If there’s one thing about Razer that’s just as good as the gaming mice they craft, it’s the way they nickname their products. DeathAdder, Abyssus, Naga, Destructor and Arctosa are names that reek of being undeniably cool. It just shows that good packaging does go a long way in establishing a product in the market. Then there’s the ‘For gamers, by gamers’ tagline endorsed by gaming teams like Counter Strike 1.6 grand champions, Team Mousesports and licensed gaming peripherals for much anticipated titles like Starcraft II. The company is obviously working hard to make sure that they have a fair share of gamers rooting for them and it looks like their efforts are paying off very well.
Any ardent gamer will tell you that the mouse is his most fatal weapon in the virtual world and rightly so. A slight dissatisfaction with the sensitivity, design or similar attribute is bound to be detrimental to his gaming performance, just ask us. After testing the Abyssus, we were eager to try out the DeathAdder mouse too. So we got ourselves the Razer DeathAdder and decided to give you an account of us putting it through its paces. The model we played around with was the edition built for right-handed gamers. Razer has another edition of this mouse for left-handed gamers as well. It’s unlikely that anyone would confuse either one for the other due to their blatant dissimilarity in shape.
The DeathAdder comes in a black box with an image of the mouse coloring the front. If we were in the mood for gloating over the appearance of the device before actually getting our hands on it, we would have pulled open the velcro-attached front window to ogle at the mouse within its plastic encasing. We just ripped through the packaging instead, though we did spot Robert ‘Razerguy’ Krakoff smiling benignly at us from one side of the box and elaborating on the mouse’s key features. A Quick Start Guide, Master Guide and Certificate of Authenticity came bundled in with the toy.
One of the unforgettable things about Razer products is their appearance and the DeathAdder doesn’t disappoint the visual senses. It’s much larger than a standard mouse, with the left side curved inwards to a slight degree and the color scheme is black with glowing blue. Gamers who prefer playing with a claw-grip can forget about using this edition – it’s way too expansive for that. The top section which is a single piece with a split running in-line with the mouse wheel flaunts an anti-slip rubber coating. Instead of two buttons, we have two depressed surfaces which take some time getting used to. They would probably feel strange to those on less than cordial terms with them.
A seven foot long lightweight braided fiber cable comes attached to the mouse which means that wear and tear are likely to show on it. The device has a scrolling wheel that glows blue steadily, while the Razer logo (glowing blue again) imprinted on its lower half keeps fading in and out. The chassis hosts two buttons on the left-side depression that are meant for navigating forward and backward. We found these to be quite irksome since the thumb tends to jerk involuntarily towards them and navigate back to the previous task/web page. The Razer Precision 3.5G infrared sensor can be spotted on the underside that also accommodates a Profile button and three Ultraslick Teflon Feet.
The device offers simple plug and play functionality, but you’ll need to install the software drive from the Razer support website to tweak the settings. The driver control panel allowed us to adjust the polling rate, dpi, sensitivity, assign profiles and save or load settings. This is from where the scroll and triple-headed snake logo can be commanded to cease their glowing in case it annoys anyone including the jealous gamer friend in the vicinity. We thought the factory settings for the functions matched to the buttons were just fine, so even though we could have assigned different button settings for clicking, universal scrolling, menu and so on, we didn’t.
When it comes down to using the mouse, we found the 1800 dpi to be better than the other 450 dpi, 900 dpi and 3500 dpi options under non-gaming circumstances. Using the mouse at 450 dpi is simply maddening as the cursor seems to move in slow motion while the 3500 dpi setting gives it a giddying movement on the screen, it appears to jump rather than move. The debate over how polling rate and dpi affect game performance may still be an unresolved issue. But it’s good to note that we had better control over it while playing Counter-Strike at a lower dpi of 900 and 1000 Hz which lends a 1 ms response rate. Those who love to tote snipers may probably want the 450 dpi setting as long as they plan to remain behind cover. Moving around the map and turning around is way too difficult at 450 dpi.
There are three polling rates to choose from, namely, 125 Hz, 900 Hz and 1000Hz as well as five profile settings. Other options include those for changing scroll speed, double-click speed, advanced settings for X/Y sensitivity levels and Windows pointer speed adjustments. The driver control panel also proffers an option to turn pointer acceleration on or off and tweak the acceleration level, though it is not recommended for gaming. Users who wish to keep an eye on In-The-Fly Sensitivity can do so by activating this feature through the Button Assignment section. Bringing the mouse back to factory default settings simply requires users to press and hold the Profile button for 10 seconds while it is connected to a PC.
The Final Word: The DeathAdder is a cool mouse for gaming. The manufacturers have done well with the simplified tweaking system for dpi, polling rate, sensitivity et al. We’re not ignoring the fact that it is the gamer’s skill that comes through ultimately, but these tools are useful as part of the complementary arsenal. Surfing the web with this mouse isn’t something we’re too enthusiastic about, at least until we can get the thumb to stop hitting the forward and backward buttons inadvertently. This Razer DeathAdder offering comes with a $59.99 (approx. Rs.2,716) price tag attached to it.
Looks: 9.5/10.
Functionality: 9/10.
Comfort: 8/10.
Overall (not an average): 8.5/10