Fan-equipped Zephyr Pro mouse is much cooler than the original

About a year ago, I wrote about a gaming mouse called Zephyr with a unique feature – a built-in fan designed to cool your palm when playing games. It didn’t blow my mind; the fan was loud, vibrated a lot, and wasn’t exactly cool.

But the creators, now known as Marsback, are back with a new “sweat-resistant” gaming mouse called the Zephyr Pro. And that’s a big improvement.

The exterior design hasn’t changed much. The Zephyr Pro is a fairly unremarkable looking gaming mouse with the required RGB lighting and a honeycomb chassis to reduce weight and increase airflow. The main RGB lighting strip now extends around the bottom edge of the mouse rather than around the left and right buttons.

The Pro doesn’t expand the input options any more than its predecessor; there is still a standard layout of two side buttons and one at the top to control DPI sensitivity. It’s naturally lightweight by design but doesn’t feel too cheap, and it has worked perfectly for me through dozens of hours of different shooters.

The main change is in the performance of the fan itself. I often found myself turning it off on the original Zephyr due to noise and vibration, but both were greatly reduced with the Pro. It’s not exactly silent, but unlike the original, it’s hard to hear the hum of a regular PC or laptop.

The quieter fan doesn’t represent a reduction in cooling power, according to Marsback. The Pro model I tested is actually much more efficient at cooling, although this is compared to a prototype of the original Zephyr rather than the final product. The fan now pulls straight up instead of a 45 degree angle, which seems to make a difference. You still shouldn’t expect to feel like your palm is blown away by an air conditioner, but I appreciate the cooling effect overall.

The Zephyr Pro has built-in memory and software to let you customize button functionality and RGB lighting, with plenty of options for both. Surprisingly, there’s no way to adjust the fan speed – you just need to turn it on and off with a button at the bottom of the mouse. Unlike the original Zephyr, however, there’s no reason to want to turn the fan down, as it’s pretty quiet at full throttle.

Finally, one of the best new features of the Zephyr Pro is the price. $ 59 is pretty reasonable for a wired mouse like this and a lot more competitive than the original $ 99 Zephyr. Marsback also currently has a $ 10 deal on your first order in its online store.

There are definitely a lot of great options out there at this price point that don’t come with a fan, so this mouse still won’t be for everyone. But as someone who lives in a city with horrible summers, I’ve enjoyed the Zephyr Pro for the past few weeks. Play equipment tends to heat up, so it’s refreshing to use a prop that goes the other way around.