/r/Keyboard

Photograph via snooOG

This is a friendly and drama free community for users of one of the most popular input devices ever created, the keyboard. Let's share and learn anything and everything about keyboards from membrane, to mechanical, to scissor, to buckling spring, to on-screen keyboards (looking at you Gboard), and everything in between.

Most importantly, be kind to each other.

This subreddit is for discussing, sharing, and learning anything and everything regarding keyboards, the most popular input device in history!

Be sure to check out our sister subreddits:

/r/BudgetKeebs

/r/Keyboard

/r/BudgetMechKeyboards

/r/BudgetSqueaks

/r/CustomKeeb

/r/BudgetKeebsMarket

/r/Keyboard

7 Subscribers

6

Ajazz AJ199 Review

I'll start by saying that at Amazon's price, this mouse is not worth it. You can find it for cheaper on other markets, but I'm not even sure it'd be worth it on those sites. If they had created a mouse without hot swappable back plates this has the potential to be quite good. Sadly, right out of the box this mouse creaked and popped when putting normal pressure on the back of the mouse. I'm talking resting your hand on the mouse at all and you could feel the back plate wiggling around. I removed it and put it back on, hoping it was just out of alignment, but the issue still happened. Audible creaking is bad enough, but when I applied firmer pressure the back plate would pop out of place and snap back into place. I'm still not trying to make it do anything at this point, this is just under normal use.

I decided to try the honeycomb plate, and sure enough, it snapped right in without issue, no creaking or popping. I don't hate holes, but I do prefer a solid mouse. If I'm going to keep this one, it'll have to be with the honeycomb shell on it.

Checking for other issues, things were a bit better. If you squeeze on the sides, there is a little bit of flex, but you'll never squeeze that hard while gaming, and I couldn't get the flex to actuate the side buttons, so good there. Side buttons and main clicks are actually pretty nice, with good tactile feedback and little to no pre or post travel. The scroll wheel is pretty nice too. It's not too firm and not too light when scrolling, and the middle click is tactile and spammable.

At first I thought the feet were terrible, I kept getting a sharp feeling drag when moving the mouse around. I flipped it over and the feet are nice and rounded, not something that should be giving that feeling. Turns out the main sticker on the bottom of the mouse was off-center, meaning one edge of it was sticking out. I had to cut it off using a craft knife and the mouse felt much better to move around. You're not going to be blown away by the performance of the skates, but you're not going to have to replace them immediately either.

The software is fine, it looks like a reskin of other Chinese softwares that I've seen. You can change button functions, create macros, and adjust the scroll wheel lighting effects. I was disappointed to see that they don't have an option for motion sync, but they do have options for changing DPI and shortcuts to the windows sensitivity and precision settings. One thing to note, I run all of my mice 3200dpi and at 4 sense in Windows, and have enhanced precision turned off. This software reversed that, and set my sense to 10 and turned on enhanced precision. I was able to turn those settings off. Another thing of note, even if you set it to only have one DPI setting, you still need to use the DPI button to select that DPI setting. I map the top DPI button to Win+Tab, so I had to go back into the button settings and change it to the DPI loop in order to select my one DPI setting. Hopefully they'll bring motion sync in with a future update, but other than that the software is a bit annoying, but usable.

I had some issues with selecting the polling rate, I set it to 1000 hz but it was clearly only running at 125 hz. I rebooted the machine and that issue went away.

Overall, I love the size and shape of this thing, and the weight is pretty good too. Out of the box it just felt cheap and like they cut corners, but once I swapped to the honeycomb backplate a lot of those issues went away. If you want to take the risk with QC issues, Amazon is the place to do it, with good returns. I haven't decided what I'm going to do with mine yet,

Update

I was able to fix the issues with this mouse. The body of the mouse has two magnets in it, which secure the back plate. The back plate has two screws in it that make contact with the magnets. I theorized that the screws weren't actually making contact, so I backed them out half a turn. Now the solid plate fits even better than the honeycomb plate. This fixes my biggest issues with the mouse. Every now and then the mouse struggles with wireless connectivity, but I really can't blame it, it's in a hub with three other mice and a BT receiver, so I'm not giving it the best chance. After fixing the back plate, I do recommend this mouse.

1 Comment
2023/05/18
22:25 UTC

6

Pwnage Ultra Custom Ergo 2.0 and Symm 1.0 Gen 2 review

This will mostly be a review of the Symm 1.0 gen 2, as I have a lot more hands-on time with that mouse, but I will dedicate a paragraph or two for the Ergo.

I've been buying a lot of mice recently, and picked up both of these models. At the time of writing, the Symm 1 is $60 and the Ergo is $70 on Amazon in the US.

I would say the Symm 1 is about 90% the mouse of the Logitech G Pro X Superlight, but for about 1/3 the price. You get an excellent sensor (PAW 3370) a nice ambi design, and a lightweight mouse. The software that is included allowed me to do everything I wanted with the mouse (adjusting/turning off RGB, adjusting DPI profiles, remapping buttons, creating macros, change lift-off-distance, changing polling rates) and the software writes the changes to the mouse, so no need to keep it running in the background.

I've seen some reviews on the Symm 1 gen 1, and most of the issues mentioned in those reviews have been fixed in the gen 2. There was some side flex on the mouse when squeezing, which does not exist in the gen 2. I can squeeze this thing as hard as possible and can't get it to flex. Bottom flex has also been addressed, along with grinding on the mouse 1 and 2 clicks. They also put a nice little spot under the top cover to store your dongle, which was not available in gen 1. Another "feature" on the gen 1 was that the RGB would turn off when the mouse was in motion. This has now become an option which I turned off immediately.

Both the Ergo and Symm have two modes, Office Mode and Gaming Mode. These modes are controlled by a hardware switch. The only difference is that the Office Mode turns off the main RGB. I don't run RGB on wireless mice, so I stay in Office Mode. It does not do anything with the latency or polling rate, so I'm happy it's an option. The mouse wheel by default will still be lit and color coded to your DPI profile. You can turn that off under the DPI settings in the software.

The reason these mice are called "Ultra Custom" is because you can replace the top cover and main buttons with different shells available from Pwnage's website. This is where the Ergo and Symm 1 models differ a bit. The Ergo came with four top covers (white honeycomb, black honeycomb, white solid, black solid) and two button covers (white and black) where the Symm 1 only came with one button cover (color matched to body) and two top covers (honeycomb and solid, color matched to the body), so you get a bit less customization out of the box for the Symm 1. That said, it's cheaper, so you could spend some of those savings on other colors if you want them.

The mice are considered lightweight, but do come in a bit heavier than advertised on my scale. I bought two Symm 1's, a white one and a black one, the white one is solid sides, where the black one is honeycomb sides. The black mouse with a honeycomb top weighs in at 76g, and the white mouse with a solid top comes in at 81g, so depending on your configuration you'll be between those weights. If you're a fingertip gripper you can remove the back cover entirely and save a few g, but I personally feel these mice are too large for fingertip grips. There is a Symm 2 that is available on the Pwnage website (It's not on Amazon currently) that is a bit smaller and more suited for fingertip gripping. If you prefer a wired mouse, you can remove the battery and save yourself about 9g of weight.

The Ergo has one downside compared to the Symm, and that's that it doesn't have a dedicated slot for the dongle. I just take off the back cover and put the dongle on top of the battery and that is fine for taking the mice on the go.

The closest direct competitor to these mice are the Glorious Model O and the Glorious Model D. I had a D wireless for about a year and prefer the Ergo over it in every way. The software is better and doesn't need to run in the background, and the build quality and sensors are better, all at a cheaper price. I'd recommend these mice to anyone looking to up their mouse game, and am looking forward to the Pwnage Stormbreaker, which I have pre-ordered.

If you wrote off Pwnage based on the gen 1's, or if you just haven't heard of them, they're definitely worth a pickup!

0 Comments
2023/04/23
16:26 UTC

4

BudgetSqueaks a place for budget mice!

Budget mice @ BudgetSqueaks

0 Comments
2023/04/23
15:54 UTC

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