The developmental possibilities for wired gaming mice are finite: At some point, a technically even more advanced sensor, lower weight, and considerably more flexible cable simply won't make a difference in regards to in-game performance. Naturally, manufacturers are starting to look into other means to differentiate their products from the competition. The Zephyr Gaming Mouse is one such mouse. Initially only available through a Kickstarter campaign running for a limited time, the Zephyr Gaming Mouse has a built-in fan to keep one's hand cool. More importantly, the fan isn't just a mere gimmick as it does actually help with sweaty palms.

Thankfully, Zephyr didn't forget that a fan is only worth as much as the mouse it's installed in. The sensor, PixArt's PMW3389, provided great performance in testing. Click latency is nice and low, too. The weight is expected to be 68 g, which is excellent considering the fact that a fan is installed, and the Zephyr Gaming Mouse also has one of the best stock cables I've tried so far, sitting right up there with the likes of the Cooler Master M711 and Endgame Gear XM1 White. Flexibility is nothing short of excellent and almost on par with an actual paracord. Very good mouse feet and a grippy coating add to the fantastic handling of the Zephyr Gaming Mouse. While hardly performance relevant, the Zephyr Gaming Mouse has a highly impressive RGB lighting set consisting of a rich assortment of effects to choose from. Button quality is a bit of a mixed bag. While the buttons themselves are great throughout, the scroll wheel occasionally doesn't register a step, which can be quite irritating. The only other performance flaw I could find was with the USB polling, which has periodic outliers. This is doubly annoying as there are no other polling-rate options due to the lack of software customizability.

Back to the fan. Yes, it works, but I feel there's room for improvement. First, the fan is quite small and runs at very high RPM to generate sufficient airflow, which results in a decent degree of electrical and general fan noise. Additionally, vibrations are transmitted to the entire chassis, which can be irritating. Durability is another concern as the fan uses a sleeve bearing, which tends to perform poorly if not mounted vertically (as is the case here) and suffers from low life expectancy under higher ambient temperatures. Coupled with the limited warranty of just six months, there's a chance it gives in before the rest of the mouse. Given the price, I'd definitely like to see something other than a sleeve bearing fan in their finalized mass-production units.

Having said that, Zephyr has promised to take these concerns and criticisms into account and is committed to delivering the best-possible retail product. It should also be noted that I wasn't bothered by the fan issues during gameplay, which is where it matters. Still, the fan is what makes the Zephyr Gaming Mouse special, so those not interested in the fan may want to look elsewhere. Outside of the fan, other mice no doubt provide better value for money. In any case, the Zephyr Gaming Mouse excels in many areas even now, and provides a unique selling point, which has it get both the Recommended and Innovation awards from me.