In 2010, Xanver Tseng, who was Zowie's product manager at the time, and famous Counter-Strike player Emil "HeatoN" Christensen joined forces to design the Zowie EC series, named after HeatoN's initials. The EC2 in particular went on to become one of the most popular (and most frequently copied) shapes available on the market. 15 years later, the same Xanver Tseng, who now is VAXEE's CEO, decided to return to this iconic design and adjust it for today's needs. The fact that only the rear, which now is slightly shorter and more rounded, has been changed, demonstrates how robust this design was to begin with. Accordingly, it is fair to claim that the E1 Wireless essentially is VAXEE's EC2, complementing the AX, which until now was the only EC-adjacent design available from VAXEE. Of course, the E1 Wireless comes with all the latest bells and whistles from VAXEE, including a new approach to the mechanical engineering, which had been debuted with the XE-S Wireless. Contrary to the latter, on the E1 Wireless the main buttons and scroll wheel encoder once again sit on a separate PCB screwed to a plastic assembly, but the design still differs greatly from the endoskeletons found on earlier VAXEE releases. The result is a weight of 60 g, which still ranks below the 53 g of the Razer DeathAdder V3 Hyperspeed, for instance, but marks a major improvement over the AX Wireless at 72 g. Build quality is great on my sample: there is no creaking or flexing of the shell when applying lateral pressure, and actuating the side buttons by pressing below them is impossible. The only (and returning) flaw is a minor rattle when shaking, though I still haven't been able to find exactly where that rattle comes from. Either way, it is completely unnoticeable during actual use.

To nobody's surprise, the E1 Wireless is decked out with switches from Huano, but interestingly enough, the selection differs from previous VAXEE mice. For the main buttons, Huano switches with blue instead of pink plungers are used now, which appear to be slightly lighter to actuate, but otherwise don't differ much if at all, providing firm and snappy actuation. Once again of note is the excellent button design, as there is zero lateral play of the buttons even when trying to provoke it, and though button pre- and post-travel are moderate, this is intentional and well-tuned to avoid accidental clicks. The side buttons likewise come from Huano, and are surface-mounted. Pre- and post-travel are remarkably low, though on my sample at least, the pressure point isn't entirely even on the back button, as feedback changes when pressing towards the rear. This minor flaw aside, VAXEE continues to provide among the best side buttons around. The scroll wheel encoder of course comes from ALPS, which delivers good tactility, albeit at elevated noise levels. Somewhat ironically, the pink plunger Huano switch has now been relegated to scroll wheel switch duties. The feet also are well familiar from previous VAXEE mice, being made of pure PTFE and gliding well.

Much like the XE-S Wireless, the E1 Wireless comes with PixArt's latest PAW3950 instead of the trusty PAW3395. In practice, this has little bearing, aside from a different battery life profile. Using the standard sensor run mode, battery life is up at 1000 Hz compared to the 3395, whereas when using competitive mode at 1000 Hz or 2000/4000 Hz proper, battery life is down. Other than that, nothing has changed in terms of MCU or firmware, which is why performance ends up being virtually the same, too. There is no CPI deviation at all, general tracking is fine regardless of whether MotionSync is enabled or not, and polling is largely stable. That is, there is a certain base level of noise present throughout all polling rates, but no actual polls are being missed, so while not perfect, this has little bearing in practice. Motion delay is likewise the same: as long as competitive mode is enabled and MotionSync disabled, the E1 Wireless has a lead of roughly 0.8 ms over the Logitech G403 (control subject), which is excellent. The lead gets smaller when disabling competitive mode or enabling MotionSync, which is the same behavior we've seen on the 3395 releases, and by comparable amounts.

Where the E1 Wireless does things differently is click latency. Whereas previous VAXEE mice had a selection of 2, 3, 4, and 8 ms for debounce time, this has been simplified on the E1 Wireless, which now offers 0, 2, and 4 ms. Notable of course is the 0 ms setting, which marks a first for VAXEE and helps bring click latency more in line with the top competitors. When using the 0 ms setting, the E1 Wireless now averages 0.7 ms at 4000 Hz, and only marginally worse 1.1 ms at 1000 Hz. In short, the E1 Wireless finally catches up to the very best, and since VAXEE has implemented a (flawless) slam-click prevention algorithm, there is no real reason not to use the 0 ms setting. Eventually, double-clicking may show up, but until then, 0 ms debounce time can be used without a second thought. Interestingly, the main button switches on the E1 Wireless are supplied with 3.03 V instead of 2.06 V, which may be a deliberate change to prevent double-clicking for as long as possible when using the 0 ms setting. Compared to previous releases, the higher voltage may end up lowering battery life slightly, however.

Whereas previous VAXEE wireless releases all came with a braided charging cable, the charging cable of the E1 Wireless instead is made of TPE (thermoplastic elastomer), and ends up accordingly stiffer. According to VAXEE, this decision has been made in knowing that the majority of users at most use the mouse wired while charging, thus prompting prioritization of shielding and, by extension, stability over flexibility. While this is certainly less than ideal for those who do want the wired option or tend to forget charging before use, there is a different and arguably more relevant reason to avoid wired operation on the E1 Wireless. Testing suggests there being a bug resulting in motion delay continually increasing in wired mode, and this happens regardless of MotionSync or any other setting. Given that this is a wireless mouse, I consider this negligible, but there is no doubt that wired mode is not a priority on the E1 Wireless, and should be avoided as much as possible. Charging at least is decently speedy at a little more than 0.3 A, so downtime won't be particularly long.

At $139.99, the E1 Wireless is priced $10 higher than previous 3395 releases, whose 4K variants in turn were priced $10 higher than the original wireless releases from VAXEE. As such, the E1 Wireless creeps closer and closer to the $150 mark occupied by Razer, Logitech, or ASUS, though unlike these, VAXEE mice never go on sale, and Amazon free shipping obviously isn't an option, either. Hence, the pricing no doubt will give some pause, though at the same time, the E1 Wireless is easily among the most accomplished mice released by VAXEE, and leaves little to be desired on any level. Those looking for something dependable and consistent in particular will likely be pleased with the E1 Wireless. As such, the E1 Wireless earns our Editor's Choice.