The verdict of our review of the SteelSeries Prime was rather succinct: lots of potential, but the inconsistent main buttons and above average click latency bring it down quite a bit. By and large, this still applies to the Prime Mini, along with newly introduced issues.

First off, the shape. When taking a shape and adjusting its size, there are two possible approaches: Either sizing certain parts up or down, effectively creating a new shape, or doing so uniformly. Which of the two is the better one depends on how well the basic shape translates into a different size as certain design aspects may no longer work as well. For the Prime Mini, SteelSeries decided to simply scale down the original Prime uniformly. Accordingly, the Prime Mini does feel significantly smaller in hand than the Prime, and those who found the size of the original just right may struggle with the Prime Mini, as is the case for me. However, this is no criticism as more choice is always welcome, and those with smaller hands no doubt will appreciate the smaller size of the Prime Mini.

Aside from the smaller size, the Prime Mini also comes with better feet than the original Prime, which is appreciated, and it now uses the same cable used as the charging and extension cable for the Prime Wireless and Prime Mini Wireless. In terms of flexibility, this one is no different from the original, but loses both the Micro-USB and triangular connector, which are most welcome changes. By doing so, one is now finally free to use any USB Type-A to Type-C cable on the Prime Mini in case the included one isn't deemed flexible enough.

When it comes to the buttons, one still faces the same situation as on the other Prime series mice. Not only are the buttons inconsistent between left and right, they are also inconsistent between each unit, so getting a copy that feels decent comes down to a gamble. On my copy, the left button in particular suffers from significant pre-travel, while the right one has noticeable post-travel. Furthermore, feedback is totally different between the two since the left one feels much sharper than the right one, which is dull and muted. Truthfully, the subpar button response would be less of an issue if the latency were on point, but that is not the case as no improvements have been made compared to the Prime and Prime+, resulting in click latency that is well behind the standard set by Razer in particular. While the side buttons were a strong suit of the regular Prime, it is the opposite on the Prime Mini. Pre and post-travel are still minimal, but for whatever reason, the side buttons sound incredibly hollow and, quite frankly, cheap. The scroll wheel, at least, is still good, providing nice tactility, albeit in conjunction with high noise levels when scrolling reasonably fast.

The Prime Mini still comes with the trusty PixArt PMW3389, and overall performance is largely as expected with one exception: Across all polling rates, periodic outliers are present irrespective of RGB lighting effects or any other settings. Given the firmware is no different from the regular Prime, which didn't suffer from this issue, this seemed quite curious at first, but taking a look inside the mouse served to solve this riddle rather quickly. Whereas the Prime and Prime+ came with an MCU from STM, the Prime Mini utilizes a model from Holtek. Over the years, I've made the observation that Holtek MCUs often struggle with stable polling, so it comes as no surprise that this is the case on the Prime Mini, too. Using a Holtek MCU is an obvious downgrade, and frankly, I'm astounded by this cost-saving measure. Chip shortages no doubt are a thing, but the Prime Mini sells at the same $59.99 as the regular Prime, so I'd at least expect an equivalent MCU to be used instead of a budget model.

While using SteelSeries GG proved to be a pleasantly bug-free experience, I still have to wonder why SteelSeries Engine no longer is offered separately. For anyone simply wanting to adjust their peripheral, GG provides no benefit whatsoever, and instead uses plenty of additional resources for no good reason. And once again, I'm wondering why native sensor-level functions such as LOD adjustment aren't available in the software. With the Prime, one could at least point towards the Prime+, which had LOD adjustment as its USP, but there is no Prime+ Mini, so this argument holds even less than it did before. Granted, LOD is low enough by default, but there is simply no reason not to have this option when it's native to the sensor.

Overall, the Prime Mini once again fails to be a compelling offering. The build quality and lightweight, yet hole-free construction certainly are strong suits, and there aren't that many smaller right-handed ergonomic mice, but aside from that, the Prime Mini doesn't have much going for it, and even falls behind the regular Prime.