Wireless mouse has been the favourite of many who travels a lot and doesn't favour the restriction of a wired mouse. While the market is over-flooded with various brands and types of wireless mouse, not many are able to suit the needs of users due to various issues such as limited battery life, optical or laser sensor which doesn't work on certain types of surface, etc.
Courtesy of Gigabyte, we bring to you the review unit of their latest AIRE M93 ICE wireless mouse. Let us move on with the review and see if the AIRE M93 ICE able to overcome most major issues that is experienced by many of wireless mouse users to date, or it's just another wireless USB mouse. (While this review is being written, the SRP of the AIRE M93 ICE is yet to be confirmed.)
Specification
Unboxing
The Gigabyte AIRE M93 ICE comes in an attractive retail package that greatly resembles the packaging of a gaming mouse. What truly caught our attention is not the fancy front image of the packaging itself, but rather the tagline "Anywhere Wireless Mouse" at the bottom.
Features of the AIRE M93 ICE is highlighted at the back of the packaging explaining the tagline "Anywhere Wireless Mouse" can be found here as well - which claims that the Gigabyte ICE Technology will enable you to use the AIRE M93 ICE on various surfaces such as glass, wood, leather, smooth stone and cloth.
Upon flipping over the cover, we find more description on the technology used (ICE laser tracking technology), ergonomic design and the AIRE M93 ICE itself.
Right out of the box, you'll find a rechargeable AA battery, wireless USB receiver, a USB to Micro USB cable and the Gigabyte AIRE M93 ICE itself.
The AIRE M93 ICE
The top surface of the AIRE M93 ICE has a stylish matte finish appearance which looks promising at first glance but we'll have to go further to see if it works as good as it looks.
The blue lightning lines and the curves sculpted for right handed users is clearly seen from the back of the AIRE M93 ICE.
While resting your thumb on the sculpted curve, you'll find 2 programmable side buttons at the left side of the AIRE M93 ICE which can be assigned for different purposes other than the default previous page and next page function using the Gigabyte mouse utility.
The AIRE M93 ICE looks pretty awesome from the front as well.
There's nothing much to mention about the right side of the AIRE M93 ICE as there's no additional side buttons found.
Taking a closer look at the functional buttons and scroll wheel of the AIRE M93 ICE, you'll find a DPI toggle button to toggle between 1200 dpi and 2000 dpi as well as a Free-Scrolling button which allows you to 'free' the scroll wheel to go through a long page of text without the need of repetitive scrolling action.
The primary left and right click button feels good in terms of responsiveness and tactility, while the scroll wheel is big enough and scrolls reasonably smooth.
No more pile of dead batteries! There's a micro USB port located at the front of the AIRE M93 ICE that serves the purpose for recharging your battery with the USB to Micro USB cable included.
To our surprise, there's no trace of any mouse skates at the bottom of the AIRE M93 ICE. Even though it's designed to work on any type of surface, the absence of mouse skates meant that the bottom of your mouse will be more vulnerable to scratches especially if used on rougher surfaces.
The ON/OFF switch and the laser sensor with ICE Tracking technology.
Removing the battery cover will reveal the AA battery slot of the AIRE M93 ICE.
The AIRE M93 ICE only needs a single AA battery to work, and kudos to Gigabyte for including a rechargeable AA battery.
At the bottom of the battery compartment, there's another slot to keep the USB wireless receiver when not in use so that it's not lost easily.
Software
The Gigabyte Mouse Utility is pretty simple and straight forward, the button tab allows you to customize the mouse to your own liking by assigning a different action which you find useful for your daily usage to each programmable buttons on the AIRE M93 ICE.
The scroll wheel tab allows you to customize the scrolling speed and left right tilt settings of the scroll wheel.
The pointer tab allows you to configure pointer speed, snap to dialogue box and pointer trails, but we find that it's unnecessary as similar configuration with more options can be found on the Mouse Properties within the OS.
Quick Test
Connectivity
We've tried to connect the USB receiver directly to a USB port and a USB hub to check on the performance of the AIRE M93 ICE. The result is pretty much to our expectation, as the AIRE M93 ICE is showing signs of skipping when connected through the USB hub while everything is totally fine with the USB receiver connected directly to a USB port.Sensor Test
We've tried the AIRE M93 ICE on different types of surface as well - glass, wood, cloth, leather, rough metal plate, acrylic surface, marble tiles etc and the AIRE M93 ICE works great on all of them! even on uneven surfaces, though it's impractical as hardly anyone would want to use their mouse on an uneven surface.Final Thoughts
The Gigabyte AIRE M93 ICE did well overall and we really enjoyed using it, mainly because of its solid construction and comfort - yes, solid click, smooth scroll wheel and of course, comfortable grip. The excellent tracking technology (ICE) and easily replaceable rechargeable battery is another factor that makes the AIRE M93 ICE a worthy wireless mouse.The only major downside we can find that would affect the overall user experience is that plugging the USB receiver to a heavily occupied USB hub is a no-go as it greatly affects the overall performance due to bandwidth sharing from other devices connected to the USB hub.
Pros
- Comfortable grip
- Responsive clicks and good tactility
- No waiting time for DPI toggle
- Works fine on almost all type of surface
- Comes with a rechargeable battery
Cons
- The bottom of the mouse is vulnerable to scratches due to the absent of mouse skates
- Doesn't work well when USB receiver is plugged into a USB Hub
- The DPI is quite limited and might not be in favor of those who fancies for a high DPI mouse
Overall, we're awarding this nifty mouse both the Tech-Critter Silver and Recommended badges!
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