This 49g wireless gaming mouse pleasantly surprised me in a lot of ways, including which company made it

ASUS makes a lot of products, so I cover a lot of ASUS products. I really enjoy the company's laptops, monitors, and gaming hardware, but ASUS' accessories have yet to really win me over — until now.

This is the ASUS ROG Harpe Ace Mini, an ultra-light, high-performance wireless gaming mouse that delivers a stellar user experience. It's an all-around great mouse for $130, and I've already seen it go on sale for much less than that, too.

If you're in the market for a fast and reliable wireless mouse, but want it to be more compact than many of the most popular options, the ROG Harpe Ace Mini is absolutely worth considering. If you value a higher 8,000Hz polling rate, though, you'll need to track down ASUS' elusive (and optional) polling rate booster.

A sensible design with seriously little weight

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ASUS' gaming accessories often adopt wild and edgy "gamer" designs, but the Harpe Ace Mini doesn't fall into that trend. This is a small, ambidextrous mouse that favors right-handed users, molded entirely out of smooth, matte plastic with few embellishments.

A lot of people prefer a more compact peripheral for gaming and working, and the Harpe Ace Mini delivers that in (tiny) spades. I love this shape, which is comfortable for multiple grip types, and only 49g of weight makes this one of the lightest high-performance gaming mice I've ever used.

Subtle lines on the side make for solid grips, the optical mouse switches feel tactile and responsive, the PFTE feet offer a smooth glide (and the mouse supports almost all surface types), and you still get some subtle RGB lighting embedded in the scroll wheel.

Despite the small size, you still get a long-lasting internal battery, a garage to store the 2.4GHz wireless dongle, and three controls on the bottom (a DPI profile button, a Pair button, and a connectivity mode switch).

"Simple" is oddly difficult to do well, but ASUS nailed it here. The matte black colorway does love to hold on to every fingerprint and smudge, though, and the scroll wheel is a bit soft for my tastes.

A great experience from hardware to software

The ASUS ROG Harpe Ace Mini may be small, but it packs a big punch. At the core of this mouse is a precise, reliable 42,000 Dots-per-Inch (DPI) optical sensor, and performance has been excellent for me.

There are plenty of other mice with a lot more mass and similar price tags that don't offer quite this level of performance, and ASUS' Armoury Crate provides a ton of options for customizing and finetuning the Harpe Ace Mini.

You can remap the buttons, dial in the DPI, set up angle snapping or tuning, calibrate for different mousepad surfaces, and more. It's easy enough to go through these options, and the Harpe Ace Mini even supports ASUS' lightweight Armoury Crate Gear software if you don't have more than one ASUS product.

If you do, the 2.4GHz wireless receiver in the box can connect to two different compatible ASUS products, and ASUS includes a nice, braided USB cable and a USB extender in the box to get your setup exactly as you want it.

It's also nice to see Bluetooth connectivity baked in, which isn't a guarantee for a high-performance gaming mouse. I'm certain productivity users would prefer an extra button or two, but the Harpe Ace Mini is small and capable enough to be an excellent travel companion, too.

I didn't have any issues with longevity, either. ASUS promises up to ~130 hours depending on your settings, and that feels accurate from my testing. The only thing this figure doesn't take into account is the support for up to 8,000Hz polling.

That's now a staple for premium gaming mouse, but the ROG Harpe Ace Mini doesn't include ASUS's Polling Rate Booster in the box — and, honestly, you'll be hard pressed to find it in stock even if you are willing to spend extra for that feature.

ROG Harpe Ace Mini review: My final thoughts

✅You should buy this if ...

• You're looking for a compact wireless gaming mouse.
• You also want fantastic performance in that small package.
• You value Bluetooth connectivity in your gaming mouse.

❌You should not buy this if ...

• You want 8,000Hz polling and you want it to be easy.
• You want a mouse with more features for productivity and creativity.

Alright, ASUS, you finally got me. The ROG Harpe Ace Mini is an awesome wireless gaming mouse. It's sleek and travel-friendly, the build quality is there to go the distance, the performance is consistently great, and the overall user experience from the software to the battery life leaves little to be desired.

There are definitely some areas for improvement, but I'm largely a big fan of what ASUS accomplished here. The only major weakness is that the absolute best performance requires an additional purchase — and I honestly couldn't reliably find that accessory in stock in my market.

I don't think you need 8,000Hz polling to make this mouse worthwhile, though. If you're looking for a compact mouse that still delivers top-level performance, the ASUS ROG Harpe Ace Mini is now available for $129.99 at Amazon.com or $129.99 at BestBuy.com — and be sure to watch out for sales, because I've already seen this mouse go for as little as $100.