I’ve already gotten my hands on a lot of new tech at CES 2025, and I’m always careful. You never want to break a precious prototype that needs to be handled by hundreds of hands during the course of the week. So, you can imagine my surprise when HyperX put a broken gaming mouse into my hands and told me that it was broken on purpose — in fact, it was designed that way.
Of course, the HyperX Pulsefire Saga and Saga Pro aren’t broken — though, I understand if the image above gives you pause. This is HyperX’s bid at a customizable gaming mouse, providing you a solid foundation to build off of with your own buttons and heel. This is far from the first customizable gaming mouse, but it might be the first one that actually catches on.
The mouse itself is made up of four components. You have the guts, which is basically the core of the mouse with the scroll wheel, sensor, and all of the bits and bobs on the inside. In addition, you have a set of thumb buttons, a set of click buttons merged as a single unit, and a heel. In the box, you’ll get two sets of each, allowing you to mix and match different components to find the right fit. All of the parts are magnetic, too, so swapping them out takes just a few seconds.
That’s not what’s exciting, though. HyperX is making the files for these components available so you can 3D print your own. The company showed me half a dozen different example of this, from more unique form factors to custom filament mixing to create unique colors and effects. We’ve seen customizable gaming mice before, but you’ve had to either buy the components or only customize the mouse once when you order it. Here, you can continue to tweak the design and feel until it’s perfect.
All of this customization doesn’t matter if the mouse itself isn’t any good, but the Pulsefire Saga is pretty compelling. The base version is a wired mouse that clocks in at only 69 grams, and it comes fit with an 8,000Hz polling rate. The Saga Pro is wireless and a bit heavier at 72 grams, and it tops out at a 4,000Hz polling rate. Across both, you’re still getting HyperX’s optical switches and a 26K sensor under the hood, and the components and 3D printing files work regardless of the model you have.
Although the Saga and Saga Pro stand out the most, HyperX has a few other gaming mice at CES this year. The Pulsefire Haste 2 Pro 4K is a wireless mouse with up to a 4,000Hz polling rate, while the Pulsefire Haste 2 S sticks with a 1,000Hz polling rate, but comes with new glass skates and a magnesium alloy shell, both of which feel incredible. HyperX is also making the glass skates available as an accessory, which the company says is “an easy upgrade for nearly every HyperX mouse.”
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Google DeepMind's AI world model Genie 4 can now build interactive worlds that you can explore and reshape as they run. It also generates ambient sounds, music, and dialogue that respond to your actions.
The new world model builds on Genie 3 with improved realism, more natural human movement, and better simulations of real-world physics. It could eventually help with everything from game development to training robots.
Apple has an incredible talent for making me admire its products while simultaneously questioning what on earth it's thinking with the pricing. This isn't even something as bizarre as a monitor stand, but the audacity for starting a new laptop lineup from $2,000 doesn't surprise me.
The newly announced 14-inch MacBook Pro with M6 is just the latest to showcase this. The funny thing is, I already know that it's going to be a reliable workstation. You get a powerful new 2nm M6 processor, a gorgeous Liquid Retina XDR display, and up to 24 hours of battery life. We were impressed by the M5 MacBook Air, so the high-end M6 powered MacBook Pro definitely won't let us down.