The Razer Mamba, free from wires, ready to strike (image courtesy Razer)

I’ve been wanting to test out the Razer Mamba since I first saw reports of it at CES.  I love my Razer Lachesis, but the Razer Mamba outpaces it at every step.  The Mamba sets a new standard for wireless gaming-grade mice, in my opinion its better than its direct competitor, the Sidewinder X8.  I glowed about the X8 when I wrote the review in May, and I still like it, but I like the Mamba more.

You may remember I recently had some questions answered about the Mamba from Razer President Robert Krakoff.  I asked him why the Mamba was going to be better than the X8.  His response “That question can be best answered by a side-by-side independent comparison of these two mice. Response times, precision and accuracy, comfort over long hours of competition, battery life and recharging functions will all vary. IMO these two mice are night and day based on personal usage and experience.”

Now there one thing I prefer on the X8 that I wish was on the Mamba and I’ll get to that in a moment, but in terms of gameplay and speed one thing is certain: The Mamba stands alone because it’s faster than fast.4000 is fast, 5600 is faster

The mouse I currently use, the Lachesis has a 4000 DPI sensor.  A higher DPI setting on your mouse allows you to make quicker movements with more precision.  I use the max DPI in most situations and adjust the in-game sensitivity to match the speed I like.  The Sidewinder X8 matched Lachesis for speed in the DPI sensor.  I’m thinking Razer didn’t like that, so they ratcheted up the speed to a mind-numbing 5600 DPI.   I have to be honest, this is going to be more speed than most people need.  In fact, if your mouse is set to 5600 DPI and someone else sits down at your computer, they are going to complain that they can’t click on anything.  This is because most standard mice that ship with computers don’t even breach 1000 DPI, but hover within the 400-800 range.

The Razer Mamba has As you can see, the buttons are nicely placed. (image courtesy Razer)

The Razer Mamba is speed without limits… or better expressed speed with a limit so high that you might as well be flying a jet.

Speed without control though would be wasted.  The Mamba grants the gamer a higher level of control over the speed of the DPI setting than the X8.  While the Sidewinder sports three different DPI settings you can assign, the Mamba has five.  The button placement is also more friendly for quick switching.  On the Mamba, there are two small buttons directly to the left of the main left mouse button.  These can be assigned to almost anything, but default to increasing and decreasing the DPI level.  Unless you always play at the same DPI level, it’s probably good to leave them that way too.

The Mamba has five assignable DPI levels.  For my use, I’ve chosen 5600, 4000, 3000, 2000 and 1000 for the levels.  As I said in the X8 review, it’s great to be able to switch between speeds on-the-fly because it adds flexibility to the gameplay.  If I’m a sniper, I want to slow down the movements to be a little bit more deliberate with my aiming while I’m zoomed in.  But if I’m running to get into place (read: not camping), I might as well have a higher speed so that I can better survey my surroundings.  This is the same case when switching between classes.  It’s just easier to click a button and have it instantly change than to have to alt-tab into a settings menu or set up a specific macro to do so.  It’s a matter of preference for me that I like the placement of the Mamba’s switches, where the X8’s are in between the index- and middle-fingers.

There’s also the issue of polling rates, or how often data gets transmitted from the mouse to the computer.  On the Sidewinder X8 there’s a 500Mhz polling rate which means it transmits every 2 milliseconds.  On the Mamba the polling rate is 1Khz (1000Mhz), which means it transmits every millisecond.  I can’t complain about either polling rate, because they’re both mind-numbingly fast. But fast is fast, and the Mamba is faster.  For reference, your standard wireless mouse reports about once every 8 milliseconds, which is like an eternity.

The Razer Mamba on the charging dock. (image courtesy Razer)

But wait… it’s wireless

It’s almost a known certainty that if you’re a gamer, you’ve heard the masses decry wireless mice as ’substandard pieces of junk’ and countless other names that I wouldn’t use on the blog.  While they’re busy typing out insults, the Mamba is busy burning them.  Then the Mamba creates a machine that can re-burn things and those same people get burned again.

As we’ve already established, the Mamba is insane DPI and polling rates, but when something’s wireless it also has to compete with all of the other things in the spectrum.  That’s where the Mamba’s hardware-assisted interference avoidance comes into play.  The mouse recognizes interference in the 2.4 Ghz spectrum (which is pretty busy already thanks to wireless routers and cordless telephones) and finds a free channel further down the spectrum.  I didn’t run into a single problem because the mouse was wireless.

Every Battery Runs Down…

Being wireless, the Mamba needs to be recharged every once in a while.  Some wireless mice manufacturers choose to use generic rechargeable AA batteries and I asked Razer’s president why they went in another direction.

“From the beginning the higher concept of a dual-mode wired/wireless mouse was in place the option of rechargeable batteries was out,” said Krakoff.  “One of the key challenges for any wireless gaming mouse was overall weight as well as battery life.”

On their website, Razer claims that the Mamba lasts 14 hours for continuous gaming and 72 hours for normal gaming usage.  In my practice, I found battery life to be less than expected.  Working on the weekends, I put in 12 hour days in the newsroom and the Mamba didn’t make it through a day.  While playing at home, it generally didn’t last the prescribed three days either and if I wanted to play wirelessly it was probably best to put it on the charging dock every night.

Because it’s bound to happen, what’s the Mamba’s answer for when the battery  runs out of juice in the middle of a session?  The USB cable can be removed from the docking station and then plugged directly into the Mamba, thus making it a wired mouse.   It is immediately usable and starts charging your mouse.  This way you can keep playing while your mouse is charging.

While it is amazing to switch from the docking station to the mouse with the cable, there are some things about the Sidewinder X8 that I prefer.  On the Mamba unplugging the dock is easy, but it disconnects the mouse from the computer until you’ve plugged in the cable again.  It instantly recognizes, and you’re set to go.  But when you need to charge the Sidewinder the device never loses connection with the PC, because the cable comes from the transmitter and magnetically attaches right away.  While you’d think this would ultimately make the Sidewinder easier to use, that’s not the case.  You have to unwrap a cable on the Sidewinder in order to get it to reach your mouse pad, depending on its location.  With the Mamba, it’s already unwound, because it’s plugged into the dock.

Ultimately, I prefer the docking solution on the Mamba more, because it looks more classy than the charging of the X8.  I would like the magnetic solution on the Mamba, but it doesn’t detract too much because the charging solution is superior.

Comfort Matters

The Mamba is an ambidextrous mouse, but it favors right-handed gamers because of button placement.  There are two buttons on the left side of the mouse and two on the the top of the mouse that are just better suited for righties.  It doesn’t keep lefties from using the buttons by any means though.  It felt comfortable for long sessions for both gaming and normal office usage.  Comfort matters in a gaming mouse and the Mamba fits great.  Of course, every hand is different so you’re going to want to check it out for yourself, but it should fit most people’s hands.

Simply stunning. (image courtesy Razer)

Packaging that’s Simply Stunning

When I saw the packaging on Engadget for the first time, I thought it looked good.  But when I opened up the package for the review, I was amazed by the packaging.  I’ve never seen anything on the shelves of a computer store that looks like this.  The only thing that puts a similar focus on the product is what  Apple does with its iPod line.

Opening the box is equally impressive.  Everything is tucked neatly in its own special compartment.  The USB cable has a cloth protector and the gold-plated connection has a cover on it.

The New Gold Standard

The Razer Mamba is the new gold standard for gaming mice.  It has the highest performance of any mouse on the market and is one I recommend without hesitation.

Now, the gold standard also comes with a price tag to match.  The Mamba retails for $129.99.  You’re not going to find it for for much less than $120 right now either because the demand has been so high.

Questions, comments? Feel free to hit up the section below or shoot me a note on Twitter.