MSI Clutch GM41 Lightweight Wireless Review – Striking A Balance Between Price, Performance, & Comfort

MSI has just unleashed its first wireless dragon with the Clutch GM41 Lightweight Wireless Mouse. Following in the footsteps of the Clutch GM41 Lightweight, MSI has made some modifications to the mouse to make it wireless.

Talking about the technical specifications, MSI has opted to put the PixArt PAW-3370 optical sensor in the Clutch GM41 Lightweight Wireless which goes up to 20,000 DPI. It uses Omron switches that can survive up to 60 million clicks. The mouse has 6 programmable buttons and has RGB lighting on the back where the dragon is located. The mouse features a prototypical mouse design with an ambidextrous form factor.

In the table below are the full technical specifications of the MSI Clutch GM41 Lightweight Wireless:

The MSI Clutch GM41 Lightweight Wireless comes in a larger box with plenty of illustrations on the backside and the specifications are also listed on the back. On the front of the box, there is the mouse at the center with a simple design. Inside that box, there is a second box that houses the mouse, the dock, and the cable inside some foam. MSI could have cut down on the amount of packaging, but the second box with the foam makes it feel premium.

The mouse comes with a dock. The dock serves as a charging base for the mouse when the micro-USB cable is plugged in. It charges the mouse via the two prongs on it and it also looks pretty snazzy when you are charging your mouse. The dock also serves as a range extender. When the dock is plugged into your system, the 2.4 GHz USB Type-A Dongle can be plugged into the dock and be used to extend the wireless range.

In terms of the comfort of the mouse, I found the design to be quite comfortable and did a good job of fitting my hand. The dimensions of the mouse are 130.1 x 67 x 38.3 mm and it comes in at 74 grams. It isn't the lightest mouse on the market, but 74 grams is light enough for most people. The mouse is ambidextrous in its design, but the side buttons are only on the left side of the mouse. This wasn't an issue for me as I am right-handed, but left-handed users may run into problems if they try to take advantage of the side buttons which were designed with right-handed users in mind.

At first, I thought the addition of the stipple-like grip on the sides of the mouse which are small elevated pyramids were a little gimmicky, but after using the mouse, I actually found them to be quite comfortable. These textured plastic grips on the side of the mouse were actually quite soft and stuck the perfect balance between adding extra grip to the mouse without causing any discomfort. I actually found this textured grip to do a better job than my other mouse at dealing with sweat when my hands got sweaty.

The mice feet were another area I was pleasantly surprised with as well. On most of my mice that I use for gaming, I usually switch the stock feet with some aftermarket mice feet such as Hyperglides or Corepads, but the 100% Pure PTFE mouse skates had the mouse gliding smoothly. The mice feet were fast out of the box and after a while of use, the mouse feet did not seem to fall off in performance or require a break-in period. On top of having great performing mice feet, MSI applied the mice feet on 6 locations on the bottom of the mouse: one around the sensor, two at the front, and 3 at the back of the mouse.

As I mentioned above, the Clutch GM41 Lightweight Wireless uses the PixArt PAW-3370 optical sensor which can go up to 20,000 DPI. The sensor also has a max tracking speed of 400 IPS and a max acceleration of 50G. This allows for excellent tracking which can lead to greater accuracy, especially in FPS shooter games. The Clutch GM41 Lightweight Wireless uses a 2.4 GHz USB Type-A Dongle which is the standard for premium gaming mouses. The dongle isn't anything special, rather it falls in line with the rest of the competition. For those that want to use it wired, MSI includes the FriXionFree Micro USB cable.

In my time using the mouse, I didn't dare to go anywhere close to the 20,000 DPI staying where I feel at home: 400 DPI.  In my testing, I played CS:GO, Valorant, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege, Call of Duty Warzone, Call of Duty Black Ops: Cold War, and mixed in some ARK: Survival Evolved. In all of my gaming, I was able to click heads without if necessary, not so much in the case of ARK: Survival Evolved but my point stands. The Clutch GM41 Lightweight Wireless did a great job with tracking and had no issues.

The battery life is advertised at 80 hours which falls along the line with competitors, but this is a little harder to test as MSI has an auto-shutdown mode that turns the mouse off after it's not in use for a while which can't be disabled in MSI's software. According to MSI, the mouse can go from 0% battery to 100% in 90 minutes and can be charged for 10 minutes, and get 9 hours of battery life. From my experience, the charging was pretty quick and I didn't need to charge the mouse often.

The MSI Clutch GM41 Lightweight Wireless is controlled through MSI's Dragon Center software that is also used to control the lighting of other MSI components in your system. The software has 3 pages for controlling various settings on the mouse. The three pages are button settings, sensor settings, and the Mystic Light RGB controls. The mouse firmware can be updated, but only when the mouse is plugged in via the micro-USB cable.

The RGB control is limited in the number of presets available, but the amount of RGB lighting on the mouse is just limited to the dragon on the back of the mouse. However, the use of Mystic Light can sync the lighting on the mouse to the lighting of Mystic Light compatible components and peripherals. The lighting options also have three separate profiles.

In terms of the button control window, there are 5 programmable buttons on the MSI Clutch GM41 Lightweight Wireless. Those buttons are the right-click button, left-click button, 2 side buttons, and the scroll wheel button. These buttons can be programmed to be multimedia keys, macros, DPI switches, or another keybind.

The final page is dedicated to sensor control. If the preset DPIs don't suit you (preset DPI options are 400, 800, 1600, 3200, and 6400), here is where you can change the DPI. The polling rate can also be adjusted with the option to go between 125, 250, 500, and 1000 Hz. I would recommend always being on the highest polling rate which is 1000 Hz in this case. You can also turn on motion sync and angle snapping. For some reason, the battery level is also on this screen.

While the MSI Clutch GM41 Lightweight Wireless may not be the lightest or the flashiest mouse, it strikes a great combination between performance and comfort. The design looks like your typical mouse and the parts inside the mouse are quite standard for a mouse of this caliber, but when you put it all together and add an extra few touches like the textured sides and a $79.99 price point, you get something special. For the price of competitors like the Logitech G Pro X Superlight or the Razer Viper Ultimate, you could get two of the Clutch GM41 Lightweight Wireless.

The MSI Clutch GM41 Lightweight Wireless puts great components into a comfortable all at an affordable price point in the wireless mouse market.

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