Build Quality

Overall build quality is very solid. There is no rattle when shaking the mouse. When applying lateral pressure, no creaking of the shell can be observed. It is impossible to activate the side buttons by squeezing the sides with any amount of force. Lastly, no accidental clicks occur when slamming the mouse down.

Buttons

Main buttons on the M686 Vampire Elite are very good. Pre-travel is very low and post-travel low, resulting in a snappy and satisfying click response. Click feel is a bit dull, however. Button stiffness is light. Huano switches (blue shell, white plunger) are used for these.


Side buttons are good. Pre and post-travel are decently low, but the back button in particular suffers from an uneven actuation point and an overall flimsy feel. Button size and placement are good as actuation is possible rather easily by rolling one's thumb over these. Additionally, the middle side button is patterned, which makes it easier to distinguish from the other two by feel. CF switches (red plunger) are used here.

At the top of the mouse are two buttons for cycling up and down through the set CPI levels. Their click feel is decent. Two Huano switches (red plunger) are used here. At the bottom of the mouse, a slider for choosing between the On, Off, and "Eco Mode" states can be found, which works as expected. Additionally, a "mode switch" button can be found as well, whose function is a bit of a mystery. Keeping it pressed for a bit longer appears to switch from user-defined to default settings, while pressing it normally switches between random CPI levels. Redragon's documentation doesn't mention this button at all, so it looks to be a bit of a mystery to them as well.

Scroll Wheel

The scroll wheel is very good. Scrolling up is a bit noisy, but scrolling down is quiet. Tactility is pretty good though, with well-separated steps. The Encoder comes from F-Switch. The middle scroll wheel click requires little to medium force for actuation. The switch is from a manufacturer I'm not familiar with (it reads "BO, something stylized, UE").

Coating

The M686 Vampire Elite has various coatings. The sides are smooth ABS plastic, with all-plastic riffle-pattern grip areas on both sides. The top has a matte UV coating, which is very grippy and doesn't attract fingerprints, dirt, or the likes too much. It's easy to clean, and there are barely any signs of wear left after doing so. All in all, a very good coating.

Button Sound Test

Disassembly

Disassembling the M686 Vampire Elite can be a bit finicky. First, remove all the mouse feet and screws. On the right side you'll see a little hook keeping bottom and top shell together. Releasing this hook can be a bit tricky—basically, you need to pull or push laterally. The internals are pretty simple, though. The side and top CPI buttons sit on their own PCB, screwed into the top shell and connected to the main PCB with a 6-pin JST connector. The main PCB is built around the battery and mostly holds all the LEDs. The sensor has been angled by 90° for space restrictions. Irritatingly, the PCB isn't screwed to the bottom shell at all, likely due to space restrictions as well. While the side-button PCB is rather thick, the main PCB is on the thinner side of things. Curiously, the main PCB was produced on the 11th May of 2019, whereas the side-button PCB was made in the 45th week of 2019. The MCU is a Compx CX52810, for which I haven't been able to find a datasheet.


As for the soldering and general quality of the PCB, I'm unable to find any noteworthy flaws. There's some unidentifiable yellow gunk smeared around several solder joints, though.