Cougar Airblader (Tech) Review

Cougar’s Airblader is touted as being an “Extreme Lightweight” gaming mouse. That’s a claim that a lot of brands have been making as of late and there’s certainly a lot of competition out there in the market right now. We got to spend quite some time with the Cougar Airblader for review purposes and can officially weigh in (pun intended) with our opinion on the peripheral.

First up, the Airblader’s technical specifications:

From the above, more tech savvy users can already tell that this isn’t your average run of the mill office mouse. This is a mouse that’s gamer-centric and the Pixart PMW3389 Optical sensor does all the heavy lifting of delivering excellent performance but we’ll get to that shortly. 

Looking at the Cougar Airblader, your interest will immediately be piqued by the mouse’s out of the box design. While competing brands have opted to drill tonnes of honeycomb holes into their mice to make them lighter, Cougar have attempted a different approach and one that works remarkably well. Instead of creating a mouse that might trigger trypophobia in people, Cougar have simply reworked their mouse shape to feature a hollowed out frame that allows for air to flow through it. This frame also shaves a lot of grams off the mouse’s total weight because of the large gap it creates in the body of the mouse. This gap directly allows air to flow in and around it which also lets your fingers breathe somewhat when using the mouse.

The Airblader’s design is ambidextrous being almost perfectly symmetrical apart from the two additional mouse buttons which are located on the left hand side. If Cougar included two more mouse buttons on the right hand side, that would have been great since we love having extra buttons available but alas that isn’t the case here. Given the mouse’s size, it’s more suited to users who prefer to claw grip their mouse. You can use a palm grip with the mouse but it feels a bit unwieldy when using it this way. Claw or finger gripping the Airblader is the way forward and it feels great when being used this way especially because of its extremely light weight.

Moving the mouse around takes minimal effort thanks to the PTFE skates which are located in four spots on the bottom of the mouse. Users are advised to download Cougar’s UIX software and calibrate the mouse for the surface they are planning on using it on for best performance. Doing this is super easy though and doesn’t take long to do at all once you have the software installed.

Speaking of the Cougar UIX software, this software suite is one of the most straightforward, no frills, no nonsense software suites we’ve had the pleasure of using. Everything you need to customize your Airblader is available right away. It’s all up front and is easily identifiable. Users can set 3 modes with 6 configurable buttons and if you want to set up macros, you can do this too by using the macro editor in the software suite. There are also some presets that are extremely welcome such as assigning media control keys to the mouse such as previous and next track and play/pause. This is great for using the mouse to control your music on the fly without having to actually move it and click a button on screen.

The Airblader features an “Ultraflex cable” which feels rather tough while still being light in weight. The quality of the cable instils quite a bit of confidence in us that it will last years of usage provided you don’t throw the mouse around too much into a laptop bag or something similar. It definitely feels tougher than the standard plastic found on some USB cables and the length is perfect coming in at 1.8 meters. There’s also quite a nifty strap which can be used to tie up the cable and keep it organised should the need arise. 

In our time with the Airblader, it felt fantastic to use. We had zero complaints or issues with the sensor’s performance and the fact that it glides along so easily on our mousepad made it perfect for playing first-person shooter titles. If you are someone who plays Destiny 2, PUBG or similar titles, the Airblader would be perfect for you. The extreme lightweight, while not the lightest out there, is still a solid feature and users won’t have to struggle with moving the mouse around. The mouse’s build quality also feels incredibly sturdy despite the fact that it has a hollowed out frame. Cougar have done their homework here and shaped the mouse well enough to impart a certain level of strength to it. If you forcefully press on it, there is some flex but it requires a lot of effort to do this. Whether or not the mouse will survive being thrown at full force at a wall though, we’re not too sure about and we weren’t going to try to find out. Treat your electronics with respect folks!

Clicking the Airblader’s main buttons felt great and the mouse wheel has just the right amount of resistance to it. You can’t freely spin the mouse wheel like crazy but that’s more of a niche market feature than something most gamers use. The side buttons on the left hand side can be easily distinguished but pressing them can sometimes lead to you pressing the wrong button by accident. More of a separation would have been great to have here but this problem will most likely solve itself as you get used to using the mouse over time.

Overall, Cougar’s Airblader is an extremely good value purchase. The mouse doesn’t feature any additional RGB lighting or other embellishments which drive up its price. It’s a plain and straightforward, lightweight gaming mouse that doesn’t compromise on performance. If you’re in the market for a gaming mouse that will deliver great performance without any problems and dislike RGB lighting, the Cougar Airblader is for you. We can safely recommend this product to gamers everywhere.

A Review unit of the product was provided to Gameblur by Cougar