I have spent a few months playing with the Razer Mamba as part of my ongoing search for the best wireless gaming mice. The Mamba is the third wireless mouse I have tested to date and I’m happy to say it’s a great gaming mouse for action games to MMO’s. It was hard for me not to compare this mouse with the Logitech G5 which is why I found myself bias in favoring this mouse. The G5 is one of my all time favorite gaming mouse which I will discuss it a little later.
The first gaming mouse I ever owned uses an ergonomic design which is why I was excited to get my hands on the Mamba. The mouse was built to model after a circular arc shape. Imagine putting your hand on a half cut softball and building it into a mouse. This is why the mouse feels great because it’s literally built to fit into your hands. This design is different compared to the Razer Ouroboros which was built with a slope shape.
It seems like Razer is always offering a premium package. The Mamba comes with a docking station that is designed for charging and for establishing a wireless signal. This was a similar offering when I reviewed the Razer Ouroboros which also came with a docking station for the same purpose. The difference is that the Mamba uses an ion lithium battery which is more stable on holding the charge, unlike the Ouroboros rechargeable double AA batteries. I would say the Mamba does a better job at dishing out 20 hours of gameplay on a single charge while the Ouroboros 12 hours always seem to come up shorter than advertised. This is to be expected because a good pair of AA batteries just can’t beat a good ion lithium battery. I hope Razer considers upgrading all their battery power mice with ion-lithium batteries.
The Mamba offers 9 buttons with two on the left, two on the top and a left-right tilt scroll. All the buttons can be reprogramed with the Razer Synapse. For those of you who don’t know about the Razer Synapse, it’s a required software that needs to be downloaded from Razer’s website if you want to be able to reprogram features such as the extra buttons to DPI sensitivity.
I won’t be discussing the software in details but you can check my Razer Ouroboros review if you wish to learn more about the synapse. What the Mamba does differently is that it allows users to put up a light show with customizable colors that glow on the mouse and the dock. You can also setup each of your profiles with different colors.
There is one thing I would add regarding the synapse. The profiles I made would sometimes not show up on my account. I couldn’t always figure out when or how this issue occurs but I did find two simple fixes.
- Make sure your computer is turned off when your plugging in the mouse or wireless dock.
- Turn your online settings to “offline” when all your profiles are showing and working correctly. Online syncing may sometimes make your profiles disappear.
The rest of the mouse works well as long as the profiles are working as intended. I tested the mouse by playing with a combination of games from MMO’s to FPS games. Some of these games include World of Warcraft, Fallout 4, Sniper Elite 3 and Ghost Recon: Future Soldier. The buttons delivered on every press without flaw. One odd thing I discovered was that the Left click button may sometimes miss. It makes me wonder if I didn’t click hard enough while knowing full well that I heard the clicking sound from the mouse. The rest of the buttons worked flawlessly. I did wish mouse button 4 which is the button closes to the middle of the mouse was one inch closer up towards the scrolling wheel. To reach this button can be a hassle. If you didn’t position your hand further back then you may have to move your entire hand back at the risk of throwing your game off. The Logitech G5 positioned their button 4 just right and speaking of the Logitech G5.
The Logitech G5 series was the first gaming mouse I owned. They released different versions of it but the one I’ve been referencing was model M-UAH113A (they didn’t have fancy names back then). If you take a good look at the mouse in a side by side view, you can see why its hard for me not to compare the Mamba with it. It’s unfortunate the G5 model was no longer being refreshed, nor did they ever made a wireless version. It’s by far the best ergonomic gaming mouse I have ever used. Maybe Razer’s engineers are a big fan of the G5 too. (http://support.logitech.com/en_us/product/g5-laser-mouse-product#knowledge)
(Highs)
• Ergonomic design that perfectly fits your hand and palm.
• Have plenty of extra buttons for multiple hotkey games like World of Warcraft.
• A solid wireless connection that doesn’t lag.
• Ion lithium battery can last a good day of gaming and is replaceable.
(Lows)
• May not be the best wireless traveling mouse because of the docks size.
• The Razer Synapses software may sometimes lose track of your profiles and may even duplicate a new default profile which is annoying.
• Button 4 could have been better if it was built an inch closer to the scroll wheel.
(Final thoughts)
This is the best Razer mouse I have used to this day. I did notify Razer in regards to the disappearing profiles problem. At least four different reps attempted to help me but no real fix was ever determined. But this is still a well built mouse. A few modifications would of made it an unofficial successor to the Logitech G5 hardware. Which makes me wonder why Logitech never continue to develop their G5 mouse with their own wireless technology?
