CORSAIR - DARK CORE SE Wireless Gaming 9 Button Optical Mouse with RGB Lighting and Qi Wireless Charging - Black

Wireless gaming mice are the next "big" accessory being pushed at PC gamers. With the Dark Core SE, Corsair aims to rid wireless gaming mice of their reputation for perceived latency increases and wireless connection issues. In my experience, Corsair has largely succeeded, but there is still a lot of room for improvement. Here's my take: PROS: - Excellent, ergonomic design. The mouse is rather long and should comfortably fit the contours of your palm. The thumb rest is perfectly sized with a nice soft-touch plastic. The textured surface on the rear portion of the mouse provides nice grip during long gaming sessions. - Weight. The Dark Core SE feels very substantial. I prefer a heavier mouse since it tends to offer more control and precision. - Lightning fast performance. With a max DPI of 16,000, the mouse is extremely responsive. Buttons on the top of the mouse let you reduce mouse sensitivity for even more accuracy. Taking shots in Rise of the Tomb Raider has never been more precise. The mouse easily keeps up with rapid movements and I have yet to notice any lag whatsoever. - Multiple connection options, including wired, 2.4 GHz, and Bluetooth. You'll want to use 2.4 GHz for optimal wireless performance, but it's nice that Bluetooth is included as a back-up. - Nice placement of RGB lights. Not too many, not too few. The lights turn off after about 15 or 20 minutes of inactivity to save battery. Using the Utility Engine software, there are an almost limitless amount of color configurations to choose from. - Great battery life. Corsair claims up to 24 hours of use on a full charge, and that seems accurate to me. - Qi wireless charging. You can recharge the mouse on the companion MM1000 pad (sold separately) or on any Qi-enabled wireless charger. It works well, but like most wireless charging solutions, it seems to charge rather slowly. CONS: - Questionable button layout, especially the side buttons near your thumb. The backward and forward buttons seem to be too spread out, and I have to really stretch my thumb to reach for the forward button. Since the buttons are on a rocker, you can't press forward and backward at the same time. - Clunky customization software. In the quick-start guide, Corsair doesn't even mention that you have to go to its website to download and install the Utility Engine customization software. Regardless, the software is a confusing mess. Simply remapping a button takes about 50 clicks through menus, sub-menus, and sub-sub-menus. The mouse supports up to three "profiles" of different settings, but every time I edit and save an existing profile, I seem to accidentally delete or overwrite another profile. Furthermore, the software only seems to recognize the mouse via wired connection. So if you're using the mouse wirelessly, you'll have to plug it in every time you want to change a setting. Corsair really needs to rethink this entire process. - Slow to wake up. After the mouse goes to sleep after 15-20 minutes of inactivity, it takes at least a few seconds of movement to finally wake it up. OVERALL: Aside from a few awkward button placements and weak customization software, this is an excellent wireless gaming mouse. It's comfortable, sturdy, and extremely fast. The addition of Qi wireless charging helps it stand out in an increasingly crowded market. If you really want to get the most out of this mouse, just be prepared to spend several frustrating hours with Corsair's software.

The Dark Core SE is an awesome mouse for gaming and in general. It’s extremely comfortable to use and you get a ton of customization options. Oh, and it has wireless charging too, which is pretty sweet. The mouse has 9 buttons, a 16000 DPI sensor, RGB lighting, and wired and wireless functionality. The wireless can be done either through the included USB dongle or Bluetooth (switchable via the bottom of the mouse). It’s nice to have both options and you could potentially save yourself an extra USB port via the Bluetooth route. In the box you you get the mouse, an additional finger rest, a 2.4 GHz receiver dongle for wireless, a long micro-USB cable for wired, and a micro-USB to USB-A adapter, which is provided to help get the 2.4 GHz receiver as close to the mouse as possible for the strongest wireless connection. The Dark Core SE has a design that reminds me of Logitech’s MX mice. It’s ergonomic and it feels like my fingers all naturally land where I’d like them to be. There’s a nice textured surface as well. All of the buttons have a good click feel to them and the scroll wheel has just the right amount of feedback and resistance. Using the 2.4 GHz receiver and I didn’t encounter any delays or stutters in the connection at all, which is more than I can say of many wireless mice I’ve used in the past. The mouse is super smooth and extremely responsive, especially on the MM1000 mouse pad. The button placement is about right for the most part. You get your standard left/right and middle click buttons, as well as some forward/back and a ‘sniper’ button on the thumb rest. The sniper button dials back the DPI while you are holding it down and the idea is to allow you to aim with more precision, which is definitely useful in shooters. There are 2 buttons dedicated to adjusting the DPI just to the left of the left click button that are a little awkward to get to, but my personal experience with the mouse didn’t really see me needing to adjust the DPI very much. The RGB lighting on the mouse is done well. You get illumination on the scroll wheel, the Corsair logo, the thumb rest, and the lower left and right sides near the back. The default action is a slow cycle through the spectrum of colors, but it can be adjust in the software too. It’s a lot of lighting, but somehow it doesn’t feel overdone and it can be turned off all together as well. Almost everything about this mouse can be customized via Corsair’s Utility Engine software. The buttons, lighting, and DPI can all be customized here. The software doesn’t come in the box, so you need to go to Corsair’s website to get it. I did find the software to be a bit unintuitive to use. There’s a lot to do, but it’s not always clear where you need to find it and there are menus for demo products that I don’t even have that let you adjust the settings for them. I’m not sure what the point of the demo products are or how to remove them; they feel like unnecessary clutter. One more thing to mention about this mouse is it has wireless charging built-in. It uses the Qi standard, so any Samsung or iPhone wireless charger will charge it, but if you pair it with the MM1000 mouse pad that has Qi wireless charging built right in. Unfortunately the charging pad is only in one specific location and you can’t use and charge the mouse wirelessly at the same time. Still, it’s a cool feature to have and if you’re not going to pick up the mouse pad with the Dark Core SE you may as well just get the normal Dark Core, which gives you everything the SE has except Qi charging. Overall this is one of the best gaming mice I’ve ever used and I’d definitely recommend if you’re looking for a good wireless option. The clunky software and limited wireless charging implementation do make me wish I could give it 4.5 stars though. I don’t consider the wireless charging a must-have in its current state either, so you could do just as well with the non-SE model. Either way I think you’ll be happy.

Corsair's Dark Core RGB mouse is a no-brainer pickup if you also get the Qi MM1000 mousepad to go with it. Compared to other gaming mice I've tried, the overall feel is rather sturdy and I've come to appreciate the texturized surface on the back of the mouse where my palm rests. This mouse is also crazy sensitive, since I enjoy getting to pair my mice and keyboards to my gaming rig and my Mac mini, I also paired the mouse using the Bluetooth option. I used the included wireless dongle to connect to my rig and there's a physical toggle switch on the bottom of the mouse, so I don't move the cursor on both computers by accident. When I connected it to my rig, the setup was a breeze - Corsair offers some additional software to configure profiles for different gaming situations, but I usually set those options up in the games themselves, since I hate having to download bloatware. I like to keep my machines running clean. When I connected it to my Mac, I had to turn the sensitivity down to the lowest setting because the cursor was zipping all over the place. The Qi charging ability is cool - but you have to leave it in a very specific spot, so you can't move the mouse and play/charge at the same time. But, for the price, it's a great buy with some features that you'd easily end up shelling out 2x as much for on other mice.

The Corsair dark core se wireless is a much needed upgrade for any pc gamer using a wired mouse. The response time is excellent and there is barely any lag experienced when using it for FPS games . The box contains the mouse, a charging cable, interchangeable side and the usb dongle. The mouse has a very modern look and feels comfortable in the palm of your hand. The soft rubbery grip plastic feels nice to the touch and seems good quality. The mouse has some extra side buttons and the one on the thumb side is a sniper button and this is perfectly placed allowing you to change dpi as needed and getting better shots when playing fps game. There are 3 lighted dots that indicate what dpi setting you are currently using as well as the profile. Buttons and lights can be easily customized using the software. Included in the box is a modular magnetic side grip that can be switched out to provide a rest for little finger. The RGB lightning looks pretty nice and adapts to the movement and can be easily adjusted to your liking by the software. Under the mouse you can see the 16000 dpi optical sensor, an on/off switch and a wireless select switch for bluetooth and 2.4GHz. With the 1ms response time this mouse feels very responsive and in a week of use it felt very natural and easy to use. An excellent wireless gaming mouse with snappy response and great controls.

My experience with this mouse has been excellent. I have used it for hours and no issues. The mouse comes with a 6ft long braided USB cable for easy changing and you can use the mouse while connected. I also have the Corsair charging mouse pad and accepts any compatible Qi wireless charging pads. It is very nice that it has many buttons such as the two buttons on the top left of the mouse. These buttons change the speed of the mouse. Another button that is useful for gamers is the sniper mode button this button slows down the speed of the mouse to snipe better in-game. The buttons are programmable and customizable. The mouse has a very nice fit for many hands and has the capability to switch the right side grip. My son and I use it a lot and we are very satisfied with all the features provided by this mouse.

Had no issues at all with it being wireless and found it to be great! The only issue I noticed was the mouse 4/5 buttons and sniper button could be placed a little future back. Found a hard time being able to hit the M5 button during a game.

This is probably the most customizable mouse I've ever used. The multiple assignable buttons, LED lighting and interchangeable thumb rest all add up to one of the best mice I've used. Pairing this with the MM1000 wireless charging mouse pad make a great combination. If I had any complaint, I wouldn't mind some added weight to the mouse. You can customize this mouse down to the button and color of the LEDs. This may seem overwhelming at first, but for gamers, this is probably one of, if not the best mouse you can buy. Pros: Extremely customizable buttons, LEDs, and quick switches between profiles Cons: I personally wouldn't mind a little more weight, may seem overwhelming with all the available buttons

This mouse is not for the novice. It is jam packed with features that could be hard for some to use. However, button layout aside, this still wireless charges and has a great lighting feature to know when the mouse is fully charged. I noticed in the directions there are 4 suggested presets that can be utilized for the mouse. This, in my opinion is too many. Nevertheless, user are still able to only use a few button, or really minimalize the layout. The mouse fits great to my hand and does not feel that im "reaching" in any way to hit any buttons. Its a smaller mouse, yet still has every feature/button i would expect to see on a mouse at this level. All in great mouse, charging, sleek design.