With gaming hardware all the rage in recent years, KLIM have stepped into an otherwise expensive and saturated market with their line of affordable tech for the masses. Offering customisable RGB lighting alongside a myriad of features and functionality, you're probably wondering just what the catch is?

Coming in what I would call a fairly standard box, the mouse comes in at 128mm in length, making it the largest mouse I've owned in my less than fancy line of predecessors. Its size allows for my full hand to rest effortlessly on each button, with the textured grip on the side providing an ideal place to place my thumb. As well as your standard left button, right button, and scroll wheel, the Aim also features two buttons on the side, and one in the center just below the scroll wheel. Thanks to its largely symmetrical design, it feels comfortable to hold with either hand, though you'll only have access to the side buttons on the left of the mouse. Considering its price, I really found myself surprised at the overall premium aesthetic and feel. Pair this with a quality-feeling braided cable and you have something you wouldn't assume to be in the budget section. 

The configuration software is in a way the heart of the mouse. Through it, you're given the power to customise your experience and really make it your own. KLIM's driver gives you a fair amount to play with; between changing the DPI, report rate, and button bindings, you're also able to create macros and setup the lighting exactly as you like. On the surface, it has a similar appearance to Razer's similar utility software Synapse, but after only a short time with it, you'll begin to realise where money was saved. The software is, in a word, awful, and it's in how it's awful I find the most frustration. Everything works, everything is functional, but everything expects you to know its small quirk. The easiest example of this to bring up is in the lighting menu, hidden behind the less than obvious 'Marquee' button. 

Not exactly intuitive...

The menu above makes sense at first glance. You can click the drop-down to change the mode, brightness, and a few other things. You click on the colours to bring up the same kind of colour picker you find in MS Paint; it's a dated and awkward look, but those aren't things that'll stop you from doing what you want to be doing. The quirk here is in the brightness drop-down, and its shown values of zero to seven. With it initially set to 50, something doesn't look quite right. Where are the other 43 values? To access those, you click and drag down to scroll the menu. It's absurd, unintuitive, and not communicated anywhere outside of the user manual—a manual I might add that is only available via KLIM's store, the links on their actual site all broken. I was so ready to believe this software simply didn't work to the point of downloading Cheat Engine to set the brightness manually.

Looking past this and onto other areas of the software, you run into the same issues. Macros are simple to set up, but cumbersome and frustrating all the same. You first name them to add them to the list, then start recording, enter your macro, then stop recording. It all makes sense. There are an unnecessary amount of confirmation prompts to go with it, but it makes sense. When you're finished, you then need to hit the confirm button. If you forget that, moving to any other area of the software will erase your efforts. It's small, but when you have unnecessary prompts littering every other action, you might have thought it wise to have one on leaving unsaved settings. When setting up a button as a key, you may also find some keys simply don't work, Page Up and Down being two I've run into. For a short period of time, I had thought setting keys simply didn't work, since these were the only things I was interested in binding. Communication is at the core of what this software lacks. The options on offer are quite fantastic for the price you're paying, but that only makes it more of a shame to see them gated behind something so frustrating and poorly designed. Fortunately, any customisations made are saved to the mouse, meaning you'll only have to set it up once and never open the driver again. The configurations carrying between machines, even to those without the driver installed, was a welcomed surprise. 

KLIM have made something really quite fantastic for its price point. From its premium aesthetic, to its braided cable, configurable lights, and customisable macro-programmable buttons, it really is one of the best mice I've owned to date. All of this only adds to how much of a shame it is to see it let down by its software. If you're patient enough to work through its faults and perhaps don't have much to spend, I recommend giving it a shot. Assuming you know what to expect, you'll more than get your money's worth.

Useful Links

If you're interested in checking out the Aim, you can find it available here in the UK, and here in the US. 

• Product Information
• Driver Download
• User Manual