The influence Zowie has had on the gaming mouse market can hardly be overstated. Both their shapes as well as their plug-and-play, no software approach have left a lasting impact. Accordingly, the Ducky Feather is one of the many mice standing on the shoulders of Zowie, though not without adding its own flair.

First of all, the shape is pretty much exactly that of the Zowie FK2. But whereas Zowie has done away with the side buttons on their most recent FK-B series, the Feather still is fully symmetrical; i.e., with side buttons on both sides. What's more, the button orientation can conveniently be swapped through a series of button combinations, and if needed, the side-button PCBs themselves can be swapped or flipped to make the buttons protrude less, too. In general, Ducky has realized a near-unprecedented level of on-device customizability on the Feather: polling rate, lift-off distance, CPI, button orientation, shift functionality, RGB configuration—the only thing missing may be click latency. Unlike on the FK2-B, the Feather also comes with buttons visually separated from the shell, which has the clicks feel more uniform across the entirety of the buttons. General button quality is pretty good, with the side buttons providing a distinct and snappy click feel. The same goes for the main buttons, although they're not quite as firm as I'd want them to be, and the scroll wheel feels a bit "cheap," for lack of a better term. The improvements over the FK2-B don't stop there: The paracord-like, braided cable is significantly more flexible than Zowie's—or VAXEE's, for that matter—although not quite as good as the very best, such as the Endgame Gear XM1r. As the name suggests, the Feather also weighs in at an appreciably low weight of 67 g, which is less than the VAXEE NP-01 or NP-01S, Razer Viper 8K, or the already mentioned XM1r, and realized by resorting to just a few holes, all while still featuring fairly rich and highly customizable RGB lighting. Much like the XM1r, the Feather allows for installing either smaller or bigger Zowie-like mouse feet; a set of each is also included in the box.

In short, the Feather improves on the FK2-B in almost every aspect—almost. For this review, I've tested the black and white variant of the Ducky Feather, which differs from the original Feather in two main respects, namely the colorway and there being three different main button switch variants to choose from: Kailh GM 8.0 (80 M), Omron D2FC-F-K (60 M), and Huano Blue (50 M), the latter of which are installed on my sample. While the buttons themselves are fine, click latency is merely average, stopping just short of 10 ms. The curious thing here is that someone else I trust on these matters has gotten results roughly 5 ms lower than that. Frankly, I don't have an explanation for this discrepancy, though I am confident in my own numbers, which I've verified through several means of testing. Another oddity pertains to tracking performance. The black and white Feather uses the same PMW3389 and same MCU as the original Feather, and in general, sensor performance is just fine. CPI deviation in particular is a strong point and absent altogether on the Feather. However, tracking is rather messy, and polling not entirely stable. Again, given the equivalence to the original Feather in all aspects relevant to this, this shouldn't be a thing, but even when flashing the firmware of the original Feather, the issues persist. In-game, the impact is barely noticeable, but ideally, performance should be no worse than on the Feather. While I don't consider this too great of an issue, it's something to keep in mind when deciding between the original Feather and the black and white variant with Huano switches—personally, I'd opt for the former.

All in all, I consider the black and white Ducky Feather a straight upgrade over the FK2-B and a great mouse on its own, worthy of our Recommendation award. Curiously, and for whatever reason, the FK2 hasn't been copied anywhere near as often as the EC2 or S2, so the Feather is pretty much the only lightweight FK2 available anyway. Looking at the competition, the Feather does pretty well. The Endgame Gear XM1r has a different, more hump-heavy shape, but comes with excellent performance, very low click latency, great buttons, low weight, a flexible cable, and basic on-device configurability, for $59.99. The VAXEE ZYGEN NP-01S too has excellent performance, low click latency and weight, along with extensive on-device configurability, but a slightly stiffer cable and poor scroll wheel, for $59.99. The Razer Viper 8K has outstanding sensor performance, very low click latency owing to optical switches, low weight without holes, and 8000 Hz polling, but a somewhat stiff cable, for $79.99. The HyperX Pulsefire Haste is another ambidextrous option, with great sensor performance, high quality buttons, an incredibly flexible cable, and low weight, but ridiculous CPI deviation, for $49.99. Lastly, the Glorious Model O is more FK1-sized and comes with great performance, low weight, and a flexible cable, for $49.99.