Buttons, Scroll Wheel

The main buttons use blue shell Huano switches that are rated for 20 million clicks. These switches are widely used; they are rather durable, but stiffer and require more force to actuate than the well-known Omron D2F and D2FC models. As for the click-feel, these main buttons are really not my cup of tea. They feel very stiff (more than those on the Zowie FK or DM1 Pro), and there is some unnecessary pre and post travel on them. I think the shell is a bit too thick around the button areas, which causes the stiffness.


So one of the main marketing points of this mouse is the scroll wheel, which is extra wide and grooved for maximum comfort while using it. These two parts are absolutely true; I'd love to see more mice with a similar scroll wheel. The problem with the ATOM is that the axle of the scroll wheel itself is not long enough to properly sit inside the encoder, which leads to a huge amount of play inside a single notch. The scrolling itself actually feels nice, but once you've stopped scrolling, the wheel will wobble a lot inside a step, which leads to a horrible rattling sound if you shake the mouse. I fixed this by simply placing a very thin layer of paper tissue to the axle and then inside the encoder, which eliminated the issue completely. However, most people don't want to disassemble and DIY-fix their mice like this, so this is still a major issue in my opinion.


The middle button has a very short travel and requires a tad less force to actuate than the main clicks. It isn't very spammable, but most people don't use this button for fast-paced clicks anyways. It uses a red plunger Boyue micro switch.


The side buttons are fantastic. They have next to no unnecessary travel, and the clicks themselves feel nice and relatively—but not overly—light. They sit firmly in their place too; no rattling here of any sort. The switches used here are manufactured by Yusya.

I have made a video in order to demonstrate how the buttons sound:

Mouse Feet

As for the ATOM's skates, they are not perfectly smooth and have a lot of friction. Once I was done with the sensor settings, I had to swap them because they really dragged on my mouse pad. This may have been my device only because this is a pre-used review sample. I would still recommend replacing the default feet with some aftermarket ones; the 0.6 mm thick Microsoft IO1.1 or Logitech G1 feet fit into these grooves perfectly.

Cable

The ATOM's cable has a quite unique, smooth but braided surface that I like a lot. What I don't like at all was its flexibility and weight. It's kinda heavy and not very flexible. I could easily push the mouse around before the cable even started to bend. It is 1.8 meters long, and the USB connector (which has a neat-looking AZIO logo engraved into it) is gold-plated.

Disassembling

The mouse can be disassembled after removing four screws in total, which are located beneath the mouse feet. The upper shell has no electronics of any sort as everything's mounted on a single PCB that is fixed to the bottom plate with a few screws.