XPG Alpha Gaming Mouse (Wired and Wireless) Review

Image: HGG / Cody Campbell

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Penned by Cody D. Campbell

Cody has been a gamer ever since his family got a Sega Genesis when he was five-years-old. In addition to his love of narrative-focused RPGs and ho... Read more

Reviewed by Benjamin Barr

A good mouse is an essential piece of equipment for a PC gaming setup. You can spend all the money you want on graphics cards and fancy monitors, but hitting your targets will always be a struggle if the peripheral in your hand isn’t up to the task.

XPG is the gaming arm of Adata, a company widely know for making hard drives. Recently, they have branched out into peripherals. High Ground Gaming has previously reviewed their Precog headset, as well as their Summoner and Mage gaming keyboards. Now, they’ve sent us both the wired and wireless editions of their Alpha line of gaming mice so that we could give them a fair and unbiased review. Here’s what we found.

Unboxing and Build Quality

Both versions of the XPG Alpha gaming mouse come with the same stuff in the box. They both include a quick-start guide, some stickers, a six-foot braided cable, and the mouse itself. They are nearly identical in terms of design — both are made of a hard, black plastic with textured sides and have a rubberized scroll wheel and three large skates on the bottom.

There are also two extra programmable buttons on the thumb side. The mice have RGB that shines through an XPG logo on the palm, through the scroll wheel, and from underneath the right and left buttons.

Both of the XPG Alpha mice are exceptionally light, although the wireless one feels ever-so-slightly heavier, likely due to the battery. The wireless version of the mouse also has a small compartment on the bottom that can be used to store the 2.4G USB dongle, and has a switch that changes the mouse between 2.4G, wired, and Bluetooth modes.

These mice both use a PAW-3335 Sensor with up to 16,000 DPI. This is one of the better low-power gaming sensors on the market and it performed very well in testing.

It’s worth noting that the USB Type-C to USB Type-A cable that comes with both versions of the mouse has slots that interlock with ridges on the mouse. This is kind of a double-edged sword. It ensures that the cable will stay firmly in place while the mouse is being used, but this design makes it so that it cannot be replaced with a different cable.

That can be a problem if the cable is damaged, if the user needs a longer cable, or if they would simply prefer to replace the somewhat rigid, low-quality cable that comes with it with a lighter one.

XPG Alpha Gaming Performance

We tested both of the XPG Alpha gaming mice by playing Halo Infinite. The ergonomic design of the mouse was comfortable in the hand, even though the hard plastic didn’t feel particularly premium and it lacks any kind of texture on the palm or on the left and right buttons.

Again, we should point out that the mouse is very light. Some gamers may prefer this for faster reaction speed while others may prefer the tactile feedback of a bit more weight.

The Omron switches have a satisfying click in each of the buttons and the PAW-3335 offers a range of speeds that goes well beyond what most users are likely to need, allowing them to fine-tune their gaming interactions.

Connectivity was never an issue across all three game modes. There is always a small amount of lag with Bluetooth, but the 2.4G and wired modes performed flawlessly. The mouse was responsive and we found it to be perfectly adequate for FPS gaming. The biggest issue we had was with the physical cable. It is very stiff and we found that it often fights the movement of the mouse.

RGB and XPG Prime Software

The lighting for the Alpha gaming mice can be controlled through the XPG Prime Software. This offers three profiles with seven different effects to choose from: Static, Color Cycle, Breathing, Reactive, Rainbow Wave, Ripple, and Meteor. Users can control the direction, brightness and speed of the effects. They can also choose between using the full spectrum of colors or a limited spectrum, although this feature didn’t seem to work with the Rainbow Wave effect.

The software also has many more utilitarian functions. Users can set up to six sensitivity steps ranging from 100-16,000DPI. They can then cycle through using the center button on the mouse. Users have the option of using a feature called angle snap in which the mouse sensor predicts the degree of intended movement and ignores a few degrees of movement outside that range. Then they can adjust debounce time and set macros and key bindings as well.

For the wireless version, users can also adjust how long the mouse can remain inactive before going to sleep and how much notice the software will give the user before the mouse’ battery dies. These are fairly typical adjustability features, but all of them performed well.

Is the XPG Alpha Worth the Money?

While we are reviewing these mice together, the wired and wireless editions of the XPG Alpha gaming mouse come in at two different price points. The wired version is $39.99. Unfortunately, that pits it against other ergonomic wired mice like the Logitech G502 Hero and the Razer Basilisk V2, which are both similarly priced and offer superior build quality, a higher range of sensitivity, and other features like adjustable weights and extra buttons. That makes the wired version of the Alpha a hard sell, especially given the stiffness of the cable.

The wireless version is another story, coming in at $59.99. There aren’t a lot of name-brand, ergonomic, wireless mice with a sensor that can match the PAW-3335 in that price range. Most that can outmatch its features are significantly more expensive. This makes the XPG Alpha Wireless a much more viable option for value-minded buyers, in our opinion.

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