When it comes to ever lower weight on gaming mice, G-Wolves has been at the forefront for a while. Being a longer version of their classic Hati-S shape, the Hati-S Plus ACE is among the lightest wireless mice currently available, weighing no more than 46 g despite being at the upper end of small (or lower end of medium) in terms of size. Recently, manufacturers have begun to follow a novel approach when it comes to saving weight, and the Hati-S Plus ACE joins this club. Aside from two openings at the front, the upper shell is completely solid, whereas the bottom shell has several openings, exposing the PCB almost entirely. For those not fond of this design, G-Wolves has included a sticker for the bottom which can be used to cover up the holes. The PCB is designed in such a way that it helps with the structural rigidity of the shell, which in turn requires less plastic and thus weighs less. The end result is a very light mouse that is surprisingly rigid, especially compared to many of the older "cheese grater" designs that required thicker plastic to compensate for the loss in rigidity afforded by the use of holes in the shell. On my sample, the shell neither flexes nor creaks, there is no rattle, and activating the side buttons by squeezing laterally is impossible. Frankly, I'm very impressed by the engineering effort from G-Wolves, as the Hati-S Plus ACE manages to weigh even less than other mice adhering to this design approach such as the Pulsar X2/X2 Mini or LAMZU Atlantis, all while being just as solid. Furthermore, since the battery is positioned towards the rear, the weight is nicely balanced, which is particularly important for a mouse this light to begin with.

Of course, part of the equation is battery capacity as well, and this is where things get interesting. G-Wolves make no claims whatsoever in regard to battery life, but the battery life indicator within the software is accurate enough to allow gauging a ballpark number. By default, the Hati-S Plus ACE has a 75 mAh battery installed, which I estimate to result in a battery life of roughly 30 hours. Considering how small the battery is, this is actually a highly respectable number, even when taking into account that no RGB lighting or the like is present on the mouse, aside from an LED indicating the current CPI level, which quickly shuts off anyway. For those not satisfied with this level of battery life, G-Wolves includes a 170 mAh battery in the box, which promises double the battery life. Of course, installing this one requires opening the mouse, but since G-Wolves also includes no less than five sets of replacement feet, doing so is not much of a hurdle. In addition to that, charging is really fast, both relatively and absolutely due to the small capacity. The charging cable, however, is a bit stiffer than it could be, but considering how fast the charging is, this doesn't really qualify as an issue. The cable has two notches on the connector for better stabilization, which is smart design as having those notches on the connector instead of the mouse means that most third-party Micro-USB cables will fit.

As a result of the shell design, the on/off-switch on the PCB isn't readily accessible from the bottom. Hence, to be able to reach it, a tool has to be used. To this end, G-Wolves has included two differently colored plastic sticks. Basically, the idea is to simply leave the mouse on, as power draw in sleep mode will be minimal, and turn it off only occasionally. While a bit odd, I don't think this is much of an issue—in my testing, the impact of leaving the mouse on in sleep mode over night was so small that it didn't even register on the battery charge indicator in the software. Rather, my issue with this solution is that the included sticks aren't particularly well-suited for their task. A cylindrical body would've been a better choice, as it allows one to "grab" the pin of the on/off-switch instead of pushing it. Accordingly, I've ended up using a ball pen rather than the included plastic sticks.

When it comes to buttons, G-Wolves opted for different switches than most competitors. Zippy DF3-P1L1 (60 M) switches are used for the main buttons, which aren't quite as tactile as the ubiquituous Kailh GM 8.0 switches, but provide a lighter yet firm and snappy button response nonetheless, some pre-travel notwithstanding. More importantly, despite a split-button design being used, lateral button movement is minimal even when provoked, which is commendable. Low-profile switches from TTC are used for the side buttons, which have pleasantly low pre and post-travel, although the back button can be pushed into the shell past the actuation point by a decent amount. The scroll wheel is very good as well: Noise levels are elevated, but tactility is simply great, with very pronounced steps allowing for highly controlled scrolling. I have no complaints about the mouse feet, either, and since there are several replacement sets in different sizes included in the box, those not fond of the default feet have plenty of options still. A neat detail is the bottom lacking any indents where the feet are supposed to fit and being completely flat instead, which allows one to install feet of virtually any size on the Hati-S Plus ACE.

In terms of performance, the Hati-S Plus ACE does not disappoint. PixArt's latest PAW3395 sensor along with a Nordic nRF52840 MCU are used, with very good results: CPI deviation is minimal, general tracking great owing to hardware MotionSync, and polling stable throughout. Unlike on recent releases that combine the 3395 sensor with the CompX CX52850 MCU, ripple control (also known as smoothing) is not disabled by default on the Hati-S Plus ACE, resulting in increased motion delay past the 9000 CPI mark. Smoothing aside, wireless motion delay at 1600 CPI sits around 2 ms, which isn't quite on the level of Razer or Logitech, but not any worse than what the Pulsar X2/X2 Mini with MotionSync enabled are able to muster, either. When moving the mouse from a standstill, motion delay is increased by roughly 1 ms at first since the sensor requires a short time (>200 ms) to ramp up its framerate. In practice, the effect of this is entirely negligible.

Click latency is an odd case on the Hati-S Plus ACE. There are two different software versions for the Hati-S Plus ACE, an older one with a higher version number and a newer one with a lower version number. While the latter gives an error upon launch, it works just fine otherwise. The main difference between these two software versions concerns the debounce slider, which in turn affects click latency. The older version isn't supposed to be used in conjunction with the latest firmware, as when doing so, click latency will be much higher than intended. Simply manipulating the debounce time slider once with this software version suffices to gut click latency, and the only way to restore proper behavior is to open the newer software and modify the debounce time slider there. Instead of numbers, the newer software utilizes non-descriptive letters to denote its debounce time settings, with "A" designating eager debouncing for the main buttons without any defer debouncing, whereas letters past "B" add a linearly increasing defer value to prevent slam-clicking. In my testing, the "A" setting results in a click latency of just 2.3 ms in wireless operation, which is highly competitive, with the "B" setting adding 1 ms, and an additional ms for every letter past that. The bottom line is: Even though the newer software gives an error, it is the only one that should be used with the Hati-S Plus ACE.

Speaking of the software, G-Wolves employs a different approach in this regard as well. The software is a simple executable that does not require installation and can be run directly. Both RAM and CPU usage are minimal, yet all the important options are present. Effectively, this solution is quite similar to Logitech's Onboard Memory Manager, and just as pleasant to use. Frankly, I'd be really happy if every company would offer a software of this type: lightweight, light on bugs, and light on resources.

Overall, I don't have much to complain about the Hati-S Plus ACE. The only thing that could be criticized is the price, which is a tad too high compared to some competitors and G-Wolves's own Hati-S Plus 4K. That said, the ACE certainly deserves our Recommended award.

Speaking of competition, there is no shortage whatsoever. The Razer Viper V2 Pro retails for $149.99, weighs more, has similarly good buttons and optical main button switches, and better performance, which can be improved even further with the $29.99 HyperPolling Wireless Dongle, but suffers from its resource-heavy software. The Xtrfy M8 Wireless too weighs more, has comparable performance, similarly good buttons, and no need for software, for $99.00. Likewise, the Pulsar X2 Mini and LAMZU Atlantis too weigh more, have comparable performance, similarly good buttons, and the software is lightweight, for $94.95 and $89.99, respectively.