A Great No-Frills Lightweight Mouse

Having spent well over a decade with my stalwart but weighty Razer Naga, I’ve never taken a chance on a lightweight mouse. I was therefore surprised to find myself not only loving the NZXT Lift Elite Wireless but also thriving with it in-game.

NZXT Lift Elite Wireless Mouse

A lightweight gaming mouse with 2.4 GHz wireless connectivity. It uses customization software to set its DPI, polling rate, and more.

Pros & Cons

• Comfortable design
• Very light
• Easy customization and profile swapping
• Good enough battery

• May be too small for big hands
• No Bluetooth

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Price and Availability

The NZXT Lift Elite Wireless mouse retails for $79.99 and comes in two colors: matte white and matte black. Included in the box is a braided 6.56-foot USB-A to USB-C cable, a USB-A receiver, an adapter to connect the cable to the receiver, and optional grip tape for people who want better leverage over the mouse buttons.

No Frills, but Plenty of Thrills

The Lift Elite Wireless is the definition of a workhorse. There’s nothing special or unique here, but it does an admirable job for a good price and—most importantly—without any fuss. In a time when I often feel inundated with features in new devices, I was pleasantly surprised.

When connecting the mouse and setting my preferred DPI and polling rate, I marveled at just how swiftly I was able to go about tasks, and the finer granularity of control I felt over games. This went for both first-person shooters and MMOs; while I couldn’t live without a mouse numpad for that latter genre, it was a good show of just how fluid the Lift Elite Wireless feels. It turns out not lugging a brick across your desk is way more comfortable. Who knew!

Still, weighing two ounces (53g), the mouse isn’t entirely weightless. This felt like a sweet spot between using minimal force and feeling like I was navigating a physical object, resulting in a greater sense of control. I put a lot of this feat on seamless ergonomics. Laying my hand along the mouse naturally had my thumb and pinky or ring finger clutching the grips on either side, with my index and middle finger strewn along the mouse buttons. My thumb’s tip and inner knuckle could easily roll between the two side buttons, the large size of which eliminated any need for fishing for them mid-gameplay.

The one issue I had with the Lift Elite Wireless—which you may not—is that it’s a touch small for my large-leaning hands. My palm typically dragged off the back, causing extra friction, and sometimes the sides of my fingers similarly rubbed against my mouse pad. This might not be the best mouse for the hulk-handed among us, though if you have small hands, it’s a proverbially fitting glove.

It’s also worth noting the titular “lift” feature, where you can set the optical sensor to keep reading inputs when 1-2 mm off the ground. Honestly, I never found myself using this in any noticeable or intentional way. However, I can at least confirm it does work as advertised. That’s probably not surprising considering this is a common feature in mice.

Software Customization That Does Its Job

The NZXT CAM app for Windows is used to customize the mouse. While I’ve had issues with this software in other contexts, for the Lift Elite Wireless it was simple and reliable.

Some of the features you can tweak include DPI settings (you can set five to toggle between per profile) and wireless polling rates up to 4,000 Hz, power-saver options, and setting the functions of mouse buttons (including a macro creator). The five available profiles are stored locally on the mouse, meaning if you swap to a different computer, the settings are retained. Profiles and DPI settings can be cycled through using a button on the bottom of the mouse.

As for battery life, the Lift Elite Wireless has enough juice to last through any day at polling rates of 2,000 Hz or higher, and enough for roughly three days at 1,000 Hz or lower. Since you can set the mouse to turn off after as little as one minute of interactivity, I never had any problems, especially as the battery quickly charges from nothing to full in just over an hour. This means the only limiting factor for polling rates is what your CPU can handle.

Great Connectivity With One Omission

As the name suggests, the Lift Elite Wireless cuts the cord in favor of a 2.4 GHz connection (though if you’re inclined to play wired, you can do so).

Unfortunately, 2.4 GHz is the only wireless option you’re getting here; Bluetooth is M.I.A. While I can understand omitting Bluetooth as its high latency isn’t ideal for gaming, it prevents the mouse from connecting with some tablets, phones, and so forth. It also meant that every time I wanted to move from my PC gaming rig to my MacBook, I had to transfer the receiver rather than swapping modes.

Still, I never had any connectivity issues with the 2.4 GHz receiver and only found myself craving Bluetooth in niche circumstances, so I don’t want to overplay this. If this mouse had to cut one standard issue feature, NZXT chose correctly.

Should You Buy an NZXT Lift Elite Wireless Mouse?

At $79.99, the NZXT Lift Elite Wireless mouse comes a bit cheaper than the equivalent mice from the big brands it’s competing with, and with a similar feature set. What I feel this mouse has going for it is its sheer simplicity without sacrificing meaningful functionality. It won’t do you much good if Bluetooth is a must, but it’s worth considering otherwise.

I’ll end with this: the greatest compliment I can give the Lift Elite Wireless mouse is that I look forward to continuing to use it after writing this review.

NZXT Lift Elite Wireless Mouse

A lightweight gaming mouse with 2.4 GHz wireless connectivity. It uses customization software to set its DPI, polling rate, and more.