Two years is already a long time in the real word, but in the world of gaming mice, it's an eternity. When it released in 2020, the Strix Impact II was a genuinely good budget option that even offered premium features, such as hot-swappable main button switches. In particular, the Strix Impact II shined with its excellent main buttons, dependable sensor, and solid yet reasonably lightweight build. The main criticisms were the stiff cable and high click latency. Naturally, one would expect that these two items would be addressed for a new color variant SKU released two years later, but sadly, that is not the case. These days, people expect a soft, braided cable, along with a click latency well below 10 ms, both of which the Strix Impact II Moonlight White is unable to provide. Click latency being untouched in particular is difficult to understand as lowering it would not require a hardware change whatsoever, but instead simply adjusting a few values within the firmware. Now, that would be less of an issue if the Moonlight White would be offered at an accordingly lower price, but that is not the case, either. ASUS still charges $49.99 for an essentially two-year-old mouse, which isn't even close to being competitive when looking at the countless offerings with better cables, better sensors, and lower click latency around this price point these days.

The fact that click latency has not been touched is doubly curious given that another point of criticism on the original Strix Impact II, namely CPI deviation, has been addressed. Why fix one thing but not the other? Even more curious is that the Moonlight White even regressed in some aspects. The original Strix Impact II came out at a point where Armoury II was still a thing, which allowed one to control each of the lighting zones individually. The Moonlight White, on the other hand, is supposed to be used with Armoury Crate, and for whatever reason, the ability to independently control the lighting zones is gone now. While this may not be that big a deal, I'd still maintain that on a mouse that is all about its looks, being able to adjust the RGB lighting in greater detail would be a welcome addition, especially since the Strix Impact II could do it just fine two years ago. On top of that, Armoury Crate is still a nightmare to deal with, so aside from potentially making use of AuraSync, there is very little benefit to having Armoury Crate instead of good old Armoury II.

Overall, I'm not sure what demographic ASUS had in mind when conceiving the Moonlight White. Those who got the Strix Impact II two years ago likely aren't too interested in paying $50 for a mouse that isn't any different aside from the color. Meanwhile, for those who don't have a Strix Impact II, the Moonlight White simply doesn't offer anything compelling or worthwhile. Granted, the crispy yet pleasantly light main buttons are still very nice, but for $50, there are much better options available these days, and the original Strix Impact II is regularly on sale, too. The Strix Impact II Moonlight White is not a bad mouse, but after two years, I simply expected more than a new color.