Around 1.5 years ago, SteelSeries released the Aerox 3 Wireless. Conceptually and in terms of internals, the Aerox 5 Wireless is a very similar mouse, just with a different shell. Unfortunately, the Aerox 5 Wireless also inherits many of the issues of the Aerox 3 Wireless, along with some of its own.

On the Aerox 3 Wireless, SteelSeries used a small battery with a capacity of just 250 mAh in order to keep the weight low. At the same time, full RGB lighting was present, although by default, several power-saving features were active, which were supposed to keep battery life in check by dimming or disabling the RGB lighting when moving the mouse. Since a mouse tends to be moved most of the time, the RGB lighting was inactive for the most part, defeating its own purpose. This, of course, begged the question: Why add RGB lighting in the first place when it necessitates using a smaller battery if the weight is supposed to stay in the same, which in turn renders fully enabling the RGB lighting a non-option given how poor battery life then becomes? Yet, for whatever reason, the Aerox 5 Wireless employs exactly the same concept. Once again, a small battery is used, and once again, the mouse doesn't even make it past the 10 hours battery life mark when using full RGB lighting. SteelSeries advertises a battery life of up to 180 hours, but this only applies when turning off all illumination and using the mouse exclusively in Bluetooth. At the same time, nobody buys a $140 mouse only to use it as an office mouse. Accordingly, much like the Aerox 3 Wireless, the Aerox 5 Wireless is conceptually flawed on a fundamental level. While I didn't test it, I wouldn't expect the Aerox 5 Wireless to last more than 50 hours at most even with all the RGB lighting turned off entirely. On the bright side, charging at least is reasonably fast, and owing to the flexible charging cable, playing while charging is perfectly possible.

As with all recent SteelSeries releases, the Aerox 5 Wireless utilizes the TrueMove Air sensor, which is a customized PixArt PAW3335. These days, this sensor is somewhat showing its age. CPI deviation in particular is yet again a major issue. Nominal and actual CPI differ wildly, and due to the 3335 only allowing CPI adjustment in increments of 100, and CPI adjustment not being linear, getting accurate values for commons steps such as 400 or 800 CPI is impossible altogether. I can't help but wonder why SteelSeries keeps using this sensor despite the more recent 3370 having been widely adapted by the competition for well over a year now. On a $50 mouse, this wouldn't be much of an issue, but on a $140 flagship, I expect more than three-year-old technology. Aside from the CPI deviation, performance is good, however: Owing at least partially to the included extender, wireless motion delay still is just 1 ms, general tracking fine, and polling stable, although with one exception: At 1000 Hz in 2.4 GHz mode, periodic outliers can be observed. These weren't present on the Aerox 3 Wireless, Prime Wireless, or Prime Mini Wireless, so them showing up on the Aerox 5 Wireless is very curious. When it comes to click latency, the Aerox 5 Wireless performs very similarly to the wired Aerox 5: At 6.8 ms in wired mode, latency is neither particularly low nor high, though compared to what the competition is able to muster these days, the Aerox 5 Wireless falls a bit behind.

While the small battery is bad for battery life, the weight certainly benefits greatly. At 73 g, the Aerox 5 Wireless weighs only 7 g more than the wired Aerox 5, which is entirely due to the battery. Remarkably, the Aerox 5 Wireless weighs only 2 g more than the Glorious Model I despite being wireless, larger, and having more buttons. Furthermore, build quality is virtually flawless on my copy: Minimal creaking, no flexing, no rattle, and the side buttons cannot be actuated by squeezing the sides. Much like the Aerox 5, the Aerox 5 Wireless also has great buttons: TTC Gold switches are used for the main buttons, which provide light yet snappy and firm actuation, while the side buttons impress with their minimal pre and post-travel, along with their even actuation. The rocker too works fine, but as it is quite stiff, one may end up lifting the mouse unintentionally when pressing it. The scroll wheel is the same as on the wired Aerox 5: tactile and controlled scrolling, but rather noisy, especially when scrolling up. The feet too are the same, which is welcome as glide is excellent.

The real problem with the Aerox 5 Wireless, however, is the price. At $140, the Aerox 5 Wireless costs a whopping $60 more than the already overpriced Aerox 5. For $140, I simply expect more than a mouse that is just decent. It's also beyond me why the Aerox 5 Wireless costs $40 more than the Aerox 3 Wireless, which essentially is the same mouse, just with a different shell. The pricing could be rationalized to some degree at least if the Aerox 5 Wireless would introduce a new sensor or some other unique selling point, but instead, a dated sensor and poor battery life are served. Even if all firmware issues were fixed, the Aerox 5 Wireless fails to be competitive based on pricing alone.