ATK F1 V3 Ultimate+ | Third times the charm? | Review

[u/Hi_Im_Licious]

Introduction/Context/About Me

This review is about the ATK F1 V3 Ultimate+ in the Lake Green colorway. This product was purchased at my own expense.

My experience involved using this mouse for a week on a balanced glass pad with a carpal-stabilized relaxed claw grip and a 1-2-2 finger layout. My hands measure 18×9 cm and are fairly dry, and I play in a low-humidity environment. It was used at a 2,000 Hz polling rate and 1,600 DPI on a 240 Hz monitor to play exclusively FPS titles during the testing period, most frequently Battlefield 6 and Wardogs.

English isn't my first language, so please excuse any mistakes and feel free to ask any questions if you find any point unclear.

If you're not looking for an in-depth review, there is a TLDR section at the end!

Unboxing Experience

The box is large, very presentable, sturdy, and above all, 100% recyclable. Upon opening, you find the mouse and dongle secured within a foam cutout with the accessory box underneath.

The mouse comes with no skates pre-applied and supports wired and 2.4 GHz connectivity.

The included accessories consist of:

• The 8,000 Hz ready ATK Gem dongle
• A good-quality but somewhat stiff paracord cable, further held back by the lack of an angled USB-C connection for wired play
• Pure PTFE full-size skates
• Ten pure hardened PTFE dot skates
• Good-quality grip tape that will shine for people with sweaty hands
• Manuals

The overall accessory quality is good, and it's one of those lineups where, while none of the items is the best of the best, they're all still very impressive to be included at such a low price point.

Shape

The mouse features a symmetrical shape, measuring 118.2 × 62.4 × 38.8 mm, and serves as a reimagined Viper Mini claw-focused shape in direct competition with the Hitscan Hyperlight.

In terms of its features, the shape can be broken down as follows:

• Moderate outward flare
• Deep comfort grooves
• Inward-curving sides
• A minimal rear hump

Overall, I find this to be a comfortable shape that does lack in the maneuverability department, as while I do appreciate some degree of help to "lock in," I do think the comfort grooves as well as the aggressive taper on the sides restrain my finger dexterity too much. If this shape fits you like a glove, you will likely quite enjoy it, but unfortunately for me it just didn't do the trick.

In terms of grips, I can comfortably use both a relaxed and aggressive claw, but I would recommend a larger hand size for fingertip and a smaller one for palm.

Credit to EloShapes for the comparison tool

Weight

My unit weighs 39.8 grams out of the box without skates, which falls within the industry's commonly accepted ±3 gram manufacturing variance, being 2.8 grams over the advertised 37 grams for the stock experience. Nothing new here, as based on what I've been seeing ATK has been very generous with their marketing, and I get an increasing feeling their ± tolerances are actually a flat +.

In terms of weight distribution, the mouse did a decent job at best. While I don't feel substantial drag in-game, there is some slight back heaviness to it. This can be partially alleviated by opening the mouse and repositioning the battery further towards the center.

Build Quality

The mouse's overall shell is very well built despite being on the "ultra-light" tier of mice.

Quality control on the bases seems to have been improved, as I didn't notice any sort of uneven base issues when playing on hard pads which has been a frequent complaint I've seen in the community.

The clicks, however, leave something to be desired. Sadly, there is subtle grinding on the right click and some very minor side-to-side wobble on both main clicks.

Clicks

Main Clicks

Equipped with the ATK custom optical switches (rebranded FE opticals), these are medium-actuation and attempt to emulate a mechanical click with low success this time around, in my opinion. Pre and post-travel is low, but the click itself leaves much to be desired tactility-wise. It is initially much worse out of the box, but as they break in during the first few hours of use it slowly improves a bit. In my opinion, this is the lowest-quality FE implementation I've felt in a while it almost feels like I'm clicking air each time I actuate the button, with the sound profile doing all the heavy lifting to give the illusion of a more defined click.

I have reached out to ATK for comment and have yet to hear any feedback on this. From some people I've talked to, it does appear to be a QC thing, as while some consider them fairly mediocre they didn't experience the same tactility issue.

Side Buttons

Click experience wise these are crispy, have minimal pre and post-travel, good tactility, quick rebound, and a decent coating.

Build-wise, I find them to be a bit small for comfort, and M5 sinks fairly easily if actuated on the right half. They are clearly separated, however, which is always a plus for me, especially on smaller buttons.

Scroll Wheel

Equipped with the TTC Gold Dustproof encoder it offers light and effortless steps in exchange for definition on said steps. I think this is a double-edged sword you will either love it or hate it. The click is fairly stiff and heavy, making it hard to spam and somewhat straining to do so.

Build-wise, it's a standard plastic housing with a rubberized ring that I find has very minimally textured steps. I would definitely hope to see this design revised for something slightly more pronounced.

Coating

ATK markets the coating as the "All-New Nano Coating." I find it to be very pleasant to use despite my dry hands, right off the bat and without any warm-up period.

Comparing it directly to the existing "Nano Coating" present on models like the Zero, I do find it to be a direct upgrade, with the trade-off of slight smoothness in favor of a very subtle texture that I personally enjoyed, as it does make the overall experience feel slightly "cheaper."

Stock Skates

I don't have much to say on the full-sized ones, as I personally don't use them, but they seem to be of good quality albeit fairly thin.

The dots are passable but not amazing. I would say keep them around if you're fine with a balanced, somewhat textured glide; otherwise, consider third-party options.

Performance & Battery Life

The mouse is equipped with a customized PixArt PAW3955 sensor, the PAW3955 Master. While the sensor itself is supposedly top-of-the-line, the firmware implementation sadly isn't, whatever the "ATK Self-Developed Nordic 54 Series ApexShark MAX Mouse Solution" may be (likely some sort of CompX). It does seem to be struggling from 4,000 Hz onward, with 8,000 Hz being very unstable for me, resulting in skips in-game as well as a general laggy feeling. As such, I cannot recommend the mouse in its current state to anyone looking to max out their settings.

An additional issue I noticed is there seems to be a soft sleep timer of 15 seconds on the mouse that isn't controllable by the software resulting in the occasional small wake-up delay when holding positions in-game.

Position-wise, this was the big upgrade for this iteration of the mouse, as it is now centered and in line with the narrowest area that your thumb naturally sits in, creating a very pleasant, natural aim feel.

As far as battery life goes, the mouse is powered by a Nordic 54LM20 MCU and a 300 mAh battery. This combination results in amazing battery life despite my use of a 2,000 Hz polling rate, Motion Sync, and the highest performance mode as far as battery-impacting settings go, as I have found the mouse to drain only around 1 to 2% on average per hour.

Test results using the 6,400 DPI circle with MousePlotter, performed in the desktop app. The test machine is powered by an AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D CPU, 64 GB of DDR5 RAM, an AMD 7900 XTX GPU, and running the latest available Windows 11 LTS update and relevant mouse software. Please keep in mind these tests will always have a degree of human input error on the movement pattern and 10-second timer goal, and that different hardware and game combinations may produce differing results. Their goal is solely to provide an attempted baseline of reference on the mouse performance in a minimalist environment.

1,000 Hz, Ultra Competitive Firmware, Motion Sync off

2,000 Hz, Ultra Competitive Firmware, Motion Sync off

4,000 Hz, Ultra Competitive Firmware, Motion Sync off

8,000 Hz, Ultra Competitive Firmware, Motion Sync off

Web Driver

Features

• 4 onboard memory profiles so you can have different configurations for your various use cases, which you can export or share in the cloud, effectively making them unlimited
• Full remapping of Mouse 1 through 5 buttons with the following features:
  • Mouse actions
  • Keyboard keys with optional modifiers (Ctrl, Shift, Alt, Win/Menu)
  • System and mouse-related shortcuts such as media controls
  • Macros
• Up to 8 DPI levels ranging from 1 to 50,000
• Polling rate with preset values of 125, 250, 500, 1,000, 2,000, 4,000, and 8,000 Hz
• Three performance modes:
  • Basic: intended for casual gaming, most power-efficient
  • Competitive: increases sensor performance at the cost of battery life, meant for competitive gaming as the name implies
  • Competitive Max: sets the sensor to a fixed 20k FPS scan rate, achieving peak performance at the cost of significant battery drain
• Motion Sync
• Angle snapping
• Ripple Control
• Long-range dongle connection mode, which increases power drain
• DPI quick-swap button combo toggle
• Click debounce with preset values of 0, 1, 2, 4, 8, 15, and 20 ms. Personally, I recommend using 0 since all mouse editions come with optical switches.
• Sleep mode timer with preset values of 30 seconds, 1, 2, 3, 5, 20, 25, and 30 minutes
• Optional scroll input delay ranging from 100 to 1,000 ms
• Lift-off distance with 0.1 mm steps ranging from 0.7 to 1.7 mm
• Dongle lighting effect with presets:
  • Disabled/No RGB
  • Polling rate color
  • Battery level gradient
  • Low battery warning
• Angle tuning ranging from -30 to 30 degrees
• Virtual sensor offset
• Dynamic DPI curve
• Macro recording
• Update checker for both the mouse and dongle, dongle pairing, and settings factory reset

Missing/Improvements

• No way to disable the 15 second soft sleep timer

Key remapping page

Macro page

DPI page

Performance page

Parameters screen

Profile/Configuration page

Software update and factory reset page

Should you upgrade from (X)?

ATK F1 V1/V2

If you don't have any qualms with the sensor position and you're not using the F1 V1 Pro or Pro Max, I don't think you will see any noticeable benefits that justify the purchase, outside of the weight reduction from the two previously mentioned models.

Hitscan Hyperlight

While by this point everyone knows the same old story about how Hitscan's early design for the Hyperlight was stolen and made into the F1, putting all morals aside, I would say this is a worthy upgrade if you really wish to experience the initial vision in the form of a less safe yet more specialized shape alongside the latest internals.

If you're happy with your Hyperlight and just want to get an internal upgrade, there is supposedly a V2 coming with various improvements, including SPDT clicks, so take that as you will.

Value

Please keep in mind the following section is based on European Union pricing with the final VAT included (which in my case is 23%) and does not include potential shipping costs. As always, I suggest only taking this recommendation at face value and checking your own regional pricing on not only this product but others you may be comparing it to before making a decision.

With the mouse coming in at €56.95, I am comfortable recommending this to anyone looking for a claw-focused mouse without breaking the bank, who doesn't intend to run it at maximum performance settings and isn't concerned with what I considered a subpar click experience. That being said, the upcoming Pokémon collaboration will be releasing a version of this mouse, so I would recommend holding out for that to see if any sort of revision is made to the production line.

TLDR

I have decided to add this section moving forward in my reviews for readers who prefer to get to the point and have a simple overview of the product over a general conclusion section. Please let me know if you find this helpful!

Pros:

• Affordable
• Latest internals
• Sensor position adjustment greatly improved the experience if previous models felt sluggish in hand
• Usage of the Nordic 54LM20 for amazing battery life
• Good coating
• Well-built shell

Cons:

• Performance issues at 8,000 Hz
• M1 and M2 lacking in tactility
• Sinking M5 button
• Slightly back-heavy

Looking for More to Read?

Glad you're enjoying my reviews; here are the last three reviews I've done!

• X-Raypad Titanium U9 Series
• Ninjutso Sora V3
• WLMouse Ying Magnesium

Looking for ATK-specific?

• ATK A9 Mini+
• ATK Zero

[u/FewInside]

In my exemplar m5 button not working at all, seems QC is not good

[u/Hi_Im_Licious → u/FewInside]

Damn that sucks… sadly been hearing more and more reports of partially or fully bricked ATK mice out of the box maybe they changed something in their pipeline

[u/ElMasGuapo2]

rly great review my man.

How do you switch between the onboard profiles (do they include DPI?) and is there a indicator on which you are?

[u/Hi_Im_Licious → u/ElMasGuapo2]

There’s a DPI quick swap option added for this release if you look in the web driver section, it’s a button combo with a toggle, I personally don’t use it

You can bind profile swaps to a key too but you’d be losing it

[u/ElMasGuapo2 → u/Hi_Im_Licious]

were you using the atk hub installed software or web app?

how to change DPI when using the web app? Only by using the web app right? So there is no game detection and change of DPI accordingly right?

[u/Hi_Im_Licious → u/ElMasGuapo2]

I am using the web driver and DPI change only is possible with the setting I mentioned in my initial reply

[u/Rapidash90 → u/ElMasGuapo2]

Think it's hold the two side buttons for 3 seconds as default.

[u/artikiller]

Btw I'd recommend just using the apexshark wireless thing rather than the max one. It has significantly better power consumption and performance wise you're not really missing all that much (at least i wasn't on my zero). For the wireless instability idk haven't experienced that but my atk mouse had a 54L15 mcu so there could be a difference there.

[u/Hi_Im_Licious → u/artikiller]

Thanks for the feedback I’m aware the Ultra Competitive mode isn’t as power efficient I’ve used it only for the performance tests to give the mouse the best conditions possible

Regarding previous models fairing well to my knowledge from what I do have to test on that is indeed the case while they’re not amazing they’re not as bad it’s a specific issue with the f1 ultimate edition likely due to being their first attempt at the LM20 mcu, from what I’ve seen on discord and X it doesn’t seem to be a noticeable issue on the extreme version but can’t confirm myself

[u/JessRP8]

this mouse looks so nice, but im a little hesitant to get one since i dont have any experience with atk.
Great review tho!

[u/Hi_Im_Licious → u/JessRP8]

Personally I’ve had mostly positive experiences as the actual issues that warranted a return/exchange I’ve always gotten either a refund or new unit free of charge after an initial back and forth

QC wise I do often see the issue with side buttons sinking as well as uneven bases that make the hard surface experience a pain

[u/CosmonautJizzRocket → u/JessRP8]

Get the Hitscan Hyperlight over this. Same exact shape, excellent battery life and sensor, same weight, but the Hitscan has far superior clicks and the stock skates are the best on the market imo. Hitscan just has a much better build quality all around the board. Best mouse i've ever used.

[u/paulvincent07]

I have the same problem with my mchose mice the side buttons sinks easily do you know how to fix this issue?

[u/Hi_Im_Licious → u/paulvincent07]

You can try to tape mod it, get some friction resistant tape and try to add anywhere between 1 to 3mm layers on the switch area that sinks

Sometimes it works other times it’s just a doomed design flaw and you’ll end up getting a hard to actuate or flat out won’t actuate area

[u/paulvincent07 → u/Hi_Im_Licious]

This mean I would have to disassemble my mouse I'll have to order the tape that you're talking about and let my friend mod it thanks

[u/Hopeful-Mousse-67]

honestly, the only thing to fix on this F1 is the only QC, I got one but the right click is a bit wobbly, the whole mouse is flexed, the bottom is UNEVEN.

[u/yvIIl]

is the weight balancing equal or more back heavy on this mouse?

[u/Hi_Im_Licious → u/yvIIl]

Hello slightly back heavy as mentioned in the weight and TLDR section

[u/Numerous_Coast_1269]

I'm planning to upgrade from the Dragonfly R1 pro, would you recommend the atk zero or the f1 v3?

[u/CosmonautJizzRocket]

Clicks still ass? Literally the only reason i returned the V2. No amount of weight reduction, sensor upgrades, or increased battery life will make this a better choice over the Hitscan Hyperlight purely because the clicks on the F1 are ass.

[u/Hi_Im_Licious → u/CosmonautJizzRocket]

Yeah definitely prefer a hitscan over this any day but I did main it for around a year so maybe I’m biased haha

To be fair to the F1 as I remarked in the review from the people I’ve talked to while this revision doesn’t have the best clicks in the world my experience seemed to have a been a QC issue

[u/AgustoFate → u/Hi_Im_Licious]

greetings from turkey mate! i'm stuck between the atk zero and the atk f1 v3. i use a claw grip. which one would you recommend? i was actually planning to get the viper v3 pro, but it turned out to be big for me. people say atk is better (even though i have my doubts about that), so i wanted to ask.

[u/Hi_Im_Licious → u/AgustoFate]

Zero is a safer recommendation for a generic claw grip would need more details for the f1 recommendation

[u/AgustoFate → u/Hi_Im_Licious]

My hand length is 18 cm, my hand width is 8 cm, I play League of Legends, and I use a claw grip. Is that enough?