Build Quality

Overall build quality is mostly solid. When shaking the mouse, two distinct yet minor rattles emerge from both the scroll wheel and main buttons. When applying lateral pressure, no creaking of the shell can be observed, but the left side in particular flexes inward to a significant degree, to where the side buttons essentially contract. Activating the side buttons by squeezing the sides, however, is impossible. Lastly, accidental clicks when slamming down the mouse do not occur.

Buttons

Main buttons on the Burst II Air are good. Both pre and post-travel are low, resulting in a firm and snappy button response. However—in particular when tapping the button—these tend to emit a rather irritating "thunk" sound, lending the button a certain hollow sensation. Despite being visually separated from the shell, button movement is low even when provoked. Button stiffness is medium. A pair of ROCCAT-branded optical switches from Kailh (yellow plunger) are used.


Side buttons are good (forward button) to decent (back button). Whereas the forward button has low to moderate pre and post-travel, the back button suffers from very high pre-travel, which has it feeling mushy. In addition, both buttons feel and sound hollow when actuated. The actuation point is even across the entirety of these. Button placement is good as actuation is possible very easily by rolling one's thumb across. A set of low-profile 2-pin switches (white plunger) from CF (ChangFeng) are used for these.

On the front left side of the mouse is a button which cycles through the set CPI steps, which is out of the way and works fine. Another low-profile 2-pin switch (white plunger) from CF is used for this one. A slider on the bottom of the mouse changes between 2.4 GHz wireless, Bluetooth, and off-state, and also works well.

Scroll Wheel

The scroll wheel is very good. Noise levels are mostly under control, and tactility is very good, with clearly defined steps allowing for controlled scrolling. The encoder comes from ALPS (black) and has a height of 11 mm. The middle (scroll wheel) click requires medium to high force for actuation. A seemingly unbranded tactile switch is used for this one.

Surface

The Burst II Air has a matte surface all over. Grip is fine, and it doesn't attract fingerprints or dirt 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 Burst II Air is easy. The screws (three Philips and a single Torx T5) are found beneath the front and rear skates. After removing those, two additional clips at the sides need to be dislodged, doing which may require wedging a credit card (or similar) in between.

The internal design is very straightforward. The side buttons sit on their own PCB screwed to a post part of the bottom shell, and connected through a 3-pin connector. Everything else sits on the main PCB, including the upside down mounted CPI button switch. Four screws are used to affix the surprisingly spacious yet thin main PCB to the bottom. The MCU is a PixArt PAR2862QC. Manufacturing date of the main PCB is the 49th week of 2023.


As for the soldering and general quality of the PCB, I'm unable to find any noteworthy flaws, except for gunk buildup next to the left main button switch.