Vancer Thrash Review

Introduction

Vancer first entered the gaming mouse market in the summer of 2021 with the Vancer Gretxa following the success of other mice utilizing a holed design in order to reduce weight. While it did not reach the same success as the big brands like Finalmouse, it was well received by the mouse enthusiast community. Two years later, in the summer of 2023, they released the Gemini Pro lineup featuring a solid shell design, lower weights, and updated specs. In this review, we will be going over one of their brand new mice, the Vancer Thrash.

Specifications

Packaging

• 1x Vancer Thrash mouse
• 1x USB Type-A to Type-C cable
• 1x Wireless receiver/dongle (4KHz compatible)
• 1x Set of grip-tape (for the sides and main buttons)
• 1x Set of extra PTFE mouse feet
• 1x Instructions manual

The product comes nicely packaged in a small box (165 * 104 * 71 mm) with protective foam to ensure safe transport of the product. The box has an exciting and reflective scaled pattern design in a brown-red color on top and a black bottom.

Shape & Size

The Vancer Thrash is a symmetrical mouse with a size of 123.3 * 62.3 * 39.8 mm, making it a medium-sized mouse. It has a large back-hump, filling out the back of my palm in a way that makes it feel larger when palm- or claw-gripping the mouse compared to what. While any grip can be used, the shape and size make it primarily suited for claw grip. Fingertipping this mouse is also suitable with larger-handed users (hand-length: 20cm+) or for those who place their fingertips further back behind the scroll wheel.

The hump has a rounded top, giving it a better fit for me as it has a similar curvature to the insides of my hands, making it fill out more of my palm and reducing pressure points that I normally experience from flatter mice.

While the widest point of the mouse sits at 62.3 mm, the grip width is significantly thinner due to the inwards side curvature. Depending on where on the sides your fingers are placed, the grip width will be closer to 55-60 mm. Not only does this make the mouse thinner than what you might initially expect, but the inwards side curvature significantly helps in lifting the mouse. The ease of lifting the Vancer Thrash is also helped by the coating used.

Coating & Grip-tape

Compared to a lot of other mice where your fingers will be touching bare plastic, the Vancer Thrash uses a high-quality coating that creates a significant improvement in how grippy the mouse feels. The coating is similar to the ones used by Endgame Gear and Zowie. Just like these mice, this coating also picks up dirt and sweat quite fast. Even after only a couple of hours of usage, spots of sweat and oil had already started forming.

Luckily, this has not caused the mouse to feel less grippy and is very easy to wipe off in a couple of seconds with a micro-fiber cloth, making it look like new again.

The Vancer Thrash also comes with additional grip tape. They provide a good amount of additional grip and feel very similar to what most other mice include nowadays. The grip-tape is thin but will add a small amount of additional size to the mouse which might be a positive for those wanting the sides to feel a little wider or the buttons slightly taller.

I find the standard coating sufficient in providing a good hold of the mouse and ended up not using the included grip tape, though they are a very nice inclusion.

Build Quality

Some newer mice seem to compromise on build quality to achieve the lowest possible weight. While the Vancer Thrash is not the lightest mouse available, it has one of the best build qualities that I have ever experienced. Neither the sides, bottom, or top of the mouse creaks, bends, or snaps during usage, even when significant pressure is applied. Every mouse will have some amount of side-wobble to the main buttons due to their thinness and often being separated from the rest of the shell but on this unit, it is not at all noticeable during normal usage.

It is important to note that while this unit had superb build quality, every unit and batch of mice will differ slightly. My unit of the Groove, another one of Vancer's new mice, has the same quality and feel.

Weight & Feet/Skates

The Vancer Thrash weighs in at 49 grams, While not as light as something like the Finalmouse UltralightX Lion (M)/Medium (35 grams) or the WLmouse Beast X (39 grams), the Vancer Thrash is not only larger in both length and height, it also has a solid shell and much better coating, which goes more in line the Logitech G Pro X Superlight (60 grams) and the new Razer Viper V3 Pro (54 grams).

Lowering the weight even further would definitely help it feel lighter but doing so might lead to a compromise to the solid shell, overall quality, weight-balance, or coating.

Lowering the weight even further would help it feel lighter but doing so might lead to a compromise to the solid shell, overall quality, weight balance, or coating.

The feet/skates are unfortunately one area I think this mouse lacks compared to the rest of its qualities. They start off quite scratchy, especially on harder mousepads. Luckily, they smooth out within a few days of usage but still not to the same level as Vancer's other new mouse, the Groove, where the feet look different and feel a lot smoother.

Buttons & Scroll Wheel

• 2x Main-buttons (switches: Huano Blue Shell Pink Dot Transparent)
• 2x Side-buttons
• Scroll-wheel (encoder: TTC Gold Dustproof)
• DPI-button on the bottom
• On/Off switch on the bottom

The Vancer Thrash uses mechanical Huano Blue Shell Pink Dot Transparent switches for the main buttons. While quite tactile, they do not stack up to tactility from the switches in the -WLmouse Beast X Mini (Huano Transparent Blue Shell Pink Dots) or most mice the Kailh GM8.0 switches. What the Vancer Thrash's switches do offer is a very balanced actuation force. They are not too light where accidental clicks occur nor are they too heavy where spam-clicking becomes difficult or tiresome. Being mechanical switches though, there is the chance of double-click issues arising down the line.

The main buttons feature comfort grooves. These are quite subtle and never forced my fingers into a specific placement but at the same time making sure the buttons did not feel completely flat.

Both side buttons are light to press but have slight pre- and post-travel, though this was never noticeable during normal gameplay or web browsing.

The scroll wheel is rubberized and uses a TTC Gold Dustproof encoder. This is one of my favorite scroll-wheels out of any mice. They are quite tactile but at the same time, very easy to scroll, making bunny-hopping in Apex Legends or simply browsing the web very pleasant. There are more tactile scroll-wheels out there but these usually suffer from being harder to scroll repeatedly.

Pressing the scroll wheel down takes slightly more force than most mice I've used. This has the benefit of reducing accidental clicks while scrolling but do make them harder to press quickly.

The DPI button and On/Off switch on the bottom are both easy to use and can easily be operated with one hand.

Sensor & Performance

Utilizing the PAW3395 with a Nordic 52840 MCU and a polling rate up to 4000Hz, the sensor and performance felt flawless. The only problem I encountered was when using higher polling rates in older games, such as Titanfall 2, where stutters and lag spikes became a problem with anything higher than 1000Hz. This is not a problem related to Vancer's implementation of the PAW3395 sensor or its higher polling rates. Some older games do not support higher polling rates and such issues will occur on any mouse using higher polling rates. Playing modern and updated games like Apex Legends, Overwatch 2, Valorant, or Counter-Strike 2 was not a problem.

Software & Configuration

According to Vancer's website, a web-based driver is available. Clicking the button, however, does nothing and I was unable to find a way to use this feature. I assume this will be fixed and become available in the future. Because this mouse does not offer any downloadable software, the remaining option is to use the mouse's buttons and included dongle to change and view its DPI, polling rate, LOD (lift-off distance), and motion sync.

The DPI button underneath the mouse works as you might expect, clicking it changes the DPI. The options are 400/800/1600/3200/6400. At the time of writing, finer DPI adjustments are not possible due to the web driver not being accessible.

As specified by the instructions, you can also change the polling rate between 500/100/2000/4000 by holding down both side buttons and the scroll. The LOD can be changed between low (L) and high (H) by holding down both side buttons and the right main button. Motion sync can be turned on and off by holding down both side buttons and the left main button.

I find the ability to change and view all configurations without any software quite pleasing and easy to use, especially since I use one of the preset DPI options and therefore have no need for finer adjustments. Being able to change the mouse's configurations through the web would be nice and I assume this will become available soon. Once it does, it will allow anyone to configure the mouse without the need to download another piece of software that bloats the computer. This has become a popular trend with many newer mice, especially from smaller companies and I personally love this new direction.

One downside of web-based software however is that if the producer for some reason no longer hosts the driver online without making it open-source, it will be difficult to configure the mouse.

Conclusion

The Vancer Thrash costs $109.99 from the Lethal Gaming Gear store at the time of writing. While not at the price of budget mice like the VXE R1, it still sits lower than the Finalmouse UltralightX, WLmouse Beast X 8K, and the new Razer Viper V3 Pro. By today's standards, the Vancer Thrash sits at what could be considered the upper/mid-range of gaming mice and will compete more with the likes of the LAMZU Atlantis and Pulsar X2V2, not only in price but also in terms of size, shape, weight and sensor.

The Vancer Thrash, due to its back hump and medium size, will suit claw-grip users best. As stated earlier, fingertip- and palm grips are also possible but are more likely to fit those with larger hands or with a more unique grip style.

The weight is great, especially compared to similar-sized mice with a solid shell. If, however, you want the most ultralight experience, I suggest looking into smaller mice or ones focused on cutting the most weight possible, such as the Finalmouse UltralightX and WLmouse Beast X lineup.

One area of improvement should be the skates. After breaking in over a couple of days, they felt fine but I still prefer the implementation on their other new mouse, the Vancer Groove.

The Vancer Thrash offers a shell with no holes, low and balanced weight, and well-tensioned buttons with excellent build quality and coating. The performance so far has also been flawless. If you have the budget and want a mouse that focuses on these qualities, the Vancer Thrash is an excellent choice for those who prefer to claw-grip their mice.

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