Turtle Beach Pure SEL review: Gaming ergonomics on a budget

A wired take on the Turtle Beach Pure Air ($99), the Turtle Beach Pure SEL ($39) gives you the same Kone case while slashing the price by over half. This leaves you with a capable gaming mouse that’s loaded with enough features to keep any gamer happy, without being too much of a money sink.

If this sounds pretty good so far, I’m afraid you will quickly begin to notice cost saving measures which really hurt the Pure SEL, especially compared to the best cheap gaming mice we’ve tested. Its semi-transparent case isn’t the best look, and the plastics used feel closer to a $20 mouse in terms of quality. More unforgivable are the rubberized cable, undermining the admirably low weight and slick PTFE skates.

With that being said, there's still something to appreciate about how many aspects of the Pure Air have been translated into a budget variant, helping this mouse remain in line for consideration if you’re after a gaming mouse without breaking the bank.

Find out more in my full Turtle Beach Pure SEL review.

Turtle Beach Pure SEL review: Cheat Sheet

• What is it? A gaming mouse which is one of the cheapest in Turtle Beach’s Kone design lineup.
• Who is it for? Gamers on a budget, who don’t mind a wired mouse.
• What does it cost? The mouse is very affordable, at just $39, or £34 in the UK.
• What do we like? It’s one of the cheapest ways to get your hands on a member of the Kone lineup, if you’re already a fan of the shape, and the low weight and good skates make for strong performance in games. 
• What don’t we like? Too much was sacrificed for the budget price tag — a plastic cable rather than braided and inconsistent sensor significantly impacted my performance.

Turtle Beach Pure SEL review: Specs

Turtle Beach Pure SEL review: The ups

For the most part, the Pure SEL is a capable mouse with a comfortable ergonomic design, with enough going for it that you should at least consider it, especially given its low price. Fantastic integration with Turtle Beach’s companion app really gives the mouse a needed boost in performance.

Ergonomic design

The case design features the distinctive Kone shape, previously used by Roccat prior to their takeover by Turtle Beach in 2019. If you’ve used any of Roccat’s Kone mice, you know what to expect here — a concave thumb grip on the left side of the mouse, with a rounded back that angles to the right, providing support for your palm. 

I really wasn’t a fan of the ergonomic design of the Turtle Beach Kone XP Air ($129), but while the grip is still not as comfortable as other mice I have reviewed, I found the Kone shape easier to get used to on the Pure SEL thanks to the absence of the Kone XP Air’s frustrating additional thumb button. The subtle ergonomic support made long sessions of Europa Universalis IV comfortable, with the mouse being a decent size for my medium sized hands in palm grip.

The ergonomics shaping actually does the Pure SEL some favors visually, too — the curve on the side looks pretty sleek and has a simple but clean texture to assist grip. It looks almost exactly like the pricier Pure Air or the Kone XP Air, but with a minimalist style. The lighting design isn’t garish as the Kone XP Air, and the shape isn’t overly-stylised for gamers. Thanks to this, the Pure SEL doesn’t look out of place at the office, if you're a fan of the grip.

Performance

The Pure SEL performed well in most games, with a 1,000Hz polling rate and low response times. This means that (for the most part) my mouse movements were accurate and responsive, working well in fast-paced FPS titles like Ultrakill. Zooming in and out of the map of a grand strategy game such as Europa Universalis was smooth thanks to a very easy-to-roll mouse wheel.

The impressively smooth glide of the PTFE skates — there are four corner skates and a donut skate around the sensor — combined with the low 1.7-ounce weight allow for quick movements in competitive settings. I loved the similar four corner approach taken by the Logitech G305 Lightspeed ($39), and the decrease in friction was noticeable and appreciated during frantic game-deciding shootouts in Counter Strike 2 using the Pure SEL.

Companion App

Turtle Beach’s companion app, Swarm II, offers a comprehensive and easily navigable array of settings. Impressively, the options available on the Pure SEL are the same as more expensive offerings from Turtle Beach, such as the Kone XP Air. 

Notable inclusions are an adjustable debounce time between 2 and 10ms, changing how frequently button presses can be detected, and the ability to toggle angle snapping on or off. While these features are all fairly common on even the cheapest gaming mice, they’re still great to have at your disposal. Some mice I have reviewed recently, like the Logitech G305, do not have these features.

I was also particularly impressed by the per-game macro bindings available. The software contains a long list of games of which you are able to bind specific actions to buttons, such as having a mouse button act as the “spot” key in Battlefield 4. As this list is preloaded, you can set up binds for games without having to have the game owned or installed. Sadly, many releases from the last 5+ years are missing, but there are still enough here for most gamers to find some use.

The software is also remarkably easy to use, with a panel layout which clearly displays all available settings in sensible fashion. The software can be a little heavy on resources and slow, but these are minor complaints, and it’s an otherwise well-polished app.

Turtle Beach Pure SEL review: The downs

Unfortunately, the Pure SEL falls victim to some significant flaws that make it hard to recommend outright. Problems with the overall build quality are rounded off by a lackluster design which makes the Pure SEL difficult to love.

Cable drag

The USB-A cable holds the mouse back considerably, with the low quality rubber cable causing drag and negating the movement benefits of the mouse’s low weight. This isn’t always an issue on wired mice — braided cables can effectively reduce friction against your desk or mousepad, something that similarly cheap mice like the Endgame Gear XM1r ($49) or the Cooler Master MM720 ($46) possess. If you’re a fan of the mouse but hate the cable too, there isn’t any choice besides forking over an extra $60 for the Pure Air.

Build

The Pure SEL feels insubstantial, both in the overall build and specifically the feedback of the buttons. Expect a deeper, hollow sound than most other mice when using the Pure SEL — indicative of the poorer quality switches used versus the Pure Air. The Air boasts responsive optical switches, too, while the cheaper mechanical switches here in the Pure SEL feel sluggish.

The thumb buttons were also some of the worst positioned I have seen, sitting much higher than my thumb and facing an upwards angle. Quickly accessing them during games was difficult, diminishing their usefulness for extra quick binds. I couldn’t rely on them in fast-paced competitive games, so for me their utility was limited to a push-to-talk bind only, but even then I was disappointed by how shallow the press was.

Appearance

The appearance of the mouse is serviceable, but the cheap plastic lets it down — it doesn’t feel great to the touch, and I would prefer a matte finish over the slightly transparent casing. The black color is reminiscent of a more classic mouse design like the Endgame Gear XM1r, but the white version has an unappealing milky finish, looking much duller in tone than the mouse’s bright marketing images suggest, thanks to the black internal parts. I much prefer the appearance of the black mouse because of this, but of course the visual appeal will be subjective.

The lighting won’t be for everyone either. This is restricted to the Turtle Beach logo, with no markings or lights on the surface. It comes through blurry and undefined, although the advantages are that reducing the brightness to zero in Swarm II will leave no outlines or embossments showing on the case itself, allowing you to fully hide the Turtle Beach logo. I wish being able to hide manufacturer’s logos was a more common feature, so props to the Pure SEL for that one.

Turtle Beach Pure SEL review: Verdict

The Pure SEL exists to serve as a cheaper alternative to the Turtle Beach Pure Air, and to that extent it succeeds. In fact, not only is it the cheapest entry in Turtle Beach’s Kone mouse lineup, it’s one of the cheapest wired gaming mice available altogether. 

However, a mere $10 extra can vastly increase the quality of your mouse you’ll get, with great options like the Endgame Gear XM1r providing much improved build quality, and an arguably more comfortable design. For just $5 more, you can get your hands on one of the best wireless budget mice, the Redragon M916 Pro, offering additional gaming features such as ripple control and angle snapping on top of a high perform 4,000hz polling rate — plus, you can ditch the wire for an agility-enhancing wireless connection.

You might find something to love about the ergonomic design, and maybe the semi-transparent appearance is your thing. Unfortunately, the below average aspects of the build, along with the lackluster visual design, means that this is a mouse I can only fully recommend if the Kone ergonomic shape is what you're looking for.