Build Quality

Overall build quality is solid. There is no rattle when shaking the mouse. When applying lateral pressure, minor creaking and flexing of the shell can be observed. Activating the side buttons by squeezing the sides is impossible. Lastly, accidental clicks when slamming down the mouse do not occur.

Buttons

Main buttons on the S480 Max are decent. Pre-travel is moderate and post-travel very low, though somewhat similarly to the original Pulsar X2V2, pre-travel on the S480 Max is peculiar in that there is a sort of "pre-click" preceding the actuation proper, which feels rather jarring. Being visually separated from the shell, button movement is moderate when provoked. Button stiffness is medium. A pair of Huano switches (blue transparent shell, pink plunger) are used.


Side buttons are good (forward button) to poor (back button). While the forward button has low pre and moderate post-travel, post-travel is very high on the back button, to where it can be pushed into the shell in its entirety, though the actuation point is mostly even across the entirety of these nevertheless. Even though pre-travel is fairly low on the back button, actuation is very mushy. Button size and placement are good, as actuation is possible rather easily by rolling one's thumb across. A set of surface-mounted Huano switches (beige plunger) are used for these.

At the bottom of the mouse is a button for cycling through the set CPI levels, which works fine. A seemingly unbranded tactile switch is used for these. A slider switching between 2.4 GHz wireless, Bluetooth, and off-state is also found at the bottom, which works fine.

Scroll Wheel

The scroll wheel is decent. Noise levels are high, and when scrolling down in particular, a grinding sound is added, further elevating noise levels. Tactility is above average, as the individual steps are rather well-separated. The encoder comes from F-Switch (brown, pink core) and has a height of 13 mm. The middle (scroll wheel) click requires high force for actuation. A seemingly unbranded tactile switch (black plunger) is used here.

Surface

The S480 Max 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 S480 Max is easy. First, the screws found beneath the front and rear skates need to be removed. After doing so, four clips at the sides need to be dislodged, which is easily done, but some caution is advised to prevent ripping any cables when separating top and bottom shell.

The internal design is highly efficient. The side buttons sit on their own PCB inserted into a plastic assembly spanning across the width of the shell, improving structural rigidity, and connected to the main PCB through a ribbon cable. The battery is sitting on a sticky pad stuck to the bottom towards the rear. The main PCB is thin and compact, and affixed to the bottom with four screws. Two MCUs are used: a Nordic nRF52840 for wireless communication, whose datasheet is found here, along with an unspecified USB high-speed MCU carrying the designation XUH32A405QBF2. Based on the date code and lot number format, it is likely a rebranded Artery AT32F405 using the QFN32 package, whose datasheet can be found here. Production date for the side-button PCB is the 28th week of 2024.


As for the soldering and general quality of the PCB, I'm unable to find any noteworthy flaws.