This is Razer’s brand new gaming mouse – the Razer Viper. It’s a special mouse that focuses on a few new features – like the use of optical switch for the clickers, weightlessness, and its new Speedflex cables. How does it actually compare with the mouse that we use on a daily basis? That is an interesting question.
We gathered everyone in the office and ask them what’s their first impression and opinion on the brand new Razer Viper.
Razer Viper
We should first mention the key highlight features of the Razer Viper again – it has a lightweight 69-gram construction, a non-removable Speedflex cable that Razer is claiming to make mouse bungees unnecessary.
With that said, we realized that Razer is really moving away from the “RGB everywhere” mantra to a much more elegant look this time around. The only RGB that is present on the Razer Viper is on the palm area only – and it is underneath the outer matte plastic shell.
Like what we’ve said in the video, the overall feel of the Razer Viper feels good despite its lack of weight (we’re all used to weighted mouse) and with an ambidextrous design. Kudos to Razer for doing a great job in crafting the curvatures of the ambidextrous body to match the weightlessness.
Then there’s also the new Speedflex cable. Dugi and I both describe the cable the same way – it’s spongy. It is also flexible and able to be curled up yet goes back to its rather straight form once we let go. Our videographer also stated that the cable is surprisingly straight even though we just unboxed it.
I personally like the scroll wheel a lot since I use it a majority of the time to zoom in and out of video timelines in Premiere Pro. It has these little rows of texture on the scroll wheel and every step of the rotation has noticeable tactile feedback. Its resistance is just nice that there are no accidental rotations, yet offers an adequate amount of control.
As for the middle click – or some people call it the scroll wheel click, I find it to be a bit too soft. Dugi, who played a lot of COD in the past, said that the softer middle-click makes it easier to throw grenades. For me, it might be a little too soft and might accidentally trigger it during intense scrolling. Our videographer finds it to be just nice.
One particular niche feature that I use a lot is the DPI cycle button which I reprogram it to be the media play/pause button. For the Razer Viper, that DPI cycle button has been moved to the bottom of the mouse – which means no on-the-fly DPI changing. For some people, this might be a dealbreaker.
However, since the Razer Viper is an ambidextrous mouse, there are two additional buttons on the right side of the mouse. These side buttons are a little on the mushy side for our tastes, though.
By the way, one of the main highlights of the Razer Viper is the optical switches. Yes, it’s using optical switches for both left and right clicks. We found it to be hollow and creates an echo when clicked. We also felt its click to be very lightweight and linear too. But that turned out to be the feature that we ended up not giving much attention since we liked how the Razer Viper felt.
Overall, for the price of RM309 (USD $79.99), we highly recommend you to try it out for yourselves first before making the purchase. For us, we’re all surprised by the Razer Viper. It’s surprisingly good and matches our hands. As for the buttons, it really depends on your personal preference.
Pros
- Speedflex cable is great
- Programmable buttons
- Subtle RGB
- Weightlessness
- Ambidextrous design
Cons
- Non-removable cable (understandable)
- DPI button at the bottom
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