The Best Mouse (and Mousepad) for Every Kind of Gamer

Budget gaming mice often forgo a lot of the conveniences and performance you get out of nicer models, but the Logitech G203 never feels like it's lacking. The sensor has a lower maximum sensitivity than you'll get out of a more expensive offering—8,000 dots per inch—so if you need that top-end sensitivity, you'll want to look elsewhere, but it features six buttons, compatibility with Logitech’s G Hub software, and most importantly, has RGB lighting. Those are all things you'd typically expect to pay more for.

The Turtle Beach Burst II Air at times felt like it wasn’t even there. I've played with a lot of mice that cut out huge chunks of their plastic hull to reduce weight, but the Burst II Air feels incredibly light without all the gaping holes. The skates are so smooth I felt like I could push the mouse around by blowing on it.

The USB-A wireless dongle fits inside a small compartment on the bottom, right next to a physical switch that swaps between 2.4 Ghz and Bluetooth modes. Two customizable thumb buttons sit along the side, while a third button for cycling DPI sits farther down along the edge, which I found particularly interesting. Most mice put this button on the top of the mouse, where it can sometimes be accidentally pressed, but this spot is so convenient it makes me wonder why Turtle Beach is the first company I've seen place it here.

The MX Master 3S isn't a gaming mouse per se, but it's also better at being a gaming mouse than many dedicated gaming mice. It features a few extra customizable buttons, plus a horizontal side scrolling wheel. It's ridiculously comfortable. Logitech's been making mice for years, and this mouse benefits from all that experience, with a smooth arc for your palm and a rest spot for your thumb. It even includes a button in that spot where your thumb naturally rests. This is the preferred daily mouse of many WIRED staffers, including senior reviews editor Parker Hall. The one downside is that the 125Hz polling rate is a bit low for competitive FPS games, but if you're looking for something more solo, it's hard to get more comfortable than this.

The Contour Design Unimouse is another pick that's not exactly a gaming mouse, but it's deeply appealing if you've come down with a bad case of gamer hand. As someone who suffers from intermittent wrist pain that, on a bad day, can make it difficult to hold up a phone without painkillers, I'm always on the look for something that can reduce wrist strain.

The Unimouse is designed from the ground up for just such a purpose. The top of the mouse is attached to the base via a customizable hinge that can tilt between a more typical mouse orientation to a nearly vertical one. The thumb rest on the side can be adjusted forward or back, so that it sits perfectly in your palm. While it lacks some of the more gamer-centric features of other mice on this list, it has a few customizable buttons that can help your gameplay. The best thing you can do for your wrist pain is probably to stop playing games for a while, but if you're not going to do that, this mouse is a great backup option.

For fast-paced games like FPS shooters, speed matters more than anything else. The few milliseconds between when your brain tells your finger to press a button and the game registering the button press can be the difference between virtual life and death. Wireless mice are often at a disadvantage on this front, but Logitech's Pro X Superlight 2 is one of the few that rivals wired mice in speed, with a 32,000 DPI sensor and 2K polling for speedy response. It also features two programmable side buttons, an internal compartment to store its USB wireless receiver, and it's comfortable for most people's hands.

Logitech's G Pro X series was designed with input from esports professionals. Lightning-fast response times and proper ergonomics ensure that the additional buttons are right where your fingers rest. The wireless receiver delivers 1-millisecond response times, so you won't miss headshots due to lag. The buttons are satisfying and sturdy, with mechanically tensioned springs underneath both the left and right buttons, and separate key plates for accuracy.

It lasts around 48 hours on a single charge, but if you want to completely forget about charging, get the wireless charging-mat bundle.

Left-handed gamers all too often have limited options when it comes to getting the best gaming mice, but Corsair's M75 has plenty of tricks up its ambidextrous sleeves. It has a symmetrical design with some of the smoothest mouse skates of any mouse I've used. It pairs wirelessly via either a 2.4-GHz dongle or Bluetooth. Best of all, it has two thumb buttons on both sides of the mouse, so no matter which hand you use it with, you have convenient shortcuts. The caps on these buttons are also magnetic, and you can swap them out for either flat or slightly raised caps, depending on your preferences.

I've been using the Logitech G600 for more than a decade and all I've wanted is for Logitech to make a wireless version of the mouse I love. While I continue to wait, Corsair has stepped up. The Scimitar Elite Wireless has an array of 12 thumb buttons along the left side, which can be customized with various shortcuts, macros, and functions. There are games like Overwatch 2 or any MMO that I can't play without a mouse like this, and while I like Logitech's software better, Corsair's mouse is an excellent portable alternative.

★ Alternative: The SteelSeries Aerox 9 ($150) is slightly more expensive than the Scimitar Elite (though it's often on sale for less), and has a similar array of side buttons. Its shell also has a grid cutout pattern, which SteelSeries says helps reduce the weight of the mouse, but my roommate says triggers her trypophobia, so your mileage may vary.

I am personally a fan of mice with a dozen extra buttons, but if you'd rather just have a little bit of extra power without being overwhelmed, the Razer Cobra Pro might be more your speed. It has two thumb buttons on the left side, as well as two DPI controls down the middle, all of which can be customized to your needs. While playing Overwatch 2, I like to use the DPI buttons to cycle between sensitivities for different heroes, but when I'm using it for work, I like that I can assign common shortcuts or macros that I need while getting things done.

Our previous pick for this category, the Razer Naga Trinity, is still a great mouse, but the Naga V2 Pro has superseded it in just about every way (including price). Like the Trinity, the V2 Pro comes with three interchangeable plates with various arrangements of programmable buttons. However, this set no longer includes a plate with a circular array of six buttons like the Trinity, instead including a more natural panel with six buttons laid out in a curved grid. Underneath, it also has a slot for an optional wireless charging puck, and the mouse features Razer's ultra-customizable scroll wheel.

One of the cheapest things you can do to upgrade your PC gaming experience is to invest in a high-quality mousepad. If you’re a mouse-and-keyboard gamer, having the right surface for your trusty little rodent can be super helpful. Not only do you have a nice little area of your desk cordoned off for mouse use, but you also get a surface designed to be as friction-free and slick as possible—so you’ll be as quick as possible.

SteelSeries’ QcK mousepad is one of my all-time favorites. The medium size is perfect for most desks, even small ones. It’s well made and doesn’t fray easily—cheaper mousepads often fray at the edges, which ruins the aesthetic a good mousepad can lend to a workstation.

This doesn't seem like your usual gaming accessory, because it's not. It's a wool felt pad from Portland, Oregon, company Grovemade, and it's large enough to fit a keyboard and a mouse with room to spare. It feels soft and plush under your wrists, and all of the gaming mice on this list just glide over its surface, it's like they're sliding on glass. It's a big surprise, honestly. Not to mention, a felt desk pad adds an air of sophistication and style to any desk, without making it seem too uptight. The light great color looks amazing under RGB lighting in a dark room. It's an easy and affordable way to inject some unique style into your work (and play) space. 

Here are a few features that really separate a gaming mouse from a regular came-with-my-PC kind of mouse:

• Extra-sensitive optical sensors: Gaming mice should have more sensitive optical sensors that can detect smaller movements more quickly than a standard mouse.
• More buttons: At a minimum, a good gaming mouse should have a clickable scroll wheel, a button for adjusting sensitivity, and two buttons where your thumb rests. Those extra thumb buttons can be lifesavers in competitive games.
• Better buttons: They should also have higher-quality buttons, and more of them, than a standard office mouse. The left and right buttons should have individual switches inside, tensioned to register rapid clicks and reinforced to withstand more frequent clicks than a normal mouse. Top-of-the-line gaming mice often feature proprietary mechanical switches inside that give them a more tactile feel when you click.
• Polling rate: For most games, the typical 1000-Hz polling rate will be sufficient, but if you play a lot of fast-paced competitive games, where split-second actions can be crucial to victory, than you may get some benefit out of mice with faster polling rates.
• Don't buy the dpi hype: Dots per inch is a metric that describes a mouse’s overall sensitivity. A higher dpi means it can respond quicker, which is helpful in competitive online games. However, even if your mouse can go all the way up to, say, 20,000 dpi, most people (even in online games) keep their sensitivity around 800 to 1,600 dpi. So more doesn’t necessarily mean better.