Just a few months ago, SteelSeries released the Rival 3 Wireless, which, aside from some smaller issues, left a good impression. The Aerox 3 Wireless builds on that: Both share the same shape and sensor (TrueMove Air), but other than that, the Aerox 3 Wireless improves on the Rival 3 Wireless in pretty much every way.

First of all, wireless performance is much better. Unlike the Rival 3 Wireless, the Aerox 3 Wireless comes with its own wireless extender, and coupled with a more mature firmware, results are great. The only issue I could find is with CPI deviation, which is slightly lower than on the Rival 3 Wireless, but still far from great. Polling stability is rock solid across all available polling rates, general tracking is great, and motion delay is low across the board due to the complete lack of smoothing. Additionally, isolated wireless delay sits at around 1 ms and is thus on par with what Logitech or Razer are able to do, which are commonly regarded as the best. With the Aerox 3 Wireless, SteelSeries finally joins this rather exclusive club of wireless excellency, which is impressive to see. Click latency is low enough to match this, rounding things off nicely. Aside from low-latency 2.4 GHz, the Aerox 3 Wireless is also capable of Bluetooth, and the surprisingly flexible charging cable allows one to use it as if it were a wired mouse. Much like the Glorious Model O Wireless, the Aerox 3 Wireless allows for a seamless experience. That having been said, sleep mode still isn't working as expected, same as on the Rival 3 Wireless.

The Aerox 3 Wireless is the first SteelSeries mouse to receive the hole treatment for the lowest weight possible. At 67 g, the Aerox 3 Wireless is indeed very light, matching the Model O Wireless in this regard. No compromises have been made to get the weight this low—in fact, my sample is impressively solid, with no creaking, flexing, or any other build quality flaws. Furthermore, the Aerox 3 Wireless has been IP54-certified, granting it superior resistance against all kinds of liquids, dust, and the like. Button quality is great across the board, the scroll wheel provides nice tactility, and the materials have a high-quality feel overall. Even though I didn't have much issues with the mouse feet, I feel they could use some improvement still to properly match the quality found elsewhere on the Aerox 3 Wireless.

Sounds pretty great so far, right? Indeed, I'd happily award the Aerox 3 Wireless an Editor's Choice if it weren't for a big caveat: battery life. SteelSeries advertises a battery life of 200 hours, but this is only true for Bluetooth, which limits the polling rate to 133 Hz. I have serious doubts anybody would want to use this mouse that way, so I chose the opposite approach and used the Aerox 3 Wireless with all Illumination enabled, no power-saving features, and a polling rate of 1000 Hz. While this isn't the most reasonable choice of settings, I think it's more sensible to actually fully make use of what the Aerox 3 Wireless has to offer than to ignore most of it. The results of this test were quite shocking: After just 10 hours of continuous use, the mouse literally shut off. This of course begs the question of why there is RGB lighting on a mouse in the first place when the only way to reasonably make use of it is by enabling power-saving features that dim or turn off the lighting for the majority of time. With full RGB illumination enabled, the Aerox 3 Wireless practically cannot be used properly as a wireless mouse, which defeats its purpose. In my opinion, it would've been a better idea to ditch the RGB lighting entirely, go for an even lower weight, and advertise the actual battery life instead of a hypothetical number using settings nobody would willingly choose on a $100 enthusiast mouse anyway. Although I haven't tested it, I'd expect battery life with 1000 Hz and no illumination to exceed 50 hours at the very least, which isn't amazing, but certainly good enough to market. SteelSeries advertising 200 hours of battery life isn't necessarily false, but it certainly can be seen as misleading, creating false expectations the product cannot possibly live up to.

In summary, what's the verdict then? Personally, I don't care about RGB lighting anyway, so the poor battery life with full illumination doesn't bother me, and the great sensor and wireless performance, weight, and shape would make me pick the Aerox 3 Wireless over most other wireless mice, including the Rival 3 Wireless. At the same time, SteelSeries advertises RGB lighting and long battery life, but you can't really have one with the other, and that's a problem. In short, those who want full RGB on their wireless mouse should look elsewhere. The Glorious Model O Wireless ($79.99), ASUS ROG Pugio II ($99.99), and Razer Viper Ultimate ($149.99) all do better in this regard. On the other hand, if you're like me and turn off RGB lighting at the first opportunity anyway, the Aerox 3 Wireless is more than worth a look, and definitely worthy of our Recommended award.