Teevolution Helios II Pro Review
Specifications
Packaging
- Teevolution Helios II Pro gaming mouse
- Dongle
- Grip-tape (for main buttons and sides)
- 1x set of large PTFE skates pre-installed
- 1x additional set of large PTFE skates
- 1x additional set of small PTFE dot skates
- Stickers
- Warranty card
- User manual
Shape & Size
The Teevolution Helios II Pro measures 120x64x38mm. It is a medium-sized, symmetrical mouse with a slight outward front flare and inward side curvature. What makes this product stand out is the moderate back hump, which makes this shape more suited to claw-grip users. The mouse will also work well for medium-sized-handed users who want to palm grip it. For fingertip, you will likely need large hands or an aggressive grip style to find it suitable.
Coating & Grip-tape
The Teevolution Helios II Pro has a good coating that feels far better than non-coated plastic. It does not seem to accumulate sweat and grime, even after longer periods of usage. At the same time, however, it does not quite hold up to coatings featured on mice from companies like Zowie and Endgame Gear.
The mouse comes with a set of grip tape for the main buttons and sides. These help in providing a good amount of additional grip, though I did not find this a necessity as the standard coating was good enough for my use-case but this will vary from person to person.
Build Quality
The build quality of this mouse is great. I was able to make the sides flex ever so slightly when applying a lot of pressure, but this is not something that would ever be a problem during normal usage. There is also no rattling when shaking the mouse.
Weight & Feet/Skates
The weight of the Teevolution Helios II Pro is only 55 grams. This does not directly compete with the ultra-lightweight mice that are being produced nowadays. At the same time, however, the Helios II Pro is a normal-sized mouse with a solid shell, which is often compromised in other mice to lower the weight. The weight is very well balanced.
The mouse comes with one large set of pre-installed PTFE skates, along with another large set and a set of dot skates as well. The skates feel perfectly smooth, right out of the box. This is very uncommon as it might require a couple of days of usage before most skates achieve optimal smoothness.
Buttons & Scroll Wheel
The main buttons featured on the Teevolution Helios II Pro use the TTC Gold Optical switches. Optical switches tend less tactile compared to mechanical switches. For this mouse, however, I did not realize that it used optical switches until I looked it up. They are very tactile and do not suffer from the slight mushiness often present on other optical switches. In addition, they are easy to actuate and spam-click, with no noticeable pre-, post-travel or side-wobble.
The side buttons are also great. They do feel slightly less tactile but are overall very easy to actuate and spam-click and also do not have any pre-travel or wobble. They do have a very slight amount of post-travel but is not noticeable during usage.
The scroll wheel uses the F-Switch Dustproof encoder. Usually, scroll wheels lean more towards being tactile or easy to scroll. While this is not as tactile as something like the Endgame Gear XM2 8k, it comes very close while also requiring very low amounts of force to use, making it ideal for games heavily dependent on scroll-wheel usage.
Sensor & Performance
The Teevolution Helios II Pro uses the PAW3395 sensor and uses the Nordic 52833 32-bit Arm Cortex M4 MCU. The performance feels great. I did not experience any issues in any of the work or gaming I did while testing this mouse. The 4k polling rate also worked great with no issues.
Conclusion
The price of the Teevolution Helios II Pro is currently $84.80. The mouse has a very safe shape that works great with a claw grip for pretty much any regular hand size. In addition to the overall quality, buttons, and performance, the price makes this mouse a very good value and something I would recommend if the shape intrigues you.
