Cherry Xtrfy M68 Pro Wireless Mouse Review

While offering some solid hardware features, namely the 8,000Hz poll rate sensor and impressive battery life, the lack of software support and odd charging port design keep the Cherry Xtrfy M68 Pro Wireless Mouse from greatness.

Pros

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  Sleek design with good button placement

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  Low-profile front end for better mouse control

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  No software

Cons

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  Awkwardly placed charging port

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  Poor battery life in Pro Gaming mode

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  No software support

The M68 Pro Wireless shares many similarities with its counterpart, the

, which we reviewed in December. Unlike its counterpart, the M68 Pro Wireless opts for a symmetrical design, but it features an ultra-low front-end profile measuring just 0.3 inches (7.7mm) high. This design element has carried over from the M64 Pro and offers a very natural and comfortable grip positioning for your hand and wrist.

This design also allows for better mouse control — it lets your hand fully close around the mouse, making it feel like an extension of your arm instead of a separate peripheral. To further support this design philosophy of control, the button positioning is excellent on the M68 Pro Wireless. It is also quite comfortable and offers excellent positioning to be easily within reach of the thumb and fingers.

Constructed of lightweight but durable plastic, the M68 Pro Wireless is covered by a matte UV coating to help reduce overall wear and tear. The coating does a decent job at offering protection, but I’ve noticed that after a few weeks of using the black variation (white and "Vitality" editions are also available), the oil generated by my fingertips has begun to leave some lasting residue on the buttons. Thankfully it's easily wipeable returning the M68 Pro Wireless to its fresh, out-of-the-box look.

The black version of the M68 Pro Wireless offers a minimalist aesthetic: while the shell and rubberized covering over the scroll wheel feature the aforementioned matte black finish, the mouse is accented with matte white side buttons and a matte white side finish on the scroll wheel. This helps give the M68 Pro a distinct — albeit, subtle — look.

Interestingly, as part of the plug-and-play design philosophy, the M68 Pro Wireless doesn’t feature any of the standard RGB lighting offered in other premium mice. When considering Poll Rating and DPI specs compared to other mice in its price range such as the Razer Viper V3 Hyperspeed, the lack of RGB isn’t surprising as the M68 Pro Wireless is built with professional players in mind.

The M68 Pro Wireless has a 5-button design and a fairly straightforward layout. The left and right primary buttons feature the well-performing Huano Transparent Blue Shell Pink Dot switches, which are a variation of the standard Blue Shell Pink Dot switches — known for their clicky sound, accurate actuation, and quick response.

The transparent variant offered a similar experience to the original Blue Shell Pink Dot switches in testing with only one notable difference: When clicked, they gave a different tactical response. They're still as spammable as the originals, but they're slightly quieter overall. This is ideal for settings that require a lot of spamming — in my case, playing any competitive shooter — as the overall noise level is slightly lower.

The side buttons offered solid feedback as well during testing, and, as mentioned, are positioned quite well, allowing your thumb to easily reach both buttons without putting extra strain on the joint. As for the scroll wheel, Cherry opts for a notch-style wheel with a single push button at the center. While there was no customization or tilt wheel clicking, the wheel performed quite well, providing consistent scrolling up and down the page.

Flipping the M68 Pro Wireless over, you’re greeted with all of the customization controls On the left side of the bottom plate is a slide switch that allows for switching between off, Mouse sensitivity (CPI), Poll Rating (PR), and Debounce time (DT). On the right side is a single button that cycles through the various options of each of these settings.

While the M68 Pro Wireless is primarily a wireless mouse and supports 2.4GHz wireless via the included dongle, it also supports wired mode. This brings me to the only other notable design element that needs to be addressed: the position of the charging port. The mouse has a USB-C charging port that doubles as the wired mode port located on the right side of the mouse. While there is a solid reason for this — it allows for a low-profile front end for better control — it is unfortunately very awkwardly placed for using the mouse in wired mode.

When plugged in, the 6-foot (1.8m) USB-A to USB-C Cherry Xtrfy Ezcord lies to the side of the mouse. This makes left-to-right movement feel encumbered by the cord and takes away from the overall performance. It's a weird design choice that hampers performance. The M68 Pro Wireless charges relatively quickly (about two hours to go from 0% to 100%), but if you need to charge during a gameplay session, things get awkward.

That said, the M68 Pro Wireless is comfortable to use in wireless mode. I have fairly large hands, but I still found the mouse quite comfortable in hand, thanks to the well-placed, easy-to-reach buttons. I had my 11-year-old daughter test the mouse for hand-size comparison — and after a few hours of Lego Fortnite, she was hesitant to give it back to me. She found it to be easy to use with great button placement, even with her smaller hands.

The button placement, coupled with the mouse's light weight of 1.94 ounces (55g) makes the M68 Pro Wireless easy to handle, move, and pick up. It's a bit of an adjustment if you're moving from something heavier, such as the 3.9-ounce

, but it will quickly feel like an extension of your arm. The mouse also glides well, thanks to the PTFT feet.

The Pixart 3395 sensor responded well in testing — mouse movements were precise and accurate, and each of the DPI settings felt distinct. The M68 Pro Wireless performed expectedly well in game testing, with accurate movements and a speedy response time. The mouse manages a respectable 650 IPS in maximum speed and can handle up to 60 G's of force — a little lower than what you'll see in Razer's latest mice (750 IPS, 70 G's of force), but the responsiveness of the mouse was excellent, especially in FPS games.

Like many ultralight, stripped-down gaming mice today, the M68 Pro Wireless boasts up to an 8,000 Hz wireless polling rate for an ultra-smooth experience. The mouse comes with an 8,000 Hz-ready 2.4GHz wireless dongle, which is a nice touch considering many of Razer's mice require you to purchase a separate dongle for faster polling rates.

The mouse's sensor held up well during surface tests, providing accurate feedback on a variety of surfaces: a mouse pad, a reflective table top, and even a plastic folding table surface (though the slight texture did reduce the overall drag smoothness). The only surface the mouse struggled with was glass, which was what we expected.

Perhaps the biggest strength of the M68 Pro Wireless — and the entire Cherry Xtrfy M series — is the software-free plug-and-play design. All of the mouse's settings are handled using the switches on the bottom of the mouse. It's not super straightforward, and you will need to read through the online manual to understand what the small indicator light (located on the left side of the mouse) is trying to tell you.

Along with CPI (DPI), polling rate, and debounce time, the mouse also lets you adjust lift-off distance, motion sync, and sensor mode. Lift-off has two presets (1mm and 2mm), while motion sync, which syncs data rates between the mouse input and computer input.

As for sensor mode, the M68 Pro Wireless comes with three different ones: Pro Gaming, Standard Gaming, and Low Power. Pro Gaming mode dials the sensor settings to provide speed, sensitivity, and pro-level response times for serious gamers. The drawback to this mode is that it requires extra power, which means reduced battery life. Standard Gaming mode is a middle-of-the-road setting, for a solid gaming experience and decent battery life. Finally, Low Power mode focuses on preserving battery life.

To switch these settings, including cycling through sensor modes, you'll need to press and hold various combinations of buttons, which can be found in the manual. Luckily, lift-off and motion sync are probably not things you'll need to switch too often, but if you plan on using the sensor modes it can be a bit of a hassle.

The plug-and-play experience offered by the M68 Pro Wireless is actually pretty good if you're the kind of gamer who knows what you want — and let's face it, most of us aren't switching up our mouse settings all that often, anyway. But because there's no software, you are limited to the presets that come with the mouse. You can't fine-tune settings like DPI, reprogram buttons, or measure things like battery life via software. There is an LED indicator light, but you'll need to reference the manual to see what each setting is currently adjusted to, and as there are a lot of settings, this gets complicated quickly. You can also check the battery life with a combination of button presses and the indicator LED — but, again, that just further complicates things.

The plus side, of course, is that you don't have to struggle through bloated peripheral software.

But there are two issues that are hard to get past — the complete lack of software support and the awkwardly-placed charging port. While I appreciate Cherry's commitment to a hardware-focused design, it would be nice to have the option to make some adjustments and track battery life via software. At the very least, I'd like a better way to determine how the mouse is currently configured.

The charging port location is a bit of a catch-22, as the location allows the mouse to have its low-profile front end, which does allow for fantastic control. But the mouse is very cumbersome to use in wired mode — it's honestly better to just not use it. And while the charging time is relatively quick, it's still two hours you'll need to spend with a backup mouse.

While it does bring a more interesting design concept to the table instead of just a boring, stripped-down ultralightweight, high-polling mouse like

, it is still $139.

is lighter (53g) and also offers 8K polling rates — and while it is wired, the cable is extremely flexible and low drag (and it's only $60).