The ME1 is the largest, but also lightest out of the three currently available Dark Project mice. It's a right-handed ergonomic model with side buttons on the left side only. Its shell is rather robust and very much represents the Zowie EC-series. The surface coating on this mouse is fantastic; it's grippy and feels very pleasant to the touch, which is of course rather intuitive.

Build quality isn't the ME1's strong suit, but a lot better than with the ME3, for instance. There's some play on the right main button, and one of my mouse skates was misaligned a little bit. Apart from these faults, the mouse is solidly put together. The ME1 is one of the lightest mice for its size I've ever reviewed. Weighing only 82 grams with a few centimeters of cable, it feels really light in the hands. I'd call this a great feature, and thankfully, lightweight mice are becoming a fad among manufacturers. Once again, this aspect is mostly a matter of personal preference, but the general rule of thumb is that you put less strain on your joints with a lighter mouse.

Buttons could use tweaking as there is lots of room for improvement here. While the ME2 had ridiculously good clickers, the ME1 is not that great in that regard. The main buttons are quite stiff, but should generally be alright. However, the right button on my copy was loose. The scroll wheel is very tight and stiff, and the same can be said for the button beneath it. Side buttons are generally alright, and the CPI-changer is pretty good as well, both in terms of click tension and tactility.

Moving on to the eye, the ME1 operates with a PixArt PMW3360 top optical sensor. Unfortunately, my copy has some very unhealthy issues going on, but after consulting with other reviewers, my unit is clearly faulty. This sample suffers from very high CPI divergence and polling rate instability. Apart from these errors, the mouse easily passed my other tests with stellar results. What should be noted is that there is a small amount of smoothing on and above 2,100 CPI, so it's best to stay under this resolution if aiming for maximum performance.

Just like the other two mice from the manufacturer, the ME1 has a ridiculously stiff, thick, and heavy cable that generates a ton of drag resistance. This is really unfortunate, and given how light the mouse is, it can seriously impede your motions. Mouse feet are nothing special, but they do their job well. There are also two sets of replacement feet in the box, which is a nice touch.

As far as the software goes, it has the potential to be really good. It's fast, lightweight, and works well, but the problem for non-Russian speakers is that it's only available in Russian so far. RGB lighting is present; the rear Dark Project logo lights up according to your settings. It has three effects and a relatively dim maximum brightness.

In my opinion, pricing is rather aggressive on this model for what it delivers. With these specifications (and possible firmware-level errors), I would rather go for something similar in both size and shape. However, if you can acquire the ME1 without any errors for cheap, you might have found yourself the ideal mouse.