Corsair Sabre v2 Pro Wireless MG Review: Not enough magnesium?

Instead of reinventing the (scroll) wheel (or something), Corsair decided to take its ultra-lightweight high-performance Sabre v2 Pro wireless mouse to the next level — material-wise, that is. The brand announced two new versions of the Sabre v2 Pro at CES in January: One made of magnesium and one made of carbon fiber. This might not sound like a significant difference, but there are so many ultra-lightweight, stripped-down performance-first gaming mice these days that they're all pretty similar. So we took a look at both, naturally.

The Corsair Sabre v2 Pro Wireless MG is the magnesium version: An ultra-lightweight wireless mouse with a symmetrical shape and a perforated magnesium alloy shell. It weighs 1.98 ounces (56g), which makes it 0.7 ounces (20g) heavier than the original Sabre v2 Pro, which weighs just 1.27 ounces (36g). It features Corsair's Marksman S 33K sensor, which has a maximum sensitivity of 33,000 DPI, a maximum speed of 750 IPS, and can handle up to 50 G's of force. It gets up to an 8,000 Hz polling rate — both wired and wireless — and up to 120 hours of battery life (over a 2.4GHz wireless connection with a 1,000 Hz polling rate).

It's definitely a funky-looking mouse — it's been a while since we've seen a mouse with so many holes vying for a spot on our list of best gaming mice — but I'm not sure it's worth the extra $50 just for the magnesium shell. The mouse is available now, in black and white colorways, for $149.99.

Design and Comfort of the Sabre v2 Pro Wireless MG

The Sabre v2 Pro Wireless MG is a wireless pseudo-symmetrical ultra-lightweight gaming mouse; it's the cheaper version of Corsair's Sabre v2 Pro Wireless CF, which is virtually identical except it's made of carbon fiber. The Sabre v2 Pro Wireless MG is made of magnesium and has a perforated shell — that's something we haven't seen in a while. This makes it only 1g heavier than its carbon fiber counterpart: the Sabre v2 Pro Wireless MG weighs 1.98 ounces (56g), while the Sabre v2 Pro Wireless CF weighs 1.94 ounces (55g).

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The Sabre v2 Pro Wireless MG has a symmetrical shape with a slight flare and a low, mildly-sloped center hump. Its magnesium shell features geometric perforations that cover most of the hump and part of the buttons. The perforations are on the larger side — closer to those of the Razer Viper Mini Signature Edition than those of the Monoprice Dark Matter Hyper-K or the SteelSeries Aerox 9 Wireless. I personally don't think the somewhat random shapes make for the most attractive hole design, but I guess it's not any worse (or better) than other hole designs. The holes don't make much difference in how the mouse feels, as it's pretty low profile and best suited for claw or fingertip grip styles.

The mouse's magnesium shell has a matte black finish with a slight, glittery sheen, and it feels... pretty average, to be honest. While I don't necessarily like super slippery mice, I kind of wish the Sabre v2 Pro Wireless MG's shell was slightly smoother. The slightly rough finish is similar to that of most matte plastic mice I have on hand. This isn't a bad thing, but since a large part of the mouse's selling point is its magnesium shell, it felt... underwhelming.

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The Sabre v2 Pro Wireless MG is close to the same size as other symmetrical, ultra-lightweight mice. It measures 4.83 inches (122.7mm) long by 2.51 inches (63.8mm) wide, and is 1.5 inches (38.3mm) high at its tallest point. By comparison, the Logitech G Pro X Superlight 2 measures 4.92 x 2.5 x 1.57 inches (125 x 63.5 x 40mm), while the Asus ROG Harpe Ace Extreme measures 5.01 x 2.51 x 1.56 inches (127.5 x 63.7 x 39.6mm) — so the Sabre v2 Pro Wireless MG is slightly (very slightly) smaller.

The mouse has five programmable buttons, including the scroll wheel click. The primary mouse buttons are large, separated, and flat, with no curves. The thumb buttons are pretty standard and are well-placed — they were easy to distinguish and press quickly regardless of what I was doing. The mouse has a clickable notched scroll wheel in neon yellow, with a black, textured rubber strip for grip.

On the bottom of the mouse, you'll find two curved UPE mouse feet at the bottom and top of the mouse (as well as the standard ring around the sensor). They're not huge, but Corsair includes extra, larger skates in the box so you can swap them out if you need extra glide. There's also a DPI switch button and a power switch that lets you toggle between 2.4GHz wireless and Bluetooth. The DPI switch button is not programmable.

In the box, the Sabre v2 Pro Wireless MG includes a couple of accessories — a 6-foot (1.8m) braided USB-C to USB-A cable for charging, the mouse's 2.4 GHz wireless dongle, pre-cut grip tape, and extra mouse feet.

Performance of the Sabre v2 Pro Wireless MG

The Sabre v2 Pro Wireless MG features the same Corsair Marksman S optical sensor as its pricier counterpart. It has a maximum sensitivity of 33,000 DPI and a maximum speed of 750 IPS, and can handle up to 70 G's of acceleration. This is the same sensor found in the regular plastic Sabre v2 Pro, and it's an excellent sensor. Mouse movement is smooth and highly responsive, even in — or, well, especially in — fast-paced first-person shooters like Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 and Overwatch. (Of course, no amount of mouse responsiveness will make me better at first-person shooter games, but that's beside the point.)

The sensor is also extremely precise and accurate, and I had no issues with lag, latency, or stuttering while I was editing images and videos. Like many premium gaming mice these days, the Sabre v2 Pro Wireless MG gets up to an 8,000 Hz polling rate (both wired and wireless), though it ships with a default polling rate of 1,000 Hz. Most people will not notice a meaningful difference between 1,000 Hz and 8,000 Hz unless they're playing in some sort of eSports competition where every fraction of a millisecond matters. Note that I said "meaningful" — while you might notice a difference in how smoothly your mouse glides across the screen with an 8,000 Hz polling rate, it's probably not going to dramatically affect your gameplay.

The Sabre v2 Pro Wireless MG features Corsair's own mechanical switches in its primary buttons, which are rated for 100 million clicks. They're on the quieter side, which is nice (I'm not usually one to complain about mouse click loudness, but some of today's mice are surprisingly noisy), and they have nice crisp tactile feedback. The side buttons also feel decent, with smooth, distinct clicks. The scroll wheel is on the softer side (and the center click is a little light on feedback), but it didn't bother me too much.

Specs

Features and Software of the Sabre v2 Pro Wireless MG

The Sabre v2 Pro Wireless MG is configurable via Corsair's Web Hub, which is the brand's new(ish) online peripheral configuration tool. It's a fairly simple mouse, so there's not much to configure, but you can use Web Hub to remap the mouse's five programmable buttons (left/right click, thumb buttons, center scroll wheel click) to whatever you want — including macros (Web Hub has a macro recorder). You can also set the DPI steps to cycle through when you press the DPI button on the bottom of the mouse; you can turn off DPI steps you don't need (between 1 - 5).

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There are also a handful of settings you can change or toggle in the device settings — you can set the polling rate (8,000 Hz / 4,000 Hz / 2,000 Hz / 1,000 Hz) and the lift height, and toggle motion sync, angle snapping, and ripple control.

Wireless Experience and Battery Life of the Sabre v2 Pro Wireless MG

The Sabre v2 Pro Wireless MG has three connectivity options — 2.4 GHz wireless, Bluetooth, and wired (via USB-C). It comes with a USB-C to USB-A cable, but it's not a flexible, low-drag cable as you see with many mice; it's not really designed to be used as a wired mouse. The inclusion of Bluetooth is nice, since most mice like this don't even bother with it, since it's a feature most users will rarely (if ever) use. Still, not everyone is a hardcore professional competitive gamer, and sometimes people just want to use their mouse with other devices for non-gaming purposes without switching the dongle over every time.

Corsair rates the Sabre v2 Pro Wireless MG at 120 hours of battery life over a 2.4 GHz wireless connection with a 1,000 Hz polling rate, which is slightly better than you'll find on similar mice. The Logitech G Pro X Superlight 2 gets around 95 hours, while the Asus ROG Harpe Ace Extreme gets 70 hours. Razer's DeathAdder V4 Pro gets up to 150 hours, so the Sabre v2 Pro Wireless MG isn't the longest-lived wireless mouse on the market — but it's on the higher side. This does, of course, drop to just 21 hours if you set the polling rate to 8,000 Hz.

Bottom Line

The Corsair Sabre v2 Pro Wireless MG is $50 cheaper than the carbon fiber version, but it's still $150. That price is around where most premium flagship mice start, though prices have been creeping up recently (the Razer DeathAdder V4 Pro launched at $170). If you're looking for a simple, ultra-lightweight wireless mouse that's not made of plastic, this isn't a bad choice, but it's very similar to, well, a lot of other mice. I didn't feel like the magnesium alloy shell was significantly more premium than similar plastic mice, so I'd probably stick with something plastic (and cheaper) — such as the regular Corsair Sabre v2 Pro.