Two years in the making, the Swiftpoint Z2 is finally here. A successor to one of the most customizable gaming mice ever, the Z2 is a powerful tool for gaming, productivity, and creativity alike. With 13 inputs, pressure sensitive buttons, a built-in accelerometer and gyroscope, haptic feedback, onboard memory, customizable speed, and top-tier specs, this is far more than a gaming mouse. It’s in a league all its own.
Specifications
- Current Price: $189.99 (Swiftpoint)
- Sensor resolution: 50 – 26,000 DPI, 5G Pixart PAW3395
- Gyroscope and Tilt Functions: Tilt your mouse to perform extra functions
- Max polling rate: 1000hz
- Braided cord: Cable length 6.8 feet (2.1 meters)
- Mouse buttons: 13 uniquely placed physical buttons for effortless clicking, many more button actions when including deep clicks
- Wired: Reduced latency to maximize your precision and performance
- Dimensions: 5.12” x 3.54” x 1.57” (13 x 9 x 4 cm (L x W x H))
- Weight: 4.125 ounces (117 grams) – without cable
- Supported OS: Windows 7+, macOS 10.12+
Swiftpoint Z2 - Design and Highlights
In some ways, the Swiftpoint Z2 feels like a mouse out of time. While the rest of the industry is chasing the ever-smaller, ever-lighter train as it barrels down the tracks, Swiftpoint has thrown that to the wind. While those mice focus on simplicity, removing every spare part and bit of shell they can get away with, the Swiftpoint Z2 instead focuses on bringing innovative features and new capabilities you simply won’t find on other mice.
That comes at the cost of size and weight, but if you’re comfortable with something like the Logitech G502X, you’ll find that the Z2 feels right at home. In fact, it’s a hair smaller than Logitech’s competitor at 5.12” x 3.54” x 1.57” (the 502X is 5.17” x 3.12” x 1.62”), though is slighter taller to guide your hand into an appropriate palm grip — and that’s more important here than on just about any other mouse. It’s also slightly heavy at 117 grams (the Logitech is 89 grams) but it’s still lighter than plenty of other palm grip mice. The Logitech MX Master 3S, for example, weighs in at 141 grams and the Swiftpoint Z2 can do so. Much. More.
In a very real way, the Z2 melds multiple peripherals into one. It’s a standard 13 button programmable mouse. It’s a macro pad. It’s an analog keyboard. It’s a joystick. It takes time to set up and customize, but when you do, it can be genuinely hard to go back to a normal mouse again.
Looking at it from the top-down, the Z2 looks a little bit like a cyborg. There are 15 total inputs. You have your left and right click, the scroll-wheel (up, down, click), and two more buttons to the left of the Left Mouse button. Midway down the left and right clicks are two fingertip buttons that can be swapped with alternate, smaller versions included in the box. Behind these are two triggers that can be clicked forward or backward. On the left side are two more thumb buttons.
You’ll also notice that there are two wings on the left and right. The left is for your thumb, obviously, but the right is for your ring finger to prevent finger drag when you’re in the middle of a match or using it as a joystick.
You’ll need to keep your left and right clicks mapped somewhere but each of these inputs is programmable, but this extends well beyond the usual remaps and shortcuts you’ll find on most gaming mice. Using the X1 Control Panel software, these buttons can be remapped to carry everything from mouse commands and Windows shortcuts to key combinations, any keyboard input, mouse gestures, mouse movement, and even tilt controls.
If that weren’t enough, the mouse also offers pressure sensitivity on five of its left and right clicks, middle mouse, and fingertip buttons. Using this, you can tie commands to not just clicks but also varying pressures. You could, for example, set your left click to fire your weapon and to throw a grenade when you press it down harder. An OLED display reads out important information like your DPI or how much pressure is being applied, so you can visualize how hard each press is without guessing.
The accelerometer and gyroscope also come into play as you can tilt the mouse in different directions to trigger different commands. One example Swiftpoint gives is that if you’re playing a shooter and need to peek around a corner, you can simply tilt your mouse to the side. This works remarkably well and is the kind of useful feature that feels intuitive and instantly familiar.
This same functionality allows the mouse to work like a joystick for flight sims and space farers like Elite Dangerous. The mouse comes with multiple magnetic bases that snap into place on the bottom of the mouse. For joystick emulation, Swiftpoint includes a slightly rounded base with a silicone pad to keep it from sliding. You can easily rock the mouse in all directions for analog flight controls without needing to swap peripherals.
For normal mousing, it also comes with two different sets of mouse feet. They’re similar, but one set includes and additional two PTFE pads for additional speed. I think of these like Control and Speed feet and allow you to dial in how the mouse feels to your personal taste.
If it wasn’t already clear, Swiftpoint pulled out all the stops on this mouse, and that includes its internal specs. It ships with a PAW3395 sensor that’s capable of 26,000 DPI for high sensitivity, low DPI shooter strategies. The sensor allows it to reach a top speed of 650 IPS. You won’t be able to make it spin out or lose accuracy. I tried.
The sensor is only one of the improvements that the Z2 brings to the table - and it’s a pretty major improvement in its own right. The polling rate has been boosted to a full 1,000 Hz to give it parity with other wired gaming mice. It has a tighter 1mm liftoff distance, more precise DPI increments (50 vs 100), and refined aesthetics on the fingertip and edge buttons.
Another major improvement is the middle mouse button. Many users of the original Swiftpoint Z reported the middle mouse failing over extended use. Swiftpoint was quick to support those users from my research, but it also made changes to its design to ensure it wasn’t a repeated issue here. I will update this review if it arises in the future, but the fact that the company addressed it head on in the Kickstarter campaign speaks well to its confidence in its solution.
Because it offers so much, the fact that it’s wired feels genuinely strange. It’s the most technologically advanced mouse I’ve encountered and it’s still tethered with a wire? Perhaps it’s because of the tilt/gyro/accelerometer. Regardless, this mouse more than most others really feels like it should be wireless.
Swiftpoint Z2 - Performance
The Swiftpoint Z2 is the kind of peripheral that scares me. It’s so customizable that you could easily become dependent on it for both gaming and your workflow. What if it ever breaks? my anxious mind wonders. But that’s also a testament to just how good it is.
I won’t sugarcoat it. The Z2 isn’t for the faint of heart. It’s not the kind of mouse that you can just plug in and go expecting to get the most out of it. You’ll need to learn how to use it for different games and applications. Ideally, you’ll customize it to match your playstyle and productivity needs. Once it’s completely set up for your personal needs, you’ll find you spend a lot less time clicking around and using keyboard shortcuts even for things like browsing the web or working on Word documents.
It also takes a little while to get used to how it feels. It’s a tall mouse that needs to be held higher up on the buttons. It’s similar to the G502X in size but this grip difference is substantial. It doesn’t take long to get used to but there’s a learning curve. My first impression wasn’t great because of this. The fingertip buttons felt entirely too close to my fingers. Once I learned how to hold the mouse, however, it became second nature and, thanks to the wings, one of the more fluid large mice I’ve tried.
With the learning curve out of the way, it quickly becomes apparent just how well designed the Z2 actually is. Every part of it seems very intentionally considered, from the way the buttons are all easier to identify by feel and how each seems to be perfectly positioned. Small touches, like how you can trigger middle mouse click by tapping it to the side instead of straight down drive the point home: this is a team that really considered how people will actually be using it and designed it around that.
The level of control is next-level. It’s perfect for MMOs and RPGs with a lot of keybinds. Because of the depth of its programming and its deep click function and tilt controls, it’s able to offer a fairly massive number of inputs.
But what about dedicated MMO mice, I hear you thinking. I am a big fan of the Razer Naga and Corsair Scimitar. And yes, those mice, when programmed through their softwares can achieve similar levels of control for gaming and productivity, but the Z2’s motion controls and deep clicks are game changers. They can’t emulate that. The Z2 is also quite a bit more comfortable to use than the traditional thumb grid.
Where I’ve found it most useful is actually outside of gaming in my day-to-day computer use. Flipping between Chrome tabs with a single button press and having dedicated Cut/Paste buttons is the kind of small quality of life change that you miss when it’s gone. Likewise with minimizing to desktop or flipping between Windows.
Because of how deep the programming is, you can really customize it to improve how quickly you work. This can be a lot of time and effort if you want to apply it to multiple games and apps. To make the process quicker, the X1 Control Panel software comes with dozens of presets so the work is done for you. If you’re anything like me, you’ll still want to add your own customizations, but it makes for a great starting point for both work and play.
Final Thoughts
The Swiftpoint Z2 won’t be for everyone. It’s big and it’s heavier than a lot of the competition, but it’s also so packed with technology that it’s in a class of its own. For better or worse, it’s the kind of peripheral you can easily get dependent on and that wouldn’t be the case if Swiftpoint didn’t do its job ridiculously well. The Swiftpoint Z2 is fantastic and worth every penny of its asking price.
The product described in this article was provided by the manufacturer for evaluation purposes.
