of your mouse where your thumb sits—12 buttons, to be precise.
One problem with some MMO mice is that it can be difficult for your thumb to figure out which button is which, as they're all smushed together. With this one, though, the button rows alternate textures to help you differentiate between them, and they're spaced apart nicely. You can also move the entire button panel around and fix it in place to get it in the perfect spot for your thumb.
This isn't just useful for gaming, either, but also for some productivity apps that benefit from keybinds, and even streaming. On the latter point, streamers will be happy to know the Scimitar Elite Wireless SE comes with Stream Deck integration. This means you can not only set up the side buttons to trigger standard keyboard functions, media controls, and other macros, but also Stream Deck functions such as swapping between scenes in OBS.
There are, of course, a couple of sacrifices for all this customisability and functionality, but these aren't too big of a deal—at least, not for MMO gamers and the likes. For one, it weighs 161 g which is a far cry from some of the lightest gaming mice on the market such as the 36 g Corsair Sabre V2 Pro. And it also only caps out at 1,000 Hz polling with a 33,000 DPI sensor.
These aren't bad polling and sensor stats, especially for an MMO mouse, they're just not the latest and greatest for gaming in competitive shooters and similar genres. But that's not the target market here. The target is button-happy MMO/MOBA gamers and productivity users, and for those use cases the Corsair Scimitar Elite Wireless SE reigns king.
Read our full Corsair Scimitar Elite Wireless SE review.
Best wireless ambidextrous gaming mouse
✅ You're a leftie: Seems kinda obvious, doesn't it? But we've tested a fair few ambidextrous mice, and the G Pro sits top among them for a reason: It's simply brilliant no matter which hand you favour.
✅ You want reliability: Our Jacob has been furiously clicking his Logitech G Pro sample for five years now, and not once has it complained. It's remarkably robust and a superb daily driver.
❌ You want USB-C: Here's the main reason why you might want to pay extra for the Logitech G Pro 2 instead. The Micro-USB connection of the OG G Pro is fine, but if you want USB Type-C, it's the more expensive upgraded model for you.
For left-handed gamers, it can sometimes feel like their choices are limited when it comes to gaming mice, as the majority are designed for righties. Rejoice then, dear lefties, because the Logitech G Pro isn't just the best ambidextrous mouse, but one of the best mice you can buy full stop.
Before we begin, I should point out that the Logitech G Pro 2 Lightspeed also exists, and it's a fine mouse. But we've elected to pick the older model instead, because it's still widely available and you can usually find it for half the price. The G Pro 2 features a number of small upgrades that don't really change anything fundamental about the mouse for most users, so the super-attractive price point of the original G Pro wins the day.
What you get here is a form factor that allows for right- and left-handed grips, thanks to an ambidextrous chassis design and swappable magnetic side buttons. But don't think we're recommending this mouse merely because of its ambi-handed party trick, because truth be told, this is a phenomenal gaming mouse for just about anyone.
At its heart lies one of Logitech's Hero 25K sensors, and it's no word of a lie to say it's one of our favourite mouse sensors of all time. It's speedy, super responsive, and built to last, much like the rest of this mouse. Okay, it might not be a 55-gram ultralightweight, but at 80 grams it's far from heavy, and many on the team would say that the mega-light mouse market is an exercise in diminishing returns anyway.
Our Jacob has been using his Logitech G Pro for five years as a daily driver, and it's still going as strong as the day he pulled it from the box. Logitech knows how to make a tough yet brilliant gaming mouse, and the G Pro holds the distinction of being one of our longest-term test models still in daily usage.
Plus, Jacob has his absolute pick of gaming mice to choose from, and this is the one he keeps coming back to. How's that for an endorsement?
There is one slight fly in the ointment, however, and it's the charging port. It's plenty robust, but unfortunately, Micro-USB. If you want USB Type-C, it's the G Pro 2 you should be looking at—and really, that's one of the only reasons you should consider buying the newer model over the older one.
Still, even with that caveat, there's no better ambidextrous mouse than the original Logitech G Pro. It's not just a great gaming mouse for left-handers, it's a great gaming mouse full stop.
Best ergonomic wireless gaming mouse
✅ You use your gaming PC for other things: If you spend a lot of time using your PC—for work or study, for instance—there's a lot of a value to using an ergonomic mouse to help prevent injury.
❌ You mainly play fast-paced shooters: While the M5's sensor is good for gaming, it's still a vertical mouse and these aren't the easiest to be accurate with during fast-paced gameplay.
Ergonomic mice don't tend to get a lot of air time in the PC gaming sphere, and that's because there are few that have the gaming chops in addition to the comfort chops. Not so with the Keychron M5, though. This mouse is the best ergonomic wireless gaming mouse primarily because it packs in a great, accurate sensor alongside that vertical shape.
One of the main benefits to using a vertical mouse is that it should go some way towards preventing problems such as repetitive strain injury (RSI). The idea is that your wrist is placed at a more comfortable and natural angle, and your fingers can easily squeeze to press the mouse buttons, and all of this is more natural than the usual mouse holding and clicking position.
The Keychron M5 combines all the benefits of this form factor with a genuinely impressive sensor that reaches up to 30,000 DPI and a polling rate of up to 8 kHz (although you'll probably want to keep it lower than that anyway for battery life and system use). During his testing, our Nick found the sensor to be very accurate for a vertical mouse in practice, too, although it doesn't quite keep up with the best of the best of dedicated gaming mice.
And to be clear, while Keychron isn't marketing this specifically as a gaming mouse, the sensor and polling rate are certainly in line with an accurate gaming rodent. The question is to what extent a vertical mouse can be a gaming mouse at all, and the answer seems to be: to some extent, but not completely.
It's definitely easier to make small, accurate movements with a standard mouse, and a vertical mouse can nudge around a bit when you press its buttons. That's especially true for the M5, which has slippery mouse feet. It does have a wide base, though, which makes it a little more stable and less likely to topple. You probably won't want to use it for fast-paced shooters, but for slower games that require less quick accuracy, it does just fine.
At 95 g it's not the heaviest mouse in the world, either, though it doesn't keep up with the latest batches of lightweight gaming mice such as the Turtle Beach Burst Air II. In fact, despite the rough surface texture initially rubbing him the wrong way, Nick says this is "one of the most comfortable mice I have used for a very long time. So much so that using a traditionally designed mouse just feels quite painful after long use, in comparison."
And that's the rub, really: It's not the best pick for fast-paced gaming performance, but it's incredibly comfy and ergonomic and it does what it says on the tin incredibly well. Throw in the fact that it has two scroll wheels for better productivity and quad (yes, quad) wireless connectivity—three Bluetooth, one 2.4 GHz—for a very reasonable price and you have a winner. If ergonomic credentials is the name of the game, look no further than the Keychron M5.
Read our full Keychron M5 review.
Best customizable gaming mouse
✅ You want to build your own mouse: If you're after the ultimate lightweight gaming mouse complete with a top-tier sensor and your own custom fit, then there's no mouse that does it better than this.
❌ You want 8,000 Hz polling wired: Sadly, that's only reserved for the wireless mode, and it'll run out of juice in a day if you do use it that way.
Ever wondered what it would be like to have a top-tier gaming mouse that fits your hand perfectly? That's exactly what the Orbital Pathfinder lets you do, thanks to its wealth of swappable plates and rear panels, which is why it's the best customizable gaming mouse you can buy right now.
The Pathfinder's technical specifications are par for the course with the best gaming mice around. It sports PixArt's PAW3950 sensor, which boasts a maximum sensitivity of 30,000 DPI, a top tracking speed of 750 IPS, and a peak acceleration of 50G. Other mice might be a little better in these aspects, but few gamers will be left wanting.
As is rapidly becoming the norm, the Pathfinder uses a wireless 2.4 GHz dongle that supports up to 8 kHz polling. However, like all such mice with this kind of capability, it will quickly drain the battery life in a matter of hours. You can use it wired, though the mouse's USB controller limits the polling rate to 1 kHz.
While the Pathfinder's low weight (between 52 and 55 grams) isn't the lightest you can come across, it still feels very airy and breezy, and fast gaming will not be an issue of any kind. However, Orbital isn't marketing the Pathfinder as being the quickest or most lightweight mouse on the market.
What makes the Pathfinder special is the vast array of customization options. In the box, there are multiple rear and side panels to swap about. For example, if you need a bulkier mouse that fills your hand, then fitting the 'high hump' rear panel and the 'claw' side panels will tick that box.
The main drawback to this freedom of choice is the price tag, and the Pathfinder currently sells for almost $190. That makes it one of the most expensive gaming mice around, though it's only $30 more than Razer's Viper V3 Pro, which has very similar specs and no options for changing its shape.
So while the Orbital Pathfinder is very pricey, you are getting a top-spec gaming mouse with more customization options than pretty much any other mouse you can buy.
Read our full Orbital Pathfinder review.
The best wireless gaming mouse for small hands
✅ You find most mice too big: This mouse is perfect for smaller-handed gamers, and it doesn't sacrifice on much in the specs department, either.
❌ You want top-tier specs: The Cobra HyperSpeed is light enough and performant enough for most gamers, but if you want the absolute best sensor and a truly ultralight weight, this isn't it.
If you have small hands, don't think you have to settle for less in the mouse department, because the Razer Cobra HyperSpeed delivers the goods and more for all you diminutively palmed folk. And by 'the goods', I don't just mean the basics, I mean some of the features of the absolute best gaming mice on the market, the Viper V4 Pro and DeathAdder V4 Pro.
Specfiically, I'm talking about those optical clicks and the optical scroll wheel. The former clicks might sound a little loud and pingy, but they feel absolutely amazing, and optical switches should have great longevity as there isn't constant mechanical contact wearing things down. Ditto the scroll wheel: it feels amazing and should be less prone to wear and tear.
The reason this mouse is good for small hands in particular, though, is because it's a dinky little thing that can certainly handle a palm grip from a smaller hand but would also do well with a fingertip or claw grip from a regular-sized hand. The nice matte parts of the mouse are all where your palm and fingers should lie, so no worries on that front, either; the glossy plastic should keep away from your fingertips.
Those glossy parts are presumably what helps the Cobra HyperSpeed stay so cheap, as it's a fair bit cheaper than the Pro version. You're getting a slightly lower spec than the latter, but the 26,000 DPI sensor should still more than enough for gaming in pretty much any scenario.
It also only maxes out at 1 kHz polling, but if you want 8K you can always buy the HyperPolling dongle separately. And even for competitive gameplay, 1 kHz is usually enough. The same goes for that 62 g weight: there are lighter mice on the market, but it's still plenty light even for competitive gaming.
In other words, then, you're getting a very solid and performant mouse, here, that just also happens to be a little scaled down in size. Whether you're a fingertip gripper or just a small-handed gamer, it should make for a great little rodent under your palm.
Read our full Razer Cobra HyperSpeed review.
Also tested
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Where to find the best deals
Where are the best gaming mouse deals?
In the US:
Amazon - Often some savings on PC gaming peripherals
Walmart - Usually some good savings on mice
Newegg - Big brand gaming mice for cheap
Best Buy - Great place to look for a cheap gaming mouse
In the UK:
Overclockers - Plenty of peripherals to choose from
Wireless gaming mouse FAQ
Best wireless gaming mouse FAQ
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What's the main reason to choose wireless over wired?
Today, most of the conventional critique about wireless gaming mice is plain out of date. The best wireless gaming mice perform almost indistinguishably from wired ones, without a hint of perceptible lag or stutter to be found. Wired mice are sometimes cheaper, but great budget wireless mice are readily available, so really, it's a personal preference choice at this point.
Do pro gamers use wireless gaming mice?
Modern wireless connections, such as those created by Logitech and Razer, deliver no discernible difference between their wired and wireless mice brethren when it comes to gaming latency. Reportedly, both Ninja and Shroud use a Logitech G Pro X Superlight mouse, so there's clearly nothing wrong with the fact that it's wireless.
How does a wireless mouse connect to my PC?
Most wireless mice offer both 2.4G wireless connections, which will most often require a dedicated USB device, or they'll use Bluetooth. Bluetooth is more widely compatible with a range of devices, however, it usually adds latency to the connection, whereas a 2.4G wireless connection has next to none. This makes it the preferred connection method for gaming.
How we test gaming mice
We've used enough gaming mice to have a good feel for build quality, button placement, and shape. Our opinions on those aspects of mouse design are naturally subjective, but they're also well-informed. The tricky part of testing gaming mice is analyzing the other part of the equation: tracking performance, jitter, angle snapping, acceleration, and perfect control speed, and determining how each of those issues affects the experience of using a mouse.
For that, applications such as Mouse Tester come in handy. We use this software to see if we can spot any glaring issues with the mice we review. In every gaming mouse we test, though, angle snapping and acceleration are disabled in the mouse drivers by default.
For gaming, we primarily test mice with Destiny 2 and Apex Legends and twitchier shooters like Quake Champions to see how our performance stacks up against other mice. We scrutinize the cursor movement and responsiveness for lag, jitter, and other issues.
We use each mouse with its wireless receiver plugged into a nearby USB port, giving it the best possible wireless situation to work with. We also test the wireless receivers plugged into our test system a few feet away, increasing the opportunity for lag and interference.
Wireless gaming mouse jargon buster
Grip refers to how you hold a mouse. The most common grips are palm, claw, and fingertip. Here's a good example of how each grip works.
CPI stands for counts per inch, or how many times the mouse sensor will read its tracking surface, aka your mousepad, for every inch it’s moved. This is commonly referred to as DPI, but CPI is a more accurate term. The lower the CPI, the further you have to move the mouse to move the cursor on the screen.
Jitter refers to an inaccuracy in a mouse sensor reading the surface it’s tracking. Jitter often occurs at higher mouse movement speeds or higher CPIs. Jitter can make your cursor jump erratically, and even slight jitter could wreck a shot in an FPS or make you misclick on a unit in an RTS.
Angle snapping, also called prediction, takes data from a mouse sensor and modifies the output to create smoother movements. For example, if you try to draw a horizontal line with your mouse, it won’t be perfect—you’ll make some subtle curves in the line, especially at higher sensitivities. Angle snapping smooths out those curves and gives you a straight line instead. This is generally bad because it means your cursor movements won’t match your hand’s movements 1:1, and angle snapping will not be useful in most games. Thankfully, almost all gaming mice have angle snapping disabled by default.
Acceleration is probably the most reviled, most scrutinized issue with gaming mouse sensors. When a mouse sensor exhibits acceleration, your cursor will move faster the faster you move the mouse; this is often considered bad because moving the mouse slowly six inches across a mousepad will move the cursor differently than moving the mouse rapidly the same distance. This introduces variability that can be hard to predict.
Perfect control speed, or malfunction rate, refers to the speed at which the mouse can be moved while still tracking accurately. Most gaming mice will track extremely accurately when moved at slow speeds, but low CPI players will often move their mice large distances across the mousepads at very high speeds. At high speeds, especially at high CPIs, not all mouse sensors can retain their tracking accuracy. The point at which the sensors stop tracking accurately will differ between CPI levels.
IPS measures inches per second, and the effective maximum tracking speed of any given sensor is rated too. Not to be confused with the gaming monitor panel type by the same name, the higher the IPS of any given mouse, the better it can keep up with high-speed movement and maintain accuracy.
Lift-off distance is still a popular metric in mouse enthusiast circles, though it does not affect most gamers. LOD refers to the height a mouse has to be raised before the sensor stops tracking its surface. Some gamers prefer a mouse with a very low lift-off distance because they play at very low sensitivity and often have to lift their mouse off the pad to "reset" it in a position where they can continue swiping. With a low LOD, the cursor will not be moved erratically when the mouse is lifted.
