Redragon M991 Enlightenment Gaming Mouse Review 8

Redragon M991 Enlightenment Gaming Mouse Review

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Value and Conclusion

  • The Redragon M991 Enlightenment is available for $54.99.
  • Good sensor performance
  • Decent buttons
  • Good scroll wheel
  • Decent choice of components
  • Grippy materials
  • Full software customizability
  • Rich RGB lighting
  • Heavy
  • Motion delay
  • Very high click latency
  • Polling rates below 1000 Hz unstable in wireless mode
  • No wireless extender
  • Stiff charging cable
  • Charging is rather slow
  • Sleep mode not working properly
  • Sensor is off-center
Logitech's G502 is still the best-selling mouse on the market, which is why it comes as no surprise that Redragon released their own take on it with the M991 Enlightenment. Compared to earlier Redragon wireless mice, the M991 Enlightenment comes with PixArt's PAW3370 sensor, which is a decent upgrade. CPI deviation in particular, which plagued previous releases equipped with the PAW3335, is now much improved. Unfortunately, everything else has stayed pretty much the same. The M991 Enlightenment is still using the same outdated MCU, which is why performance is largely underwhelming. Even in wired mode a base motion delay of 1 ms is present across the board. In wireless mode, an additional wireless delay of 1.5–2 ms is added on top, amounting to a total delay of 2.5–3 ms, which isn't terrible but not particularly good, either. Furthermore, all polling rates save for 1000 Hz suffer from major instability in wireless mode. Click latency hasn't changed, either, sitting at a measured 13.5 ms, which is simply too high for today's standards and cannot be changed. The same goes for lift-off distance, which is notable given the 3370 is natively capable of LOD adjustment. Lastly, the M991 Enlightenment lacks a wireless extender. While this isn't uncommon for wireless mice at the $50 range, it does mean one shouldn't plug the wireless dongle into a USB 3.x port, as wireless interference may otherwise be encountered.

Speaking of wireless, the M991 Enlightenment doesn't do that well in this regard either. Battery life is said to be around 45 hours with illumination. Much to my own surprise, actual battery life appears to exceed that value as one can rather expect around 50 hours even with full illumination, no doubt owing to the massive 1000 mAh battery. While the large battery capacity is commendable, the slow charging is not. At 0.230 A, the M991 Enlightenment doesn't even make use of half of what specifications would allow, thus making charging a rather lengthy endeavor. Furthermore, the charging cable is supremely stiff, so charging while playing will be a less than pleasing experience. I've also noticed that sleep mode does not appear to be working correctly. Even after five minutes of sitting idle, the mouse did not enter any kind of sleep mode that would disable illumination, so whenever the mouse isn't used for a short time, one would have to shut it off manually.

The 1000 mAh of course comes with a downside, which is the weight. At 122 g, the M991 Enlightenment isn't exactly light, and Redragon didn't pay any particular attention to keeping the design efficient. The top shell in particular uses lots of excessive plastic. Granted, aside from a rattle coming from an indeterminable location, the mouse does feel solid, but achieving that would've still been possible while keeping the weight manageable at least. Another curious design choice is the sensor position, which is shifted to the right horizontally. From a design perspective, there is absolutely no reason for doing that, and it'll take a decent bit of getting used to for people used to a centered sensor, which is by far the most common.

Of course, it's not all bad. The main buttons suffer from above average pre and post-travel, but otherwise provide a pleasant and firm button response. The side buttons are similar, though the pre-travel on the back side button in particular is irritating, and the actuation point is far from even. All the other buttons are fine, and even an additional button next to the left mouse button found its way onto the M991 Enlightenment, which was entirely missing on the Glorious Model I, for instance. The scroll wheel is decent: noise levels are under control, but the scrolling lacks tactility and is a bit too light for my taste. The mouse feet glide decently well, but they are quite thin and thus will wear down quickly, and a set of replacement feet is not included. The best part of the M991 Enlightenment is easily the software. Save for LOD adjustment, it has all the important options, and resource usage is pleasantly low. That said, on a mouse this heavy on RGB lighting, some additional lighting effects would've been nice.

Overall, the M991 Enlightenment simply has too many issues to be worth a recommendation. $46.99 in Redragon's own shop a the time of writing ($54.99 regularly) is a good price for a wireless mouse equipped with a 3370, but other than that, the quality simply isn't quite there.
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Oct 20th, 2024 21:08 EDT change timezone

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