Manufacturer: Razer

Release Date: 6/9/2011

Colors: Black

MSRP: $129.99

I loved my Razer Naga MMO mouse, and it has lasted almost two years without a hitch. I also love my Cyborg R.A.T. 9 mouse, but I am getting bored with it and want to move on. The Razer Mamba is the other high-performance, high-tech gaming mouse out there. Bottom line: This is the best money you can buy. While being cheaper than the R.A.T. 9 by $20, it does more hardware-wise but less software-wise in a way. I don’t want to turn this into a Razer Mamba vs. Cyborg R.A.T. 9 review, but I can’t help but compare two of the best gaming mice out right now.

The first thing you will notice is the epic box the mouse comes in. It’s on a stand like a holy relic, and inside are drawers with your cord, charger base, manuals, battery, and cover. It’s a slick-looking box and is just asking you to buy it, and hey! You get a free sticker. When you plug it in, you need to download the firmware updater and software, which is easy. Once your firmware is updated on both the base and the mouse, you can check out the beefy software. But first, let’s see what this mouse does hardware-wise.

The mouse has the usual Razer ergonomics that you’re used to with the Naga or the DeathAdder, but it feels concave just right on the thumb side. There are two big buttons just above your thumb for easy access, as well as two others near your left-click button. Below that, you have a battery indicator as well as a sensitivity indicator (they are the same), which wireless mice do not have. Underneath, there is a lot going on with a battery, wireless switch, connectivity button, and USB release button. Thankfully, none of this interferes with the smooth glide of the mouse.

This mouse has a 4G dual sensor that detects the type of surface you are on and can adjust on the fly. It also has lift detection for gamers that use low DPI and like to lift their mouse constantly (which is annoying to watch, by the way). You will also notice the wheel lights up, which is nice, but sadly, the Razer logo does not light up. What makes up for it is the awesome charging base that does light up, and this mouse uses a full-color spectrum that you can rotate or just use one color. In the dark, the base looks amazing and has a nice ambient effect.

My favorite feature of the mouse is that it can go from wired to wireless by just unplugging the cable from the dock to the front of the mouse. The 6′ braided cable is sturdy and gives you great length, but you can also charge while in wired mode. There isn’t an easily swappable battery, so once it dies in wireless, you have to stop and plug it in, which I find pretty annoying, but you get used to it. The battery lasts 16 hours when all the performance features are off, like the mouse light, polling, and the calibration sensor. With everything on, you get about 7-9 hours, which isn’t too bad.

The software is a great suite that allows you to use macros, profiles, adjust performance, and fine-tune your mouse. This mouse has a whopping 6400 DPI, which is ultra-sensitive, but you can change this on the fly in several ways. Press a button and use the mouse wheel to adjust, or use buttons for preset DPI. Acceleration and a 1000 Mhz polling rate give you ultimate silky smooth precision for both low DPI gamers and high DPI gamers.

Overall, the mouse performs like silk, and I played a shooter with ease and was a lot better using this mouse. I do have a few complaints about not being able to use Windows functions like volume control and media playback via macros. The software is slow and unresponsive in wireless mode and will sometimes freeze and crash. This can probably be fixed with a patch, but it shouldn’t happen at all. I couldn’t even get On-the-Fly Sensitivity to work in wireless mode. Like I stated earlier, the battery life is low unless you turn most features off and only have one battery. The charging base is huge and not very portable, so if you need something on the go, you will probably choose wired. Other than that, this is an excellent mouse, and gamers, as well as Razer fans, should own it.