For the past couple of years, the Logitech G305 has been the top choice for those looking for an affordable, relatively lightweight and, most importantly, long-lasting battery-driven wireless mouse. Recently, SteelSeries released their Rival 3 Wireless, and Corsair now follows suit with the Katar Pro Wireless. At $39.99, the Katar Pro Wireless certainly fits the "affordable" description, but everything else leaves a lot to be desired.

At the heart of every mouse lies its sensor. For the Katar Pro Wireless, this is PixArt's PMW3325, a budget sensor based on a ten-year-old architecture and mostly intended for use in wired mice. Accordingly, it comes as no surprise to see this sensor struggle in keeping up on the Katar Pro Wireless. In order to reach at least an appreciable level of battery life, the 3325 had to be tuned very aggressively for power saving. As a result, it enters a low-power rest state after only 10 seconds of keeping the mouse stationary, which it again takes a small moment to awaken from. On more modern sensors, such transitions are seamless, but on the 3325, it's quite noticeable and irritating—just think of all the times during gaming or even office use where you don't move your mouse for such a short period of time. Furthermore, there is an additional deep sleep mode, waking up from which takes several seconds—again, the 3325 really shows its age here. And despite all that power saving, battery life is officially just 135 hours, which is decent but hardly anything worth writing home about. On top of that, the performance simply isn't there either. Overall motion delay is upwards of 4 ms, which is a far cry from Logitech's 1 ms or SteelSeries' 2.5 ms. Corsair's wireless technology proved capable in the Dark Core RGB Pro, so I strongly suspect most of the latency comes from the sensor itself. The default 1000 Hz polling rate turned out to be highly unstable as well, which is why switching to 500 Hz is strongly recommended. Malfunction speed is barely 4 m/s, which is poor for today's standards. As a result, the sensor may spin out during fast flick movements. Lastly, the high LOD of more than two DVDs certainly limits the appeal of the Katar Pro Wireless even further.

With this many sensor-related issues, one could forget that deep down, the Katar Pro Wireless is a decent mouse. Buttons and scroll wheel are perfectly fine, the weight of 98 g is still acceptable, albeit a bit back-heavy, and I have no complaints about the mouse feet or materials. Click latency is remarkably low as well, although at the cost of slam clicks occurring right out of the box; i.e., when dropping the mouse from a bit of height, the buttons will register a click though no button was pressed. Of course, iCUE is supported for software customization, but given the barebones extent of available options, it's difficult to justify having to install this still resource-hungry behemoth of a software. It can be uninstalled after setting everything up at least because of on-board memory.

In summary, the Corsair Katar Pro Wireless fails to leave an impression in today's highly competitive market. Compared to the G305 or Rival 3 Wireless, it just seems dated and not even that great in terms of value for money. The Rival 3 Wireless only costs $10 more, but annihilates the Katar Pro Wireless in every way possible. I have a hard time recommending it even for casual gaming because its power-saving behavior can get annoying quite fast. Anybody interested in this shape is likely better off getting the regular, wired Katar Pro.