Buttons, Scroll Wheel

Buttons on the Pulsefire Core are pretty impressive. These easily outperform some way more expensive mice. The main ones have a medium click tension, no unnecessary travel, and feel snappy and tactile. Switches here are TTC silver models rated for 20 million clicks. It's an interesting switch choice I've never seen or tried before, and they are not bad at all.


Scrolling is light on this mouse, and unfortunately not very tactile. The steps are not well defined, which will make it better for long scrolls than precise motions. The encoder is a 10 mm tall gray core TTC.


All the remaining buttons use exactly the same-looking switch, which has a white base, black top, and white plunger. It has a branding I'm not familiar with—it reads KCNHB if I'm right, but I didn't find any data on it online. The middle click is light and spammable, which is a great feature if you use this button a lot and hard switches tire your fingers quickly.


Both side buttons have a moderately high tension, although not uncomfortably so. They are low profile and don't have any unnecessary travel either.


The same as for the side buttons goes for the CPI switches—they do the job perfectly fine and are not hard to actuate even though sunk rather low to eliminate accidental clicks.

I also made a video in order to demonstrate how the buttons sound:

Mouse Feet

Mouse feet are just like on the HyperX Pulsefire Surge (and Pulsefire FPS Pro), which means they are extremely mediocre. They feel smooth, but their friction is a bit worse than average. Their contact points aren't rounded down enough, either. With no replacements in the box, you have to go for aftermarket models once these wear out, which I'd advise you do anyways. After finishing the technical part of the review, I simply stuck six small MX-2 style feet into the corners of the slots, and the mouse feels a million times better this way.

Cable

Moving on to the cable, it's surprisingly good on the Pulsefire Core. It's relatively thin, light, and flexible, which is great news. It doesn't generate a lot of resistance or drag on the mouse pad and is easy to affix with a bit of tape or a bungee. I wish more mice would come with such a user-friendly cable! It is 1.8 m long, which should be more than enough for most people.

Disassembling

Disassembling the Core isn't hard. You only have to remove four standard Philips-head screws beneath the mouse feet and can do so by simply poking through them with a pointy screwdriver (I had to search for their exact locations first, which is why my feet are all wrinkled up). There is an internal cable inside that holds the mainboard and upper PCB together, so be careful not to break it, or you'll lose the connectivity to the side and CPI buttons.