AKKO Dash Ultra Review – Amazing Ultra Lightweight Gaming Mouse

This little thing is the AKKO Dash V9 Ultra, an ultra lightweight and rather fancy gaming mouse. This thing actually sells itself less on the weight, and more on the new microcontroller, so let’s look at this thing in its entirety to see if it’s worth your hard earned cash, and the prized spot on your gaming desk. Let’s dive in, starting with what AKKO are excited about – the MCU.

Inside here is a newer Nordic Semiconductor 54L15 (the nRF54L15), an upgrade from the usual nRF52840, mostly on the process node front, which allows for double the clock speed (128 MHz vs 64 MHz on the 52840), and apparently 30-50 percent lower power consumption, all thanks to the 22 nanometre process node. Yeah, you heard that right. 22 nanometre. That is CUTTING EDGE in the world of microcontrollers. Coming from the PC world, that’s really funny. Anyway, this means even lower latency, faster wireless communications, 8K polling in both wired and wireless, and supposedly a very impressive battery life from the included 300mAh cell. Sweet.

As for the sensor it is connected to, that’s the latest and greatest from PixArt, the PAW3950. Weirdly enough, this has a native 30,000 DPI, but AKKO have worked out how to overclock it to offer a whopping 42,000 on this new Ultra version. Why? I have absolutely no idea. It’s not like the 30,000 stock figure wasn’t quite enough, or that the related measurements like inches per second of tracking speed or peak acceleration were a little mid either. Nah, this is an unparalleled sensor that doesn’t need this at all, but hey, it’s here, so I guess that’s something? Anyway, you do have the three programmable lift off distance settings (0.7, 1 and 2 millimetre), and the usual controls like angle snapping and ripple control, all available to toggle via their software. You can also change the click debounce, although with these real nice and fancy feeling OMRON optical switches, I’m not entirely sure why you’d need debouncing at all – it’s set to 0.125ms by default anyway which is good enough for me. By the way, you can option this Dash Ultra with AKKO’s own supposedly ‘custom optical micro switches’ and save a couple quid, but I think you’ll want these OMRON ones while they are available. Apparently the non “Early-Bird” versions of the Dash Ultra will have Kailh optical switches instead, or maybe that is the ‘custom’ option? Who knows. But, by feel anyway, these OMRON ones are the way to go. They feel incredible – clicky and tactile, yet surprisingly soft and supple. Genuinely surprised by these, in a good way. 

The mouse itself is a pretty typical gaming mouse shape, just long enough to reasonably comfortably palm grip, but also short enough to just about fingertip grip (especially with larger hands). It’s comfortable enough, giving just enough of a crease on the right side for your ring and pinkie fingers, and the EDM (electrical discharge machining) finish gives it a surprising amount of grip for being so smooth. AKKO says this is optimised for small hands, but even my large ones had a decent time with this thing, so as always on the comfort front, your mileage may vary. One thing I would say is that the ultra lightweight design does compromise the shell’s rigidity a little more than I’d like, with the worst part being the two side buttons. While they have a nice enough click to them, if you press them with any amount of force you’ll quickly feel them bending and pressing deep into the shell, which doesn’t exactly scream quality. It isn’t a deal-breaker or anything, but it’s something to consider at least.

I’ve mentioned the weight a few times now without actually listing it – it’s 43 grams and some change. Does the swiss cheese base give that one away? I think so… I should note by the way that AKKO have been pretty tricksy with their figures here – they quote 40 grams for this black version, or 41 grams for white, plus or minus 3 grams. That is WITHOUT ANY SKATES! That’s such a weird choice – I mean at least it’s in big text right next to the claim, and I’m pretty sure the plus/minus includes the skates, but that’s kinda rough. Still, 43 grams makes this an incredibly light mouse – lighter than most in fact – and while the quality feel does suffer a little, man is it light in the hand. It’s stupidly easy to flick this around at high speed, making it feel as close to an extension of your arm as it possibly can be. This glides beautifully well right out the box, although if you’d prefer a different feel, just for this Dash Ultra version, you get three sets of PTFE dots you can stick onto the existing PTFE skates. Red is basically the default, white is “balanced”, and grey is the lowest friction. This felt fine to me on the stock skates – which they do include a spare set in the box too which I love to see. 

As for click latency, testing with my very own open source latency testing tool (which you can grab from OSRTT.com, linked in the description if you want to test your own kit), the Dash Ultra comes in as one of the fastest mice I’ve tested, only just behind the Razer DeathAdder V4 Pro and the Rigid CLR1, and only by a hair. This is lightning fast, both wired and wireless too! If you are wondering if polling rate matters, not really no. Wireless adds a tiny bit more instability in the timings, but there is such little difference here that my tapping technique is more likely the difference between the 8K and 1K results when wired. It’s a stupid fast mouse, and that’s all you really need to know.

As for the actual gaming experience, well as expected from the best sensor around, the fastest microcontroller you can get, crazy low latency, ultra lightweight, really nice optical switches and a good grip feel, this is amazing. It’s everything I’m looking for in an FPS focused gaming mouse, it tracks perfectly, it’s so light you barely notice it in your hand and means you can be flicking as fast as you can all day without strain, and with such low latency you can shoot first more often than not. This thing is so out of my league it isn’t even funny – I am absolutely the bottleneck in my gaming experience here, and that’s exactly what you want from your gaming mouse.

The real magic here though is the price tag. A mouse like this, with the latest microcontroller, the fanciest OMRON optical switches, ultra lightweight construction, 8K hertz polling wired and wireless, well that has to be north of £100 right? Amazingly, no! This magnificent beast can be yours for, at the time of filming anyway, just £53 (plus shipping). Unfortunately the current discount code that is chopping 15 percent off the £62 MSRP ends well before I can get this video out – it’ll end likely just before I even finish editing this video – but even for £62 this still feels like an absolute steal! All that hardware for half what someone like Glorious is asking for the Series 2 Pro that has an older sensor and 12 grams more, dayum son. Great job AKKO!