arrow drop search cross

Review

May 06, 2022

ROCCAT Burst Pro Air Review

Lights Off
4 Awesome
Retails for: $99.99
We Recommend: $99.99
  • Developer: ROCCAT
  • Publisher: ROCCAT
  • Genre: Hardware, Mouse
  • Released: Apr 26, 2022
  • Platform: Windows
  • Reviewed: Windows

People either like wireless devices, or they prefer wired ones. ROCCAT knows this dilemma, and the Burst Pro Air sets out to please both ends of the spectrum. ROCCAT has had a steady streaming of gaming mice that have been excellent, and this is no different with this wireless mouse. This is also a lightweight mouse, so light that I feel even a gentle breeze might blow it off my desk. The ROCCAT Burst Pro Air is a breath of fresh air, a fantastic option for nearly every type of PC gamer.

ROCCATBurstProAir review1

After unboxing the Burst Pro Air, you’ll find the uniform shape doesn’t lean to right-handed players, but it isn’t ambidextrous. Left-handed mouse users would still have the buttons on the left side. That said, it feels really good to hold in your hand and move about the desk, it’s just so smooth. The Phantom Flex USB cable is soft yet rugged in its protection to prevent wear and tear. The cable also features USB-C rapid charging that quickly charges the mouse. The Burst Pro Air also supports wireless 2.4GHz and Bluetooth 5.2 dual connectivity. Whichever you’re able to do, you’ll be satisfied by its responsiveness. The wireless dongle it comes with even has a slot to store the dongle within the mouse itself. Provided you don’t need the cable, you can even store the dongle in the mouse for portability. The mouse works both as a wired and wireless mouse, essentially allowing you to play ‘n’ charge, or resort to wired gameplay until you go to bed. It’s extremely versatile, and can adapt.

In the ROCCAT Swarm software, not much is different from the usual offerings from selecting lighting, DPI, and other settings. What is different are the presets that are available, and there’s a basic preset that it uses on default. Other options include Balanced, Precision, and Media. My preference was the Precision preset, which allowed me to press a button that would reduce my DPI to 200 when held, allowing me to line-up the perfect headshot. It’s definitely the ideal gaming preset to use for nearly every situation. In practice, first-person shooters like Battlefield 2042 benefited from being NVIDIA Reflex compatible both with the game and mouse. It just felt really great to use, and precision was always there, along with low latency. Playing through the arenas of Nightmare Reaper, this modern retro FPS just felt sublime to aim and shoot. For a bit of a slower pace, playing something like Dune: Spice Wars was a breeze to control, but the traditional mouse buttons held it back from doing more (even though the Easy-Shift[+] technology does remedy this a bit). I certainly missed my extra mouse buttons found on the Kone XP like with Guild Wars 2.

ROCCATBurstProAir review2

Once night falls and you’re able to get a good look at the Burst Pro Air when it’s lit up, you’ll immediately notice the hex lighting like the Kone Pro. The entire mouse is illuminated to a very bright degree, both the mouse buttons and palm are RGB zones. Unfortunately, the four zones can sometimes be slow to color cycle in AIMO mode. I have the white version, and while my setup is mostly black, I can’t help but applaud how clean this looks.

ROCCAT promises a battery life of up to 100 hours with a single charge, and I can attest to that proclaim. The “up to” part is important. I left all the idle settings default, and what I noticed was that the mouse turns off shortly after not moving. This tremendously helps it achieve that battery life when the energy saving mode is on. This is a very smart mouse, and is very respectful of your energy and gameplay usage.

ROCCATBurstProAir review3

While I couldn’t possible test 100 million clicks, I continually trust ROCCAT. Their optical switches are the best in the business and I’m never having a misclick or a click not register. With a polling rate of up to 1000Hz (default), this mouse provides incredible accuracy, especially when paired to its 19,000 DPI optical sensor. These are insane numbers for about anyone, but it’s so good to have this level of control at your fingertips.

The heat-treated Polytetrafluoroethylene feet, or PTFE for just about anyone else offers incredibly smooth control. If using a cloth mouse mat like myself, it’s never getting caught or slowed across that surface, or any other. While I didn’t have a use for it, the aforementioned portability means that you can utilize the on-board storage to keep five user profiles. While I didn’t test any part of this, the shell is the moniker of “Bionic” meant to take hits, and is also water and dust resistant. So those who have accidents involving cups or sudden sand storms will be safe using this mouse.

ROCCATBurstProAir review4

ROCCAT is in a stride of releasing top-tier, lightweight, competitive mice. What the Burst Pro Air lacks in features, more than makes up for portability and versatility. This is that kind of mouse where if you weren’t a fan of wireless, this would change your opinion. The fact that you can play while it charges, and cycle between the two means you’re never waiting. ROCCAT is just dialed in right now with their hardware, and the Burst Pro Air offers the best of both worlds.

The Burst Pro Air was provided in advance by ROCCAT for review purposes