Verdict

Pros

• Great value for money
• Lightweight
• Grips well

Cons

• Tracking not up there with the best
• Small size won't please everyone
• Non-braided cable

What is the Corsair Harpoon?

The Harpoon is Corsair’s budget-friendly gaming mouse, with all the basic features covered for a price of £29.99. The lightweight frame is well constructed, and it performs admirably across a variety of applications.

Unsurprisingly, it does feel a little cut-down compared with more expensive mice, but if you’re in the market for a cheaper gaming mouse, the Harpoon has plenty to offer for such a small outlay.

Related: Best gaming mice for all budgets

Corsair Harpoon – Design, build and features

Weighing in at just 85g, the Harpoon is one of the lightest mice I’ve tested. It’s quite a low-profile device, with a concave surface that’s slightly rough to the touch. It’s perhaps a little too compact for my larger hands, though, resulting in a fair amount of palm overhang. Build quality is strong, with a firm plastic shell that doesn’t show any obvious signs of weakness. Despite this, it isn’t the most luxurious-feeling product; there’s a noticeable step down in quality when compared to more expensive gaming mice.

The Corsair logo on the front of the Harpoon is lit with RGB, and forms the sole lighting zone on the mouse. It’s bright and vivid, and helps the body stand out. For a mouse that’s more bold you’ll need to increase your spend significantly.

On the top of the Harpoon you’ll find a single DPI toggle switch, rubberised scroll wheel and left/right clicks. The scroll wheel feels fantastic, offering smooth scrolling and a satisfying click. The connecting USB cable is non-detachable – and, sadly, isn’t braided. While this isn’t something with which many folk will take issue, it does increase the chance of cable kinks.

Each side of the Harpoon is coated in a large textured pad, with the rubber surface proving super-comfortable; it really helps increase the grippiness of the mouse. There are two additional buttons located on the left side, found in the traditional backward and forwards layout. These can also be reassigned in software if desired.

The underside of the mouse sees four small teflon pads surround the optical sensor. Unfortunately, there isn’t a way to add additional weight to the mouse – but again, at this price I don’t think it’s a big problem.

Related: Best gaming keyboard

Corsair Harpoon – Tracking and gaming performance

In terms of performance, the Harpoon fits within my expectations – it’s good but not the absolute best available. The 6000dpi sensor doesn’t go as high as many top-end mice, but this won’t be an issue for most; anything over 5000 will be too high to be realistically usable for most people. The buttons are excellent, however, with zippy clicks and a snappiness to the function buttons.

Tracking is solid for the most part, with accurate and predictable cursor control across long-to-medium distances. The area of weakness is in the finer details, as micro-movements fail to register predictably, making pin-point accuracy tricky. This is unlikely to affect you in day-to-day use, but precision shooter fans should consider spending a little more.

In Battlefield 1, I was able to quickly adjust to the Harpoon’s shape and weight, with this nimble mouse happy to be thrown around for both flick-shots and controlled movement. Roaming around the map was smooth, and navigating enemy soldiers into my crosshairs was simple. Sniping wasn’t the easiest, however; lining up headshots was tricker than with the Corsair M65 Pro. Nevertheless, it’s pretty darn good for a sub-£30 mouse.

If you play games such as StarCraft and Civilization, you’ll have less to worry about, with the Harpoon’s sensor allowing fast map traversal and easy resource management. Its plastic surface proves comfortable over long periods too, and in a manner that doesn’t seem to overly build up sweat. The mouse polls at 1000hz for super-fast response times, but whether you’d be able to notice the difference versus 500hz will be down to your experience with other mice.

Corsair Harpoon – Software

The Harpoon can be customised in Corsair’s CUE software, with options to change the DPI, button mappings and RGB lighting. The CUE software is easy to use, and allows for complex macros to be assigned to an individual button, if you desire.

Since there’s only a single zone of RGB lighting, customisation is limited in comparison to other mice, but you can still sync this up to other Corsair peripherals you own.

Should I buy the Corsair Harpoon?

The Harpoon is a great example of a good budget gaming mouse. Compared to some of its more expensive cousins it’s stripped down, but it covers the basics well, and the uninitiated may not be able to notice much of a difference against a mouse costing far more.

However, the tracking performance is understandably limited, with Corsair’s choice of sensor restricting the sensitivity of the Harpoon, and as a result, decreasing the level of precision in gaming scenarios.

But for the money, the Harpoon has plenty going for it, and if you’re after a budget-friendly model then this is a wise choice.

Verdict

A sub-£30 gaming mouse that delivers where it counts.

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