The SteelSeries Aerox 9 Wireless is a novel experiment, and like many novel experiments, it is not entirely successful. This is the first time a major manufacturer has developed a honeycomb mouse specifically for massively multiplayer online (MMO) gaming. While it is a clever idea, the end product seems a bit cramped and unintuitive to fully realize the creative premise.

Design-wise, there are no major issues with the Aerox 9 Wireless. While it doesn't change the honeycomb aesthetic, it is comfortable enough to hold. It performs well in-game, provides clean RGB lighting, and lasts longer on a single charge.

Still, the main purpose of the Aerox 9 Wireless is to provide a whopping 12 side buttons, and these buttons are simply too hard to use. These buttons are indistinguishable from one another, and it's incredibly easy to accidentally press the wrong button; at $150, the Aerox 9 Wireless is too expensive for a peripheral that doesn't do what it's supposed to do; read our SteelSeries Aerox 9 Wireless review.

The first thing you should know about the SteelSeries Aerox 9 Wireless is that it is a honeycomb mouse. If that term means anything to you, then you already know whether or not to buy this device. If not: "Honeycomb" is a unique mouse design template that started appearing about two years ago. Instead of a sturdy housing, a honeycomb mouse has holes all over its surface. These holes theoretically make the mouse lighter, cooler, and more aerodynamic, but the benefits seem to be mostly a matter of user preference.

I am not a honeycomb mouse advocate, but the fact that a major company like SteelSeries has adopted this design speaks volumes. Still, I have a hard time recommending it to the average PC gamer. Holding the mouse, I felt the holes digging into my fingers during prolonged play, and at 3.1 ounces, the weight is not radically different from ultralight wireless mice like the 3.5-ounce Corsair Harpoon RGB Wireless. The overall shape is not bad, however, and the ergonomic profile is well suited for players with a claw grip, with curved sides and a higher profile toward the back. [What sets the Aerox 9 Wireless apart from other honeycomb mice, however, is not its overall design, but rather its button layout. On the surface of the mouse, there is a right button, a left button, a clickable scroll wheel, and a dot per inch (DPI) sensitivity adjustment button. On the side, on the other hand, there are 12 thumb buttons, four of each in three rows.

This 12-button panel is a unique selling point of the Aerox 9 Wireless. But it is also the mouse's biggest weakness: each of the 12 buttons is small and has precisely the same shape. Only five buttons have small bumps to distinguish them from the others. In theory, these bumps help orient the user. In practice, however, they are neither large nor distinctive enough to help navigate the buttons during combat in a game. Even after using the mouse for several days, I could barely tell which buttons were where, with the exception of the outermost four.

The SteelSeries Aerox 9 Wireless runs on SteelSeries Engine software, which makes it relatively easy to adjust RGB lighting, customize DPI, reprogram buttons, and create individual game profiles.

One thing that concerns me is that the Engine software has been a bit strange in determining battery life lately, which was also an issue with the SteelSeries Aerox 5 Wireless. This was also an issue with the SteelSeries Aerox 5 Wireless. In my testing, the battery level would jump up and down by as much as 5% for no apparent reason. The Aerox 9 Wireless battery, on the other hand, lasts 180 hours, depending on lighting options, so up-to-the-minute accuracy is not necessary.

The Aerox 9 Wireless can connect to your computer via either a USB dongle or a Bluetooth connection. Both methods work well and are convenient if you travel back and forth between your desktop and laptop throughout the day.

The most distinctive feature of the Aerox 9 Wireless is of course the side panel with its 12 buttons. However, this did not work as well as I had hoped, which I will discuss in the next section.

Generally speaking, the SteelSeries Aerox 9 Wireless works well in games; I tested it in Age of Empires IV, Doom Eternal, Spellforce 3, and Final Fantasy XIV, and the mouse parsed every command quickly and accurately. In the first three games, I had no trouble building up medieval armies, shooting down demons, and outfitting my little adventurers with new gear.

However, since the Aerox 9 Wireless is primarily an MMO mouse, I paid special attention to Final Fantasy XIV. Here I ran into a few problems. The mouse worked fine for pointing and clicking, but using the thumb buttons was another story.

Final Fantasy XIV offers a variety of skills, which are automatically assigned to the numeric keys on the keyboard; I thought that having 12 thumb buttons available would make skill rotation easier, but it actually made things more complicated. As mentioned earlier, it is not easy to distinguish between the buttons, as they all have the same feel. I eventually memorized the locations of 1 and 5 and was able to use my feel for several of the outer buttons. The middle buttons, however, were a jumble.

I would say that the mouse has a steep learning curve. An avid player will eventually feel comfortable enough to figure out where each button is located and assign multiple shortcuts to each key. However, even after using the Aerox 9 Wireless for several days, playing FFXIV was more difficult than it would have been without the mouse. Compare and contrast this with a mouse like the Razer Naga Pro, which allows you to customize the number of buttons on the side panel.

The SteelSeries Aerox 9 Wireless is a hard mouse to recommend. Its most distinctive features work against it, and its other features work well enough with a simple, inexpensive mouse like the Aerox 5. For the same price, the Naga Pro is a much better wireless MMO mouse, and the Logitech G502 Lightspeed is a much better all-purpose wireless gaming mouse.

If you love honeycomb mice and MMOs and want to buy a mouse from the best manufacturer on the market, I tentatively recommend the Aerox 9 Wireless. As far as I know, it is the only mouse that meets this specific criteria.