HyperX Pulsefire Haste 2 Wireless Gaming Mouse Review
If you came here from Google trying to find out if this new mouse is worth buying: Yes! Doubly so if it’s on a discount!
For the rest of you, what follows is equal parts review and yet another rant about the sorry state of SteelSeries’ mouse lineup. This mouse is such a competent refresh of an already-good product that I’ve had to expand the scope of this article just to keep my brain entertained.
I wasn’t asked by HyperX to write this, nor compensated by them in any way. I bought this mouse at retail with my own cash. If you’d like to support my work, check out the end of this piece.
The HyperX Pulsefire Haste 2 Wireless sells for $89 (official site here), which is ten bucks more than the original version. It’s also ten dollars more expensive than they first announced this mouse would sell for, which is a little bit of a bummer and one of the few negatives about this product. But that’s more a stain on the marketing team and not those who designed the mouse.
The Haste 2 keeps the same good shape from the original, but updates a bunch of other small stuff. In addition to a low latency 2.4ghz dongle connection, there’s now a backup Bluetooth mode. The frame is now mostly hole-free, with only a few missing plastic bits hidden under the label sticker. The buttons use HyperX-branded switches instead of TTC Golds, though they’re nigh-identical. The button plates on top of the switches have a new shape and design that you might not like as much as the firmly separated buttons on the older one, depending on your taste. The cable is a bit more flexible with a thinner braided sheathe. And the sensor inside is now a Pixart 3395, which is a flagship-level sensor from a couple of years ago.
The original Haste Wireless was basically a SteelSeries Aerox 3, but twenty dollars cheaper. Thanks to the new sensor internals, this is now an objectively better mouse than pretty much any mouse in the SteelSeries lineup, but still selling for ten dollars less than their Aerox…
