Build Quality

Overall build quality is very solid. There is no rattle when shaking the mouse. When applying lateral pressure, no creaking or flexing of the shell can be observed. Activating the side buttons by squeezing the sides is impossible. Lastly, there are no accidental clicks when slamming down the mouse.

Buttons

Main buttons on the Katana are very good. Both pre and post-travel are low, resulting in a firm and snappy button response. When pressed in a specific spot, the right button on my samples squeaks. Despite being visually separated from the shell, lateral button movement is minimal. Button stiffness is medium. A pair of Kailh GM 8.0 (80 M) switches is used.


Side buttons are good to very good. Both the forward and back button have a decent amount of pre and post-travel, but more so on the forward button. Click feel is firm and pleasing. 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. I'm unfamiliar with the manufacturer of these switches.

At the bottom of the mouse are two buttons for cycling through the set CPI levels and possible polling rate settings, both of which work just fine. Two tactile switches are used.

Scroll Wheel

The scroll wheel is very good. Scrolling up and down is noisy, but tactility is on point, providing nicely separated steps and fairly light yet controlled scrolling. The encoder comes from TTC (yellow core) and has a height of 13 mm. The middle (scroll wheel) click requires medium to high force for actuation. A seemingly unbranded tactile switch (purple plunger) is used for this one.

Surface

The Katana has a smooth matte surface all over. Grip is fine, and it doesn't attract fingerprints, dirt, or the likes too much. It is easy to clean, and there are no signs of wear left after doing so. All in all, excellent materials.

Button Sound Test

Disassembly

Disassembling the Katana is easy. The screws are located beneath the two skates at the front and back, the former of which is two-layered. Once those are taken care of, top and bottom shell can be separated with ease. The internal design is equally simple. Everything sits on a single PCB, which is both thin and littered with holes to save even more weight. Some of these are a little too close for comfort to traces, however. The side buttons are mounted directly onto the PCB and actuated by the stems of the buttons themselves pressing down. Three screws in total are used to affix the PCB to the bottom shell. The MCU is a Holtek HT32F50343, whose datasheet can be found here.


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