At first glance, one could think the Nightsabre Wireless is simply a non-ergonomic Darkstar Wireless, and while this isn't entirely wrong, it's not entirely right, either. Most notably, the Nightsabre Wireless has four buttons fewer, namely the extra ones arranged around the thumb area, whereas the extra buttons on the top and next to left main button, along with the tilt scroll wheel, are all on board. This button layout makes the Nightsabre Wireless not as good of a fit for MMOs, and instead nudges it towards FPS games, where the competition coming from other manufacturers is much fiercer.

Among the most notable traits of the Nightsabre Wireless is its shape. Even after looking high and low through my entire mouse review catalogue, I had a hard time finding anything even remotely similar. Essentially, the shape flows in two opposite directions on the Nightsabre Wireless: At the bottom level, it starts out narrow at the front and widens towards the rear, whereas at the top level, it starts out narrow at the back and widens towards the front. As a result, the Nightsabre Wireless doesn't have much palm support in the back but plenty of room for the fingers on the main buttons, and the grip area around the middle is fairly narrow for a mouse as long as the Nightsabre Wireless. While shapes are always a subjective matter, I believe part of the reason this design hasn't really been done elsewhere is the fact that ergonomically, it's not particularly comfortable or agreeable.

Much like on the Darkstar Wireless, the main buttons are outfitted with optical switches from TTC. Button response is fairly firm and snappy, though at the same time, a certain degree of dullness cannot be denied, and the above average pre-travel only adds to that sensation. The main benefit of optical switches is their inability to ever develop double-clicking due to wear and tear, which is particularly relevant due to the way Corsair does debouncing on their mice. By default, no debouncing is performed, which nets the lowest possible click latency, though it would introduce eventual double-clicking on regular mechanical switches, along with slam-clicking, which describes buttons being actuated accidentally when "slamming" (or gently repositioning) the mouse on the pad. Enabling debouncing gets rid of the slam-clicking, but does increase click latency considerably in the process. Accordingly, having optical switches is definitely worthwhile on the Nightsabre Wireless, as one gets low click latency without any double-clicking.

The two extra buttons next to the left main button too are done similarly to the Darkstar Wireless, as the same 2-pin low-profile switches from Kailh are used, and once again significant pre-travel and uneven actuation can be noticed, though this may be by design to lessen the odds of these being hit by accident during play. For the side buttons, surface-mounted switches form Omron are used, which are a bit too small for buttons this large, and therefore suffer from uneven actuation along with post-travel, especially on the back button. In addition, with how close these buttons are next to each other, when trying to actuate just one of them, one may end up hitting both. The scroll wheel utilizes the same encoder from TTC and nearly the same design as the Darkstar Wireless, with very good results. Noise levels are under control, scrolling is nice and tactile, and when tilting the wheel to the left or right, I never found myself actuating the middle (scroll wheel) click by accident. Another similarity with the Darkstar Wireless are the feet, which are made of a thin layer consisting of pure PTFE, along with a black backing for better sticking of the adhesive. While these are relatively thin, the edges are nicely rounded, and glide is accordingly very good.

At 96 g, the Nightsabre Wireless also weighs essentially the same as the Darkstar Wireless, and doesn't compare too badly to similar mice such as the ROCCAT Kone XP Air. That said, build quality on my sample at least isn't on the same level as on the Darkstar Wireless. Once again, there is a rattle when shaking, though this time around, I've at least been able to find out what is causing it: Under the main PCB, I've found a loose screw lying around, and there is no empty screw socket around for this one to fit into, so it is more of a spare tire. In any case, it is entirely possible that this is just a one-off occurrence, but on a $169.99 mouse, I'd expect the manufacturing process to be a bit more rigorous. In addition, even though there is no creaking when applying lateral force, the left side does flex in relatively easy, although activating the side buttons by pressing below them isn't possible at least.

The Nightsabre Wireless also comes with the same battery used on the Darkstar Wireless, which has a capacity of 560 mAh. Accordingly, battery life is virtually the same, at 65 hours in 2.4 GHz wireless operation and 100 hours using Bluetooth, and the charging speed is very similar, at just short of 0.5 A. Whether these numbers are accurate is another matter of course, and since iCUE provides nothing more than descriptions such as "High" instead of percentage-based battery readings, gauging anything is simply impossible. This lack of utility aside, working with iCUE is a much more pleasant experience these days, as the number of background processes as well as installed driver packages has gone down significantly. Unfortunately, the charging cable is also the same as on the Darkstar Wireless, and its incredible stiffness makes charging while playing almost impossible due to how much mouse movement is restricted by it. On an MMO mouse such as the Darkstar Wireless, which is barely moved anyway, I have an easier time forgiving this, but on an FPS mouse such as the Nightsabre Wireless, the stiff charging cable is a real nuisance. The same can be said about the wireless extender, or rather the lack thereof. As is the case with every other Corsair wireless mouse, for whatever reason, a wireless extender is not found in the box. This is relevant in that without an extender, one would have to plug the dongle directly into the USB port and if that port is a USB 3.x one, the noise generated by this type of port may adversely affect wireless operation. Hence, to avoid this, one can either plug the dongle into a USB 2.0, provided such a port is still present on one's mainboard, or buy a third-party extender or hub, and having to do this is simply ridiculous on a $169.99 mouse.

Even without an extender, performance is more than serviceable on the Nightsabre Wireless. CPI deviation is higher than on the Darkstar Wireless, but general tracking is fine, and polling stable throughout. Wireless motion delay sits at around 1.5 ms, and without debouncing, a click latency of 1.4 ms is averaged, and 5.7 ms with debouncing. That said, and much like on previous Corsair wireless mice, the 2000 Hz polling isn't real. Instead, each data packet is simply sent twice, which suffices to fake readings, but provides zero value over 1000 Hz operation, which the 2000 Hz operation practically is after all. Despite all the similarities to the Darkstar Wireless, the six-axis gyro and accelerometer of the latter isn't found on the Nightsabre Wireless. While I don't consider the omission of gesture control an actual loss, the added granularity for lift-off distance may have been more useful to have on an FPS mouse such as the Nightsabre Wireless. Either way, I find it curious that despite the slimmer feature set, the Nightsabre Wireless costs the same $169.99 as the Darkstar Wireless.

Given all the similarities to the Darkstar Wireless, it would be silly to declare the Nightsabre Wireless a bad mouse. Still, it does a lot of things a little worse than the Darkstar Wireless, and more importantly, the Nightsabre Wireless is a less unique offer than the Darkstar Wireless. There are plenty of ambidextrous wireless FPS mice out there, and many of them have more ergonomically sound shapes, and can easily match or beat the performance of the Nightsabre Wireless, though admittedly, finding one with its specific button layout may be more difficult. And above all, these mice typically don't retail for $169.99, which simply is too high of an asking price for a mouse that mostly lacks distinctive qualities. As such, the Nightsabre Wireless misses our Recommended award.