As part of the ongoing story, it’s kind of like the nerdy equivalent of, I dunno, Paddington Bear: solid, reliable, vaguely homey, and shockingly prolific. The brand’s most recent crossover is with Pulsar tech industry mice. Yup, they put a little bitty fan in a tech industry mouse. Noctua, the Austrian cooling supplier known for its very quiet brown enthusiasts, is something of a darling of the PC industry.
As part of the ongoing story, you can use one as a desk fan if you just love those brown hues so much that you want them on your desk. Yet while tech industry mice have gotten kind of extreme as of late, the Pulsar Noctua Feinmann FO1 doesn’t actually need active cooling—I’m not aware of any mouse that does. Typically, Noctua’s enthusiasts are intended to cool components: CPUs, GPUs, radiators, or just PC case interiors.
The report highlights that it’s masterfully illustrated here, just in case you needed a visual. Instead, the little 40mm angled fan (NF-A4x10, the smallest in Noctua’s catalog) cools off your hand through the mouse’s speed holes.
As part of the ongoing story, standard shooter configuration with two thumb buttons, “carbon composite” body, aluminum alloy wheel, optical switches, 42,000 DPI, 8,000Hz polling rate, 70 grams. It lacks dedicated DPI and polling rate buttons, but the wireless receiver has buttons for those. The mouse itself is fairly typical of the excessive design you often see these days.
In a fresh development, but hey, might as well have fun with it. There are some unique functions for this design, though. With a combination of button presses and the scroll wheel, you can manually turn the fan on or off, no extra programs required. Frankly, I think it’s ridiculous, even without the fan.
The report highlights that that’s also typical of Noctua’s branded collaborations. The mouse costs $180 on Pulsar’s site, a hefty premium over most of its other designs.
The report highlights that on PCWorld he's the resident keyboard nut, always using a fresh one for a review and building a fresh mechanical board or expanding his desktop "battlestation" in his off hours. Michael's previous bylines include Android Police, Digital Trends, Wired, Lifehacker, and How-To Geek, and he's covered events like CES and Mobile Worldwide scene Congress live. Michael lives in Pennsylvania where he's always looking forward to his next kayaking trip. Michael is a 15-year veteran of technology journalism, covering everything from Apple to ZTE.