There has always been an organic relationship between gaming mice and professional esports. After all, someone earning money with gaming wants to use the best tools available, and knowing that a mouse is good enough to win championships provides reassurance and confidence to non-professionals as well. Accordingly, it comes as no surprise that manufacturers often like to quote their products being developed in collaboration with professional players. How large their contribution is varies, but it is certainly an exception that a single player is solely responsible. One such case is the TenZ Signature Edition, whose shape has been designed exclusively by CS:GO and VALORANT professional player Tyson "TenZ" Ngo. The result is a shape that could be described as a variant of the X2H (Size 2), as many elements such as the back hump and general dimensions are shared, with the most notable difference being the width, as the TenZ Signature Edition stays straight across its length instead of flaring out at the front and back. Furthermore, the hump doesn't taper down as much towards the sides, which is why the TenZ Signature Edition fills the palm much more than the more nimble X2H. Ultimately, these differences are a matter of taste, with the TenZ Signature Edition lending itself better to stability.

Whereas previous Pulsar releases mainly were open-bottom designs, the TenZ Signature Edition features a fully solid shell, yet weighs only 48 g. Compared to the 40 g SCYROX V8, that may not seem as competitive, but the TenZ Signature Edition is also a bit larger, and lands closer to something like the 54 g Viper V3 Pro. In addition, build quality is virtually flawless on my copy: there is no rattle when shaking, no creaking or flexing of the shell when applying lateral pressure, and pressing below won't activate the side buttons no matter the force. Ergonomically, the TenZ Signature Edition also scores due to not only having a dedicated CPI button on the bottom, but one for polling rate as well, which is most handy. Less ideal, however, is the coating. Not only does it attract fingerprints, oils, or dirt like a magnet, such blemishes are also hard to get off again, and even after extensive cleaning restoring the surface to its original, immaculate state is virtually impossible.

For the main buttons, Pulsar has opted for a set of optical switches from FE, which share their pinout with the Omron D2FP-FN2, but provide much lighter yet still snappy actuation, which is further aided by fairly low pre-travel. Moderate levels of lateral button movement can be provoked, but during actual use this never becomes apparent. That said, after prolonged use I've noticed a part of the left main button piece grinding against something else on actuation, adding a subtle but still irritating noise to each click. The side buttons border on excellent: pre and post-travel are low, and the actuation point is even as well, resulting in pleasant actuation, with the only minor flaw being a change in feedback when pressing the back button towards the rear. The scroll wheel encoder comes from TTC is of the blue/yellow core variety, which in this case delivers pleasantly low noise levels and highly tactile scrolling, as each step is clearly distinct. The feet are made of white-dyed pure PTFE and glide well, and a set of dot feet is included with the mouse in case the default skates get worn out.

Unlike the Pulsar Feinmann F01, which suffered from multiple firmware issues, the TenZ Signature Edition utilizes a firmware and software solution from CompX, same as older Pulsar releases. As a result, performance on the TenZ Signature Edition is much more reliable and consistent. The main difference to other mice using the CompX solution is that Pulsar's custom XS-1 sensor, which is a variant of the PixArt PAW3950, supports CPI adjustment in increments of 10. Hence, the fact that the TenZ Signature Edition has a positive CPI deviation of 5.0% is negligible, as adjustment is granular enough such that flawless steps of 400, 800, or 1600 CPI are easily realized. In terms of tracking, the TenZ Signature Edition shows no issues, regardless of whether MotionSync is enabled or not. Polling is also largely stable on the TenZ Signature Edition, albeit with some caveats. Aside from irregularly occurring instances of elevated variance, there are also off-period polls emerging at polling rates of 2000 Hz and above in particular, some of which are large enough that actual gaps in tracking become visible, which is similar to what could be observed on the SCYROX V6/V8. In addition, occasionally polling breaks completely, with off-period polls abounding, though I haven't able to determine what causes this. Motion delay is on a slightly worse level compared to other mice using this firmware solution. At 1000 Hz without MotionSync, the TenZ Signature Edition trails the Logitech G403 (control subject) by 0.5 ms, whereas at polling rates of 2000 Hz and above, it is ahead by 0.5 ms. As always, enabling MotionSync will add delay of up to an entire interval. For comparison, the best mice in this category muster an advantage of 1.0 ms over the G403. In terms of click latency, the TenZ Signature Edition delivers essentially the same numbers as other CompX equipped units. At 1000 Hz, we're looking at an average of 1.1 ms, whereas at 8000 Hz, 0.4 ms are averaged. This only applies if debounce time is set to the minimum value of 0 ms, but since optical switches are used and a slam-click prevention algorithm is present, there is no real reason not to use that value. For the record, this algorithm—which ensures that there is no accidental button actuation when resetting the mouse after lift-off—is implemented flawlessly and does not add latency to the first click after landing.

As mentioned, the software is familiar from older Pulsar releases and has all the usual settings, and the resource footprint is pleasantly low. The only bug I could find during testing were occasional crashes when first selecting the TenZ Signature Edition on the main screen. The software also includes a battery life indicator, although this one works in rather mysterious ways. When I started testing, the indicator stood at 93%, and slowly went down during the first hour of playing at 8000 Hz. Then, it all of a sudden jumped to 71%, and when I switched to 1000 Hz, continued to decrease slowly as before, landing at 64% after two hours at 8000 Hz and two hours at 1000 Hz. Since Pulsar claims up to 112 hours at 1000 Hz and 18 hours at 8000 Hz, there are only two possible conclusions: either the indicator is fundamentally broken, or battery life is much worse than claimed. Neither is a good thing, that much is clear. Charging at least is decently speedy on the TenZ Signature Edition, but the charging cable is far from flexible, which is why playing while charging isn't really possible without feeling restricted.

Overall, the TenZ Signature Edition is a good mouse without any major flaws. Rather, the main issue is the price, or, more precisely, how the pricing compares to other mice. In particular, the SCYROX V6/V8 both come with virtually the same internals, the same firmware and software solution, and the same feature set, yet cost only $69.99 instead of $129.95. Obviously, one has to factor in a "TenZ tax," but even then it is difficult to argue why this should prompt one to pay almost double for what ultimately is a very similar mouse. In fact, Pulsar's own X2H V3, whose shape is quite close to the TenZ Signature Edition already, is available for $10 less including the 8K dongle, and older revisions for less than $100. For fans of TenZ or those eager to know what his take on a mouse design feels like, the TenZ Signature Edition is certainly worth a look, but for those not interested in TenZ specifically, there are much more affordable alternatives available.