In the past few years, gaming mice have become lighter and lighter, but budget mice have been largely exempt from this trend. Aside from the Razer Viper Mini, there aren't many truly lightweight options in the $40 or under price bracket. With the MM310, Cooler Master throw their hat into the ring, and some minor issues aside, do so successfully.

At 53 g, the MM310 is among the lightest wired mice around, which is doubly impressive given its medium size and lack of externally visible holes. More importantly, the mechanical design is competent, as there is no flexing or creaking of the shell when pressing, and actuating the side buttons is only possible by applying ridiculous amounts of force. The only build quality related flaw on my copy is some minor rattle coming from the scroll wheel when shaking. The great handling is complemented by the flexible cable, which is very similar to the charging cables of the MM731 and MM712, and thus plenty flexible, along with PTFE feet of good quality, which too are shared with Cooler Master's more expensive wireless models.

Cooler Master doesn't explicitly advertise the main button switches of the MM310, which is curious given that they are Kailh GM 4.0, which are typically only found on more expensive mice. Button response is accordingly firm and snappy without being overly heavy, and even though a split-button design is used, lateral button movement is minimal. That said, due to the button design actuating the button towards the back is barely possible, so for those who curl their fingers way back, the MM310 is not a good choice. All other buttons are outfitted with Huano (green) switches, which too are typically only seen on more expensive models. This even includes the scroll wheel switch, along with the side buttons, which both have pleasingly low post-travel, although the back button has some pre-travel, coupled with uneven actuation. The scroll wheel scores with low noise levels and above average tactility, although Cooler Master still utilizes the same design previously seen on the MM731, which involves a rubber ring and proved to be somewhat lacking in the durability department.

The MM310 is outfitted with PixArt's PAW3327 sensor, which is an older yet still serviceable model. The 3327 is rated at a malfunction speed of 5.59 m/s, which I haven't been able to hit during testing and which should be sufficient for the vast majority of users. Unfortunately, CPI deviation isn't consistent at all, and since the steps can only be adjusted in increments of 100, getting the precise CPI step one desires may be difficult. Likewise less than optimal is the motion delay of around 1.5–2 ms present on the MM310, which, though not too bad, simply should not exist on a wired mouse. The same goes for the instability present at polling rates below 1000 Hz, which leaves the latter as the only fully stable option. Lift-off distance isn't adjustable on the MM310, which is a sensor limitation, but the default LOD is still low enough to be manageable, so this is less of an objective flaw and more a matter of preference.

Click latency is an odd case on the MM310. By default, the mouse is set to 6 ms button response time, which results in an actual click latency of 23.8 ms. Since this is abysmal, setting button response to 1 ms instead is pretty much a necessity, which has click latency decrease to a now competitive 3.9 ms. Even the 2 ms setting already introduces significant latency, so keeping it at 1 ms is the only viable option. Doing so requires making use of Cooler Master's MasterPlus software, which is pleasantly bug-free, but does consume a lot of RAM and some CPU time, though the numbers of processes spawned by it is nowhere near as intrusive as with Razer Synapse, Corsair iCUE, or ASUS Armoury Crate. Thankfully, the MM310 does have on-board memory support, so setting everything up and uninstalling the software right after is possible.

Overall, the MM310 is a solid mouse. The only competition comes from two mice: The Razer Viper Mini has optical switches, better performance, similarly good buttons, and slightly higher weight, but is much smaller and has a stiffer cable, for $39.99. For $29.99, the ROCCAT Burst Core too comes with optical switches, better performance, similarly good buttons, and higher weight, but the cable is significantly stiffer. While the MM310 beats neither of these mice, its cable is vastly superior, and it is priced more than fairly for what is on offer. Accordingly, the MM310 earns our Budget award.