Software

The Helios XD3 V2 comes with its own lightweight software. All options are accessible through four different tabs. The first page allows for button remapping to mouse, keyboard, media, and macro functions, along with the ability to adjust debounce time, which effectively controls click latency at a range of 0 to 30 ms in increments of 1. Profile management is present as well. The second page houses CPI adjustment settings for up to six color-coded levels, ranging from 50 to 19,000 CPI in increments of 50 up to 10,000 CPI and increments of 100 at and above 10,100 CPI. Values can be put in directly by double-clicking the value instead of using the slider. Any non-native values are truncated to native ones. Also included are the usual Windows pointer settings, along with polling rate (125/250/500/1000 Hz), LOD (1/2 mm), and angle snapping (on/off) adjustment options. "Ripple Control" is disabled by default, but can be enabled to apply smoothing, which lessens jitter at higher CPI steps at the cost of increased motion delay. A macro editor can be found on the third page. The fourth page contains lighting settings and is detailed below. The lighting page also includes power-saving options: One can define after how much idle time the lighting is turned off along with the option to disable illumination upon moving the mouse.

All settings changes are saved to the on-board memory, so the software does not need to be running (or be installed) all the time. On my system, the software had a RAM footprint of 24 MB on average when running in the foreground, which doesn't change when minimized to the system tray. Upon exiting the application, all processes are terminated, as they should be.

Lighting

The Helios XD3 V2 has two physical lighting zones, which are the scroll wheel and LED strip looping around the back. The scroll wheel will display the color associated with the currently set CPI step, either in combination with a Steady or Breathing lighting effect, and can be turned off as well. For the LED strip, six pre-defined lighting effects are available: Breathing, Streaming, Neon, Scrolling, and Colorful Breathing. Colors, transition speed, and brightness can be further customized. Of course, the lighting can also be disabled altogether.

Color accuracy and vibrancy are very good throughout. Here's a short demonstration video in which I go through the Streaming, Neon, and Colorful Breathing lighting effects:

Battery Life

Fantech states a maximum battery life of up to 70 hours. No details are given under which conditions this figure applies, but I consider it likely it refers to no illumination at a polling rate of 1000 Hz. While the software does include a percentage-based battery life indicator, it is far from reliable and thus makes gauging anything impossible. For the record, after 10 hours of continuous use, the indicator stood at 100% still.

After exactly one minute of inactivity, the mouse enters a sleep state, which shuts the lighting off as well.

Using the included USB Type-A to Type-C charging cable, I measured the charging speed during the constant current stage, which sits at around 0.397 A excluding the additional current expended for the charging light flashing. The battery has a capacity of 720 mAh.