Build Quality

Overall build quality is solid. There is no rattle when shaking the mouse. When applying lateral pressure, some creaking but no flexing of the shell can be observed. In addition, when pressing a certain spot, a slight pop becomes audible. Interestingly, none of these issues continued to show up after disassembly. Activating the side buttons by squeezing the sides is impossible. Lastly, accidental clicks do not occur when slamming down the mouse regardless of the set debounce time.

Buttons

Main buttons on the Thorn are very good. Pre-travel is low to moderate, while post-travel is low on the right and moderate on the left button, resulting in a firm and fairly snappy button response, with rather different feedback between left and right. While the buttons are visually separated from the shell, lateral button movement is minimal even when provoked. Button stiffness is medium to low. A pair of RAESHA optical switches (90 M, orange plunger) are used for these.


Side buttons are very good. Pre-travel is low and post-travel moderate, resulting in a snappy and pleasing button response. The pressure point is even across the entirety of these. Button size and placement are good, as actuation is possible rather easily by rolling one's thumb across. A set of Huano switches (white plunger) are used here.

At the bottom of the mouse is a single button for cycling through the set CPI steps, which is rather stiff but works fine. A seemingly unbranded tactile switch is used for this one. In addition, a simple on/off-switch is present, which works fine.

Scroll Wheel

The scroll wheel is very good. Noise levels are fairly high, but tactility is very good, providing well-separated steps and controlled scrolling. The encoder comes from TTC (white or "Silver") and has a height of 13 mm. The middle (scroll wheel) click requires medium to high force for actuation. Another switch from Huano (red plunger) is used for this one.

Surface

The Thorn has a smooth matte surface all over. Grip is fine, but it does attract fingerprints or dirt quite a bit. It is fairly easy to clean, and there are barely any signs of wear left after doing so. All in all, good materials.

Button Sound Test

Disassembly

Disassembling the Thorn is fairly easy. The screws are located beneath the front and rear skates. The sides are additionally locked in with clips, which can be tricky to dislodge. As always, wedging a credit card or something similar in between can help, though the rear clip in particular may resist even such advances. Do make sure not to rip any cables when separating the top from the bottom shell.

The design is mostly straightforward. The side buttons sit on their own PCB screwed into the top shell connected through a ribbon cable to the main PCB. The battery is glued to an extension of the PCB at the rear. Everything else sits on the main PCB, which is very thin and has multiple cutouts to save weight, being affixed to the bottom with four screws, plus an additional one below the battery. The MCU is a Nordic nRF52840, whose datasheet is found here. The Bluetooth capability of the chip remains unused.


As for the soldering and general quality of the PCB, I'm unable to find any noteworthy flaws.