This retro-styled programmable high-polling wireless mouse comes with a charging dock for under $60 USD

8BitDo Retro R8 Mouse - N Edition — (Image credit: 8BitDo)

Retro aesthetics are all the rage amongst many trying to recapture those warm feelings of their childhood through nostalgia tinted peripherals. We're seeing an influx of Commodore 64 inspired wares, with dusty grey plastic housings and orange highlights, like this XTRFY K4V2 TKL keyboard from Cherry. 8BitDo is another brand dipping into retro stylings, with the 8BitDo Retro R8 Mouse - N Edition releasing across Europe.

The Retro R8 Mouse joins the Retro 87 Mechanical Keyboard in grey plastic matrimony to complete this themed set. Aside from harkening back to a simpler time with aesthetics, the R8 actually looks like a really decent desk buddy, and fairly affordable too.

Using the dongle and proprietary software allows you to set the polling rate of your mouse, which means you can choose to go as fast as possible for higher accuracy or slow it down and save battery. It boasts between 26 and 105 hours depending on the settings, so you know those higher polls are making far more checks. When you're done, you can park it back on its stylish dock and have it charged in 2.5 hours.

Another boon to this mouse is it's built for both left and right handers, with programmable buttons on either side. You can also dial in the DPI and sensitivity, set macros, and go into a whole bunch of customisation in the software. It sounds like a really feature-full little rodent, which is incredible given the MSRP sits at $60 USD, €50 or £55.

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Hope’s been writing about games for about a decade, starting out way back when on the Australian Nintendo fan site Vooks.net. Since then, she’s talked far too much about games and tech for publications such as Techlife, Byteside, IGN, and GameSpot. Of course there’s also here at PC Gamer, where she gets to indulge her inner hardware nerd with news and reviews. You can usually find Hope fawning over some art, tech, or likely a wonderful combination of them both and where relevant she’ll share them with you here. When she’s not writing about the amazing creations of others, she’s working on what she hopes will one day be her own. You can find her fictional chill out ambient far future sci-fi radio show/album/listening experience podcast right here.

No, she’s not kidding.

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