Software

The Chakram is compatible with the ROG Armoury II software from ASUS. Options include button remapping (mouse, keyboard, media, and macro functions, along with vertical/horizontal options for the joystick), CPI adjustment (100–16,000 CPI in increments of 100 CPI) for four levels, angle snapping (on/off), polling rate adjustment (125/250/500/1000 Hz), button debounce time (12–32 ms in increments of 4 ms), LOD adjustment (high/low), and a basic acceleration/deceleration function. Button debounce time numbers are no longer accurate, i.e., choosing the 12 ms setting will result in an effective debounce of roughly 3 ms. Additionally, a basic battery life indicator is included (increments of 25%), along with the ability to configure sleep mode and the battery threshold at which the mouse will start to blink. Macro support, profile management, and a stats recording feature are available as well. On my system, the software had a RAM footprint of 100 MB on average. Even upon terminating the software, a surprisingly large number of processes kept running, totaling 40 MB worth of RAM usage. In fact, these processes ran on every system startup and could not be disabled.

Lighting

The Chakram has three zones for RGB lighting: scroll wheel, logo at the back, and the LED strip at the front. The three zones can be operated independently; i.e., while having the Color Cycle effect run on the scroll wheel, Breathing can run on the logo (or vice versa). Through the software, seven pre-defined lighting effects are available: Static, Breathing, Color Cycle, Reactive, Wave, Comet, and Battery Mode. Furthermore, lighting brightness and color intensity/saturation can be adjusted. Selecting 0% brightness will disable the lighting altogether.

Color accuracy and vibrancy are excellent throughout. Here's a short demonstration video of the "Wave," "Comet," and "Battery Mode" lighting effects:

Battery Life

According to ASUS, the battery will last for up to 79 hours while using 2.4 GHz mode, no RGB illumination, and a polling rate of 1000 Hz. Using Bluetooth mode and again no RGB illumination, battery life is stated to be over 100 hours. Over the course of approximately 15 hours spent with the Chakram in-game and with RGB enabled, I didn't get to see the "75%" battery life mark, so their estimation seems to at least be within the realm of possibility. The battery is a lithium-polymer model with a capacity of 1250 mAh, manufactured by Hangzhou FuturePower Technology Co. Ltd.