It's expensive for a reason.
Since its introduction in 2009, the Mamba (See it on Amazon) has been the flagship of Razer’s mouse line. The company has produced plenty of other mice: some cheaper like the DeathAdder, some targeted at specific genres like the Naga. But the Mamba remains the most expensive, high-tech, does-it-all mouse in the company's lineup. It has gone through several revisions since its introduction 8 years ago, improving tracking and lighting as new technologies became available, while making a few small design refinements along the way.A button moved here, a texture changed there, just to keep the Mamba on top.
In its latest incarnation, the Mamba earns its place as the best all-purpose right-handed mouse Razer offers. But with a whopping $149.99 price tag, it might be more mouse than you really need. Let's dive in:
Design and Features
The latest version of the Mamba uses Razer’s newest laser sensor technology, which supports an absolutely bonkers 16,000 DPI sensitivity, 50 Gs of acceleration, and speeds up to 210 inches per second. Suffice it to say, even the craziest twitch mouser isn’t going to be able to whip this thing around their desk fast enough to trip it up. The Mamba is a mid-profile mouse, with a shape that allows it to rest comfortably in the palm of your hand but isn’t quite as high-arched as some of Razer’s other products like the Naga. Those with especially large hands who prefer a “claw” grip can probably use it, but the shape and weighting are really meant for more of a palm grip.
It is specifically a right-handed mouse, with two thumb buttons on the left side, none on the right, and a back that crests toward the left side while sloping downward towards the right. While Razer makes left-handed versions of the DeathAdder and Naga, there’s no left-handed Mamba. The shape is quite comfortable, with a soft touch finish and rubberized grips along the left and right edges. The scroll wheel has prominent knurling and firm detents that make it easy to use even if your hand gets sweaty. The mouse wheel clicks to the left and right as well, and as with all the buttons on this mouse, you can fully program what you want those clicks to do.
Along the front of the mouse you’ll find a recessed micro-USB port for the charging cable. The Mamba includes an RGB-lit charging dock, but you can pull the cable out of the dock and plug it directly into the mouse, which turns it into a wired mouse and charges it at the same time. This recessed cavity is not nearly as deep as the one the Razer Lancehead, and as such it’s a lot easier to attach and detach the cable.
But the whole point of spending $150 on a wireless mouse is to use it wirelessly, and the Razer makes it easy to keep the Mamba charged up. If the battery gets low, the lights along the side of the scroll wheel will flash. If you’ve still got a lot of mousing around to do, you can always just plug the charging cable to the mouse and use it like a normal model. But you can avoid this entirely by training your muscle memory to place the mouse back on the charging dock every time you step away from your computer. The dock has its own programmable RGB lighting around the bottom edge, which gives it a cool “looks like it’s floating” effect. And its design is such that you basically can’t mess up the alignment—just drop it on there and it’ll fall into the groove and start charging.
Software
The Mamba uses the same Razer Synapse software as all Razer’s other peripherals, and it hasn’t changed a whole lot in the last few years. (There’s a totally new version on the way later this year, however.) Controls for the Mamba are nearly the same as with other Razer mice: there are main pages for the Mouse settings, defining Macros, enabling Chroma Apps (which adjust the mouse’s lighting in response to games or programs), or viewing stats like distance traveled, clicks, or a “heat map” showing where you move your mouse.
The main Mouse menu is where all the good stuff is. It’s here that you can customize literally every button on the mouse, including the mouse wheel. You can make them perform different mouse click functions, launch programs, run macros, adjust volume, change the mouse sensitivity, and much more. The performance menu gives you control over mouse sensitivity (including the ability to set independent values for the X and Y axes) and acceleration. You can also change the polling rate, up to 1000Hz (1ms).
The lighting menu lets you select among five different lighting styles: breathing, reactive, spectrum cycling, static, and wave. Interestingly, when I set the lighting to “none” in an effort to elongate battery life, I found what appears to be a bug: The mouse would intermittently warn me that the battery was low by flashing the lights around the mouse wheel, even though I had plenty of charge left.
If you really want to get fancy, you can use the Chroma Configurator to set up a custom lighting scheme. With it, you can customize the lighting mode, color, and intensity for each of the seven LEDs along the left and right sides as well as the scroll wheel.
Gaming
The Mamba’s basic tracking and wireless performance are on par with Razer’s other modern wireless mice, which is to say, it’s excellent. It feels as fast and responsive as a good wired gaming mouse, and there’s really no difference in feel between using the Mamba in wired or wireless modes. All of the buttons are easy to reach and have a good feel, while the mouse sits comfortably in the hand. I also really appreciate the distinct knurling on the fat rubbery mouse wheel as it allows for much better grip than with a smooth wheel.
I played a variety of games with the Mamba, from shooters like PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, action games like Shadow of Mordor, and MOBA or RTS games like League of Legends. At no point did I feel like the Mamba lost tracking, skipped, or jumped. Sadly I have to blame my horrible League performance entirely on my skill, and not my $150 gaming mouse.
One feature that is unique to the Mamba is the ability to adjust the click force—making it easier or harder to click the main left and right buttons. You’ll find little hex screws on the bottom of the mouse, and a small tool included in the box to turn them. The left and right buttons can be adjusted independently, with forces ranging from around 45g to 95g. Stiffer buttons are better for deliberate, less frequent clicks (say, sniping in an FPS) while low resistance makes it easier to click rapidly (which RTS players prefer). I’m not one of RTS gamers that seeks to maximize APM (actions per minute), so I felt comfortable with the tension set to about two thirds stiff.
If there’s a downside, it’s battery life. This is a common issue with wireless gaming mice, which use more powerful tracking technology and much faster polling than regular everyday office mice. A good standard wireless mouse usually uses AAA batteries and can go for anywhere from a few weeks to a few months before they need to be replaced. The battery in the Mamba would last through about 2-3 days of frequent use for me. This is similar to other Razer wireless mice, and far behind some competitors like the Logitech G602 (which uses a pair of AA batteries, making it heavy, but promises 250 hours of use between charges). You may eke out a bit more life if you disable the LED lighting, but then why spend all that money for a mouse that lights up? Besides, as mentioned before, I got false “battery low” warnings when I did so.
The solution is to make liberal use of that charging dock. There’s really no way I could run through a full charge in a single day, so I just had to retrain my muscle memory to plop the mouse on the dock every time I got up from my computer. The demands of a gaming mouse are different than those of everyday mice, but dramatically improving battery life should be at the top of Razer’s to-do list for the next revision.
The Verdict
The latest version of the Razer Mamba has almost everything you could want in a general-purpose gaming mouse. It’s fast, smooth, responsive, and comfortable. You can customize it to hell and back with flexible button assignments, detailed marcos, programmable RGB lighting, and even tweakable button tension. But at a price of $149.99, I’d like to see better battery life. And that Synapse software overhaul can’t come soon enough. Finally, if you really don’t care about wireless and just want the Mamba’s other features, you can get a Tournament Edition version for $89.99, but that model also lacks the ability to adjust the clicking force.
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire