Review: The Turtle Beach Burst II Air wireless gaming mouse is lighter than a Mars bar

Coming in at a measured 46g, the Burst II Air is Turtle Beach's answer to the question, "how light can you make a high performance gaming mouse without making it look like wild dogs have bitten chunks out of the outer facing shell, or sacrificing important features?".

The original Burst Pro Air released around two years ago under the Roccat brand. Sadly, Roccat, is no more, since Turtle Beach acquired the company not long ago. The original version had some visual flare that's for sure, take a look:

Thankfully, Turtle Beach decided to tone down the RGB to zero whilst also putting the new version on a bit of a diet for good measure.

Turtle Beach as a brand goes way back, I fondly remember the Santa Cruz soundcard back in the Windows XP days. It was my first and only Turtle Beach product, and fast forward to today, some twenty years later, it's refreshing to see that palm tree logo at my workstation once more.

This isn't a review sample, it is my own mouse bought as an upgrade to the now creaking Endgame XM2we, another lightweight mouse, although coming in at 62g. Both mice are not a mile apart in price relative to the specs and bundled accessories.

The XM2we is still £80, whilst the Burst II Air is £99 and comes with spare large sized PTFE skates and pre-cut rubberised grip tapes and the bonus of Bluetooth connectivity to a second computer. Direct comparisons between both mice will be made throughout this review due to how similar they are.

Specifications

In the hand

Both the XM2 and Burst II Air feel very similar in the hand, not only the shape and size, but also material quality. The Burst II Air slightly higher rear resulting in a slightly better palm resting position, and the plastic texture finish is slightly more course than that of the Endgame mouse.

What sets the Burst II Air apart though is the lack of weight. At 46g measured, it's quite a bit lighter than the XM2we, and you can really feel it. I find myself needing hardly any pinch pressure with the thumb and ring fingers to lift off this mouse, whereas additional pressure is needed to lift the heavier and smoother finished XM2we.

My only gripe, and really, it's a nitpick, is that the DPI button (or Easy Shift button if remapped) is a bit far forwards, meaning I have to reach my thumb out further than I would have liked to press it since my thumb naturally rests just below the back and forward buttons:

With the included button grip tapes installed, the comfort and feel is improved further. These grips are rubber in finish unlike those bundled with competing mice or bought third-party. This means they should last longer and not absorb any moisture, it also means cleaning them with anti-bac wipes is easier:

I wasn't a fan of the grip tape size for the sides of the mouse, though, and ended up trimming them with scissors to my own preference.

Using the mouse in wired mode is also problem-free. The cable that comes with it is very similar to the Endgame cable, braided and extremely light, though the Type-C connector on the Endgame is angled upwards which allows the cable to point to the air rather than drag against the mouse surface creating potential unwanted friction:

On the desk

The pure PTFE skates that come pre-installed are good, but out of pure preference I swapped them for the larger skates. On my fabric mouse mat, they glide just as smooth as any mouse I have used on it, though more here thanks to the 46g weight.

The sensor positions aren't a mile apart on the backside either, so both track and perform similarly, too.

Button feedback

The Kailh optical switches are pre-tensioned and have a similar feel and feedback on both mice, though the Burst II Air has less pre-click and post-click travel on the surface caps. The side buttons also sound the same but feel different. It is easier to accidentally trigger the back and forward buttons on the XM2we, whereas they are flatter on the Burst II Air and as such, less likely to get accidental clicks.

The side buttons are slightly soft on depress, with similar amounts of pre-click and post-click travel.

The mouse wheel is also interesting. It is knurled for grip but is entirely plastic. The outer contact area is typically rubber on other mice, not so here. Maybe this is a way to save another gram I'm not sure, but grip hasn't been an issue because of this.

Performance

For a quick bit of initial fun I played the mouse accuracy test, Given how dynamic this little game is, it's not a bad way to measure your own flick reflexes based on the weight of the mouse and button click feedback.

Here are my results:

A measurable improvement. I'd say this is thanks mostly to the lighter weight and comfort in the hand using the grip tape. The sensor performance between both is too close to notice any difference, but I do have the debounce set to zero on the Burst II Air, as well as running the surface calibration in the Swarm II app, maybe this has helped, too.

I also just started playing Selaco, a boomer shooter with fast mouse camera control, so this is perfect to test out how responsive a lightweight mouse like this can be:

It's so easy to flick the mouse around in third and first-person games. The XM2we's 63g was already excellent, this is just better. Going back to a heavier gaming mouse doesn't feel the same now.

Button click to on-screen action latency is also excellent, although it is excellent on the older XM2we, too, and the MX Master 3 for that matter. What I am noticing is the ever so slight improvement in tracking accuracy.

Whether this is due to the calibration for the surface via the Swarm II software or just that the sensor is higher end on the Burst II Air I can't say for sure.

I included the MX Master 3S in the below test purely as a reference point. The click latency is good, it's the fixed 125Hz polling rate that hurts camera panning in games, and the fact that it weighs a chonky 141g.

Software - Swarm II

The software used to manage Turtle Beach devices. Normally I'm not a fan of peripheral software, even Logitech took years to get it right from the woe that was SetPoint, to the rather excellent Options+ it has since migrated into.

Swarm II is nice to look at, nice to use and very responsive. It shows all the information I'd need to know in an easy to decipher way, with hints describing what certain features do.

The app can be set to auto start with Windows, but because all your customisations are stored on-board the mouse directly, the app does not need to be running in the background. Right clicking the tray icon presents a quick view on the status and active profile.

Nevertheless, resource usage when it is in the background is tiny as shown above, nice!

Conclusion

The Burst II Air is genuinely an excellent mouse, not just for gaming but in general anyway as it could function as a productivity mouse if you take advantage of the Easy Shift technology built into the remappable buttons that can serve secondary functions such as macros, app launches, keystrokes and other system-wide commands.

It's not exactly a cheap mouse at essentially £100, but I think it can safely be called good value for money given the specs onboard and the overall hardware and software experience on offer. Turtle Beach's Roccat acquisition may have made people question the future of legacy Roccat products, but if the Burst II Air is anything to go by, then I think said legacy is in good hands.

It's also refreshing to see no RGB nonsense feature here, just a single status LED that is solely used for DPI and battery charge indication.

The fact that it has a decent battery and Bluetooth without having to chop holes into the housing like other mice and still come in at 47g without feeling budget says a lot about the development that has gone into this mouse.

It does not have a 4000Hz sensor when seemingly every other brand is baselining their gaming mice with it, some even coming with 8000Hz, but as objective reviewers such as Optimum Tech on YouTube has demonstrated, it's generally diminishing returns anyway and you save a lot of battery life by sticking to 1000Hz, or 2000Hz at a push.

I gave the XM2we a score of nine last year due to having a no-nonsense approach to being a great mouse mouse. Things have changed and new mice have hit the scene with varying features.

The Burst II Air is a mouse that I'd recommend to anyone that wants a lightweight yet feature packed mouse, and the fact that it is suitable for work and play is a bonus. A point or two must be deducted due to the placement of the DPI button, though, and some minor sideways play of both buttons when you wiggle them at rest with the grip tapes installed. Whether the play increases over time remains to be seen.

I also wish that the screw holes to disassemble the mouse for any maintenance/modding were better located a s they are under the skates, so you must remove the skates before being able to unscrew the housing. This means you'll need to source new skates if you ever need to take it apart.

If there is a Burst III Air on the cards for next year which addresses these, whilst adding some more features without increasing the weight, then I'll be adding it to my shopping basket.