Lately, the competition for battery-driven wireless gaming mice has steadily increased, and with the TUF Gaming M4 Wireless, ASUS has decided to throw their hat into the ring. Being ambidextrous, its competition are the SteelSeries Rival 3 Wireless, Logitech G305, and Razer Orochi V2. While the M4 Wireless can't beat all of them individually in terms of price and performance, it offers a compelling package all around nonetheless.

First off, sensor performance. While not specifically advertised, the M4 Wireless utilizes PixArt's newest creation, the PAW3311. Essentially, the 3311 is a lower-cost 3335, inheriting its tracking engine, but losing some of its maximum CPI and maximum tracking speed. That said, either is high enough still, so this is more of an on-paper downgrade. In practice, tracking is excellent, polling stable across the board, and CPI deviation appreciably low. The only flaw I could find pertains to what I like to call "onset motion delay." Much like on several 3335 or 3370 implementations, when moving the mouse from a standstill, the sensor needs around 200 ms to "switch gears," so to speak, during which time motion delay is increased. Once the mouse is fully in motion, the overall motion delay sits at around 1.5 ms, which is highly respectable given the lack of a wireless extender. Speaking of which, not including one is expected at this price point, although one then has to keep in mind not to plug the dongle into a USB 3.x port, as doing so may introduce interference adversely affecting wireless operation.

Much like the Razer Orochi V2, the M4 Wireless can be used with either an AA- or AAA-battery. Battery life differs accordingly, but has room for improvement either way. With an AAA-battery, around 50 hours can be expected, which only looks good until one compares it with the Razer DeathAdder V2 X Hyperspeed. The V2 X Hyperspeed uses a slightly modified variant of the 3311, yet does easily twice the hours running on a regular Alkaline AA or AAA-battery, all the while having onset motion delay intentionally disabled, which has power consumption go up. On the bright side, the M4 Wireless comes with Bluetooth, and the dongle can be stored directly on the mouse, making it a good fit for traveling. Furthermore, the M4 Wireless is fairly lightweight for its size, coming out at 77 g with an AAA-battery and 85 g with an AA-battery.

Even though not advertised as such, the M4 Wireless has been outfitted with high-quality Kailh GM 4.0 switches on the main buttons, which also see use on the Razer Orochi V2 and DeathAdder V2 X Hyperspeed. As expected, the main buttons provide a snappy and firm response even though their pre-travel has them feel a bit spongy. The side buttons feel good as well and cannot be actuated by squeezing the sides, but the whole left side panel caves in when doing so, which is curious considering the right one does not. Meanwhile, the scroll wheel is genuinely good: Noise levels are under control, scrolling is tight and controlled, and the individual steps nicely defined. While the feet definitely aren't 100% pure PTFE, they are of good quality and glide just fine. Aside from above average variance, I have little to complain about the click latency, either, which is just 1 ms behind the Razer Orochi V2.

As with other ASUS mice, configuration is done within Armoury Crate. The available options are rather barebones, which is why one may be inclined to skip Armoury Crate altogether and just use the M4 Wireless on its perfectly fine default settings. While a sound strategy in theory, in practice using Armoury Crate at least once is recommended to apply the latest firmware, which fixes both CPI deviation and polling-rate instability at 500 Hz and below, which are otherwise present by default. A percentage-based battery life indicator is present within Armoury Crate, but from what I can tell, isn't even close to being accurate and thus best ignored. Armoury Crate itself continues to be a major nuisance, but has at least for me been mostly smooth sailing this time around.

Out of the ambidextrous competition, the SteelSeries Rival 3 Wireless is the only real competitor for the M4 Wireless, as both the Logitech G305 and Razer Orochi V2 have an entirely different shape. Between the Rival 3 Wireless and M4 Wireless, the former has the better sensor on paper, but worse performance in practice, along with high CPI deviation, higher click latency, and a higher weight. Overall, the M4 Wireless is the better mouse, but does cost $10 more. Compared to the Razer Orochi V2, the M4 Wireless loses profoundly, but costs $10 less. All in all, the M4 Wireless is fairly priced, and while not without flaws, a good alternative to the Rival 3 Wireless, thus earning our Recommended award.