Cheap and good (?) - Ajazz AJ129 review (Zowie S2/Gamesense Meta clone)
Hi guys!
This is the seventh part of my series reviewing cheap Chinese mice.
This time I'm gonna talk about the Ajazz AJ129 which is a Zowie S2/Gamesense Meta clone. I would say it's a Gamesense Meta clone which is a modified Zowie S2. You've probably seen the reviews about this mouse on youtube, it's a bit shorter, the flare is not as wide and the sides above the side button part don't bulge outward that much as on the S2. The Ajazz AJ129 is an exact clone (except for the switches), all the shell parts, the buttons, the fittings, the feet, the RGB is at the same place as on the Meta.
So Ajazz AJ129. It's very new, just came out ~1 month ago and I bought it almost instantly just to try the shape and the quality. I've neved had an S2 (only the S1) so the shape is new to me.
The mouse comes in a good looking box, in the box you get the mouse and a small manual with bad English, that's all. :D There are three color variations, I have the black shell+red buttons version and there is a white shell+black buttons version and a white+blue version.
dimensions: 119 x 63.2 x 38.2 mm measured with my caliper, 57.6 mm grip width halfway from sideview (~where my finger is), 55.3 mm is the minimum close to the bottom
weight: 67 gr on my scale with a bit of cable
build quality: no creaking, no flexing, no rattling at all, feels solid. However you can actuate the main buttons if you press hard the top of the mouse. I'm pretty sure nobody ever does that but I mentioned it just in case.
coating: very similar to Zowie's however it's not as bad with fingerprints. When your hand is clean and dry it's very smooth and not grippy but the more I hold it the grippier it gets. At least for me that's the case. And this is not the cheap type of smoothness I encountered on several other Chinese mice, this feels nicer. Combining the aforementioned this mouse feels almost like a Zowie mouse. :D
main buttons: they have ~0.5 mm pre-and post-travel, lateral button movement is none existent. The buttons sound different and unfortunately they feel different. The left button on my copy feels a bit subdued and have a lower pitched dull sound but the right button is good. It's probably just the switch (one is worse than the other) at least that's what I'm hoping for. I haven't opened up the mouse yet but my guess is there are Huano pink dots just because Ajazz states 10M clicks on the box. The needed actuation force is medium-ish thanks to the main button part is separated from the rest of the shell. Otherwise with one whole top piece (like on Zowie mice) it would feel stiff.
side buttons: very minimal pretravel, no post travel, nice tactile clicks. I think the buttons should/could be bigger by 1-2 mm and/or they should be lower, there is room for them on the side
scroll wheel: scrolling feel is very light, the steps have minimal tactility, the scroll click is mediumish-light to press, has a low pitched sound and good tactility. This wheel is not really for games, I use the scroll click to ping objects/enemies in games and I had a few occasions when instead of pressing the button I scrolled the wheel... for browsing it's excellent, it's silent and pleasant to use.
cable: it's 185 cm long and it's good IMO, it's braided, it's easy to bend and light but somewhat holds it's shape. I play with a bungee and don't have any problem with this. It's very close to the Xtrfy M42 cable and I know a lot of you don't like that.
feet: they're 0.8mm thick and black, the edges are rounded, the mouse glide is OK. This glides just a bit faster than stock Zowie or Xtrfy feet so it's nothing special and you can hear the friction. At least on the second day after few hours of use. I needed to replace my feet on all of my Zowie mice and on my M42 (because they were slow af) but this seems fine for now (just a note: the stock feet on the Xtrfy M42 makes the mouse 20 grams heavier imo if you use fingertip grip).
sensor: Pixart PAW3327. It's a cheap mid-range sensor, successor of the AM010 -> PMW3320 -> PMW3325. "It's raw and snappy without any added delay, filtering, or acceleration" - quote from Vanir on Techpowerup.
DPI can be set between 200-12400 in steps of 100
I measured:
max PCS ~220 ips (~5.5 m/s) @ 800 DPI - just like the specifications states, almost as fast as 3360
430 @ 400 DPI (+7.5%)
820 @ 800 DPI (+2.5%)
1610 @ 1600 DPI (+0.06%)
LOD between 3-4 poker cards or 0.9-1.2 mm
debounce time (not click latency) 22 ms
All in all it's a very good sensor, you won't feel the difference compared to 3360 or 3389.
In the software you can set the "key response" time between 4-16 ms in steps of 2 ms but it didn't do anything to the debounce time in my tests.
RGB: pretty good, it looks nice (full white looks a bit pink/purple). But Ajazz made two mistakes imo: firstly they painted the buttons to red on the black version and because of this the mouse looks stupid with anything but red (and some other warmer colors) RGB. I like to set the RGB to solid green but it looks bad on this mouse so I have to set it to red. I know first world problems... :D Secondly the Ajazz logo on the back of the mouse only shows one color which was assigned to the active DPI level (although you can change the color of the actual DPI step). So lets say even though the bottom of the mouse is full of colors the Ajazz logo is always still and always one colored. Anyways with everything red the mouse looks cool but it would've been better not to paint the buttons to red... maybe gray or white, those go well with every color.
Overall this is not a top tier mouse (main buttons/cable/feet could be better) but for ~$23 (includes shipping and VAT) I would consider it a steal if you like (or would like to try) the S2 shape. For the average user (not the redditor on this subreddit) this is an awesome mouse. All the lightweight S2 clones out there are much more expensive, usually 2-3x times the price of this. The Gamesense Meta is $59.99 + shipping.
edit: I opened up the mouse because that's what I usually do :) (and because the feet came off easily without damaging them). So just as I guessed the main switches are Huano black shell pink dots and after I put the shell together the left click improved a lot because I tightened the screws a bit. The other switches are all Huano black shell white dots. The scroll encoder is F-switch black core (can't see the height unless I desolder the switch next to it).
Interestingly the sensor is called Zeus6400, I've seen this branding before on some mice (I think it was Motospeed).
Another thing is the side buttons are that good because the pcb is right next to the buttons so they're not on a lever - usually that's the cause of mushy side buttons with a lot of pre and post travel.
And finally as it turns out the bottom is full of holes. From the outside we can't see them because the sticker is right on them.
mice I have/had: HyperX Pulsefire Core/Raid/Fps Pro, Zowie S1/FK1/FK1+/ZA12/ZA11 (all -B), Razer Deathadder 3.5G/Lancehead, Xtrfy M42, Logitech G403/MX300/G102/GPW, Steelseries Rival 3/310, Sensei 310, Cooler Master CM310/MM720, Dream Machines DM1 S2, Gigabyte Aorus M2/M6900, G-Wolves Skoll-L, Motospeed V70, Ajazz AJ390R/AJ125/AJ129/DMG-110, Delux M626, Dareu EM905, Ziyou Lang X2 (Air58 clone), Jelly Comb GM02 (G703 clone), Pictek PC292 (GPW clone)
Have a mice day!
Previously I reviewed these Chinese mice:
Ajazz AJ390R - Glorious Model O clone
Ziyou Lang X2 - wireless Finalmouse Air58 clone
Ajazz Douyu DMG-110 - Zowie S1+ZA11 mixed together
Delux M626 - Zowie FK1+ alternative (large ambi)
Jelly Comb GM02 - Logitech G703 clone