Razer Deathadder Black Edition

retails around £46.99 (UK online)

compared to the sheer volume of research i have done on many parts for my computer build, the peripherals were such that it wasn't purely down to their primary function or secondary cost.

each of the items (keyboard & Mouse) had to also fit form to the function. i am in no way a "gamer" or out to set up my desk as if it was a giant advertisement board for the best of the best on the market or infact make it look like a disco was taking place with random hue's glowing at ungodly hours of the night.

i came across the company Razer whilst doing research on Mechanical Keyboards and did browse through their mouses/mice (O.E.D. does define it as mice now) at the time, but didn't really take much notice

with Razer's tag line "for gamers, by gamers" did kinda stick with me once i was recommended this model of mouse, taking into consideration that PC gamers do really care on the quality and comfort for using these products over longer periods of time compared to the average at home users, so maybe it is worth spending money here instead of a bog standard £5 mouse

if i recall 3 people recommended the 'Mamba' series of mouses first of all to me, (if you haven't seen either they essentially look the same) but one thing jumped out at me which wasn't preferred "wireless", having bad experiences with wireless tools for computers and the sheer volume of batteries that i used to go through ('Mamba' has built in Li battery if i remember correctly), the times where i'd want to scream that i had to wait for batteries to charge to do the simpliest of tasks would kill me on my soon to be fastest computer by a long way. My PS3 annoys me if i forget to turn off the controller whilst watching a movie, to then have to spend the next day 4 feet from the screen whilst it charges.

so having the Deathadder as a cabled mouse also helps hugely when running off my laptop because i know i'm not going to misplace it at all

so with the Deathadder there were 3 options available for me, black, left handed and super version, which i can't find it's tech name whilst writting this. seeming i'm right handed and didn't want my room glowing green left me with only one option. the BLACK EDITION.

how it's been

well it's been almost two months with the mouse, using it on my Apple Macbook first and then my new Windows 8 machine, i haven't got a bad thing to say about it. ish

ergonomically it's beautifully set-up for people with medium sized hands (woman sized or teen guys, or adult guys with smallish hands) who like to hold the mouse in the "palm grip"fashion, i have weird long fingers so depending how lazy i am or how much caffeine i have consumed either plopping my hand with my finger tips overhanging the front slightly or with my hand slightly sat back both feel natural without having to need to grip with any force.

the usb cable is huge, being used to laptop mouses for years i was expecting to have a difficulty with either reach or having to use an extension (i'm guessing it's around 6' long) and is wrapped in a sort of paracord style black casing which gives it a smart finish, but more importantly i know shouldn't crack or degenerate under sunlight like cheaper plastic would

the main downside i have found, probably not huge and most probably fixable, is the software 'synapse 2.0' i love the way that you get the ability to full customise your experience with the product, but what... the.. hell? i dont get it. it took me 4 days to find the option to stop it from logging online to a cloud service to find 'my settings' for 'my mouse' on 'my computer' (a common complaint i've heard but the disable function must have been added on 2.0). the next thing is 'mouse button 4' every FPS game i've played so far only recognises the two side buttons as 1 button, software wise says i can customise the keys to do anything, but i spend hours and hours a day infront of my work computer, so coming home to 'set-up' mouse buttons isn't my calling of fun. unless it's a microsoft thing and can't be sorted i would have thought having their own software would define to the computer that it's a 5 button mouse. lastly... mouse sensitivity, for general computer work (using synergy between Mac and PC) i have the PSI set to around 1800, which in games is almost suicide on FPS style games. reading online that between 500-800 will give you a smoother and better aim is great, but if it takes 5 minutes to close a browser window it's redundant. so i essentially run it at 1800 for everyday use, and run all my games with the mouse sensitivity set to pretty much 0, it's the only way around it

Would i recommend it

god yes, but i'd run it without their software for a fortnight just using your computers natural settings

subnote: it's gray not black