Its funny, as much as things change there are some areas where things stay the same. A great example of this is with a lot of today’s gaming mice. The fact is, with mice like the G5 and the Deathadder, they just got almost everything right. This is why we have seen both reintroduced multiple times with just small changes to keep up with what people are looking for. For the Deathadder, Razer’s biggest change or update was the introduction of the Razer Mamba. I first saw the Mamba back in 2009 at CES in a tiny little booth that wasn’t even on the show floor. Back then Razer was still a very small company. The reason I associate the Mamba with the Deathadder is they share a lot in their shape. Anyhow, here we are six and half years later and I finally have a Mamba in the office. Only this time around it’s not the original, this year Razer reintroduced the Mamba under the same name but with a new design. I’ve been testing it for almost a month and it’s not time to dig into its features and tell you all about it.

Product Name: Razer Mamba (2015)

Review Sample Provided by: Razer

Written by: Wes

Pictures by: Wes

Amazon Link: HERE

 

Specifications
Sensor

16,000 DPI 5G laser sensor

210 inches per second / 50 G acceleration

Connection Dual wired/wireless gaming grade technology
USB Speed 1000 Hz Ultrapolling / 1 ms response time
Battery life Approximately 20 hours (continuous gaming)
Approximate size 128 mm / 5 in (Length) x 70 mm / 2.76 in (Width) x 42.5 mm / 1.67 in (Height)
Approximate weight 125 g / 0.27 lbs (without cable)
Lighting Chroma lighting with true 16.8 million customizable color options
Buttons Nine independently programmable buttons including the tilt-click scroll wheel
System Requirements

 PC / Mac with USB port

Windows® 8 / Windows® 7 / Windows Vista® / Windows® XP (32-bit)/ Mac OS X

(v10.8 – 10.10)

 Internet connection

 100MB of free hard disk space

 


Packaging

It’s funny, back in 2009 when they first showed me the Mamba. It wasn’t just the fact they made a wireless Deathadder that had me excited. I loved the packaging, they went crazy and packaged the Mamba in an acrylic case like a jewel with drawers under it with all of the accessories. This time around Razer didn’t go to that level. They packaged the Mamba into an all-black box, just like everything else they sell. On the cover the Mamba logo is in a reflective material and the cover has a photo of the mouse from the top down. Giving us a peak at the RGB lighting along its sides.  

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Around back we have a list of features along with another photo of the mouse. This time though we can see the charging base and just how the Mamba docks.

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The packaging is held closed with magnets as well as a seal to show that the packaging hasn’t been opened previously. Inside they highlight the RGB lighting with an interesting photo and then below that they introduce you to the Mamba in typical Razer fashion. The into will catch your eye for a minute but it’s not long before you notice that inside the box is a nice metal tin with the razer logo embossed in the cover.

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Inside the metal tin Razer has a bit of padding then a tissue paper with a note from the Razer CEO. Under that you will find the Mamba tucked away in foam with the mouse shape cut into it and just below that a bundle of papers. Under the papers the foam has more cutouts. One for the charging dock, one for the charging cable, and one for the small adjustment tool for the trigger switches. I will dive into each of those along with the mouse itself in the next section.

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Photos and Features

Like I said earlier the Mamba takes the shape of a Deathadder as its base then works from there. With the newly released Mamba that is no different. In fact, if you plug the cord into the Mamba and turn off the lighting it could be mistaken for the Deathadder. The classic Deathadder shape is that high swoop design that peaks near the middle. This makes the Mamba a great palm grip mouse because it pushes up into your palm by default. The all blacked out finish matches the standard Razer styling but when I first got my hands on the Mamba the first thing I noticed was the new rougher finish they went with. Seeing that I have in the past used the rubberized Deathadders as well as fully painted Deathadders as well I have seen just about every finish from grippy to glossy but this has to be the best yet. It feels very durable, similar to the auto paint like finish on the Transformers Deathadder but gives you grip similar to a more rubberized finish.

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From the side profile you can really see how defined the shape of the Mamba is. Beyond that though there are a few big things on the left side. For starters there are two large thumb buttons. This is mouse button 4 and 5. I typically don’t use a lot of side buttons on my mice but I do always bind my TeamSpeak push to talk to one and when playing FPS games I use the other for my melee attack. In other words, having two side buttons is perfect for me, not too much and not too few. What I was a little concerned with when I first saw it though was the rubber grip under the side buttons. Frankly with nearly every mouse I test that has rubber on the sides the rubber feels out of place or it becomes greasy later on while in use. Surprisingly the Mamba didn’t have any of those issues. In fact, I didn’t even notice that that area was rubber until part of the way into my testing. The last thing going on here on the side is the thin white line between the side and the top, this is for Razers Chroma lighting that can be controlled by the software.

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From the back profile we can get a much better idea of the rest of the Mamba’s shape. We know the side profile starts low on the back, peaks high in the middle then drops down to the triggers at almost an inch above the mouse pad. But it isn’t until we see this view that we can see just how different the left and right sides of the Mamba are for shape. The left side is favored and peaks MUCH higher than the right side. This lets your pinky and ring fingers to lay comfortably on the right side of the mouse.

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On the right side of the mouse we can see just how much lower the side profile is with just a thin rubberized area. Up in the triggers though there is a bit of a grove to help your hand fall into place. Beyond that there aren’t any special buttons here, just the second half of the Chroma lighting.

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The front of the Mamba gives a peak at the mesh grills that are under each trigger. This reminds me a lot of some of the older Cooler Master mice where they would put lighting behind similar grills. We can also see that each trigger has a convex shape to help your fingers stay in place.

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Up top in between the two triggers we have a plastic scroll wheel with a rubber grip with tiny nubs on it. Beyond scrolling the wheel also double as a few buttons. Not only can you push it in but it also has left and right clicks, something I have wanted to see on a Razer mouse for years. In addition to all of those programmable functions you also have the two buttons directly behind the scroll wheel as well. By default, these flip through DPI settings but they can be reprograms if needed. They are perfect for DPI settings though as they are back far enough out of the way to never get bumped in the heat of the moment but still close enough to get to quickly.

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Next let’s take a look at what’s going on under the mouse. This has to be the busiest area on the entire Mamaba. For starters you have three gliders, one semi large one at the bottom and two smaller gliders, one under each trigger. This isn’t as much surface space as some of the Logitech mice, but is more than most SteelSeries have and frankly there isnt any more room for them with everything else going on. Also down here are all of the required logos as well as a full serial number for the mouse should you need to RMA it. There are three key things specific to the Mamba being a wireless mouse. The large square indent that takes up the bottom half is what holds the Mamba in place on its charging dock. Just above that the two metal contacts are how it charges when on the dock. Then to the left of the sensor is the on and off switch to turn off the Mamba when you aren’t using it or charging it.

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Taking a closer look at the sensor area we can see right away that this is a PTE sensor due to its yellow color. PTE stands for Phillips Twin Eye. Some of you might remember them from the issues a few years again with Z-axis tracking, something that drove me completely crazy when almost every mouse that came out had one. The Mamba specifically has the PLN-2034 PTE sensor, one that I haven’t tested yet so I will reserve my judgment for the performance section once I get testing. The other interesting thing here are the two adjustment screws on the bottom of the mouse. Razer went with a unique trigger switch design that allows you to tighten up or loosen up the switches spring to change the spring rate from as low as 45 grams to 95 grams at max.

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switchdesign

To adjust the spring pressure Razer provides a small tool to turn the screws. There really isn’t much to the tool at all. I do wish that they would have integrated it into the charging base though, I’m 100% sure that at some point if I use the Mamba for an extended amount of time I will lose the tool. In fact as we sit here I’m not even sure where the tool it now.

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For the charging/data cord Razer included a sleeved USB cable with a micro USB connection on the device end. The Micro USB connection has a very odd shaped casing that helps lock the cord in when you plug it directly into the mouse. This is the same cord you use for the wireless base, you can unplug the base and run the mouse wired if you have any wireless issues at a LAN for example where there might be multiple devices on similar frequencies.

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The charging base for the Mamba isn’t any different than the original Mamba with the exception of the addition of the Chroma lighting along the bottom edge. The podium that stands up had a square on top that holds the Mamba in place and then the two contact points charge the mouse. The bottom of the base has much of the same information that the mouse has including a serial number, product name, and information on the model and certifications. Around the sticker on the base is a rubber grip that is about a half inch wide all the way around. Add to that what feels like weights in the base, it’s not likely to be moving around at all. The Micro USB cable hooks up into the back of the base.

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Software

Razer devices have gone through a range of different software but over the last few years they have put a big focus on their software. It hasn’t been without controversy; a lot of people hate having to sign into software for a mouse or keyboard. I don’t really fall into the hater category there, but I would prefer to not have to do it. I’m also not a big fan of needed to reboot when I install the Razer Synapse software. Once installed and signed in though the software does have a very Razer look. The software is mostly blacked out and looks a lot like the Razer packaging. The first page we land on for the Mamba gets us right into button programing. You have a photo of the Mamba near the middle with numbers labeling each of the mouse buttons, from there you can click and set each button to do nearly anything you might think of. Here we can also flip through profiles and set button layouts for multiple games or functions. Down at the bottom we also have a small picture of the Mamba, this area fills up with all of the Razer devices you have hooked up, so if you have a mouse and keyboard for example you can flip between them at any time.

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The second page gets into what they consider mouse performance settings. Here we can set the sensitivity, polling rate, and acceleration. Here I also noticed that each page has a small battery indicator for the Mamba.

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The third page gets us into the chroma lighting. We can pick from a few effects as well as set the brightness levels. There is a different option for the docks lighting as well but I preferred to keep it matching the mouse for consistency. There is an additional Chroma Configurator if you are looking to get into fully customizing your lighting effects, the base options cover most things but really the only two options I found myself using was the wave effect that shows off all of the colors or a solid color to match the rest of my peripherals.

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The next tab is the calibration tab. These have been popping up from all of the big manufactures recently. Basically you can tell the software what mouse pad you are using and tune a few settings for best performance. This is also where you can find liftoff range, I personally think that should be in the performance section though as it is an important setting to people who lift their mouse.

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Being a wireless mouse, it’s no surprise that they needed to add a power options page in as well. Here we can set how long for the mouse to go into sleep mode when it’s not on the dock. There are also a few lighting options here, specifically you can have it blink to let you know when the battery is low and you can set the mouse/dock to show you the battery level through the lighting while its charging so you can quickly see when it’s done.

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For macro programing there is an entire section up in the top menu options. Here you can load and adjust old macros or turn on recording a record a new one. You have options to set the delay between actions when recording as well.

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Like I said, Razer has been putting a lot of effort into their software. Part of that has been opening up an SDK and allowing for plugins with the Chroma lighting. Some were specific to keyboards like the snake for Chroma app. I really like the ChromaSync app that syncs lighting with various games, much like what Logitech has been doing as well.

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The other area that have made big improvements is in the stats tab. Here you can actually see heatmaps, mouse movement, and even overall mouse lifetime usage. They break things down by game and date so you can go back and see how you have been using your Razer devise in any specific game to help improve your gameplay. I don’t think this is as important on your mouse, but with a keyboard you can take the information and better layout your keys.

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So with all of that in mind how did the software compare to offerings from Razers direct competition like Logitech and SteelSeries? Well I think the Razer and Logitech software offerings are very similar in most ways. They are both easy to navigate, packed full of similar features like the stats pages, and they both work with the whole product lineup. I like those two slightly more than the SteelSeries software but the difference isn’t far apart. Razer still has issues with needing to login and also the rebooting when installing but past that I think the overall experience is very completely. Even the updates are all integrated into the software where some of the competition will at best let you know there is a new update that you need to download from the website. I think with the Mamba specifically Razer could optimize the pages slightly, it felt like they put things that should be on the performance tab on other tabs just so they would be full.

 


Performance

Typically, with a mouse I need to focus on two aspects when covering their performance, comfort and performance. With the Mamba I also have to add in battery and charging experience as well. Starting with comfort, seeing that the Mamba takes a lot of its shape from the Deathadder it is up there in comfort. I do wish the angle from the peak of the palm area to the back of the mouse had a slightly different angle as I did notice when I palm grip the mouse and loosen my grip the mouse wants to push forward rather than staying snug in my palm. Beyond that though the mouse fit my grip well and didn’t give me any hand cramps. The size might be a tiny bit large for people with smaller hands but overall the “Deathadder” shape has been historically popular. The thumb buttons were easy to reach with my thumb without being in the way. The scroll wheel was also spot on. Some people may not like that Razer included side scrolling but at no point in my testing did I accidentally bump it so even if you don’t need it you should be okay.

You will notice I didn’t mention anything about the trigger buttons. Well with Razer building in individual adjustability for each of the trigger switches I spent more time testing them. Like I said earlier you can adjust each switch from as low as 45 grams to 95 grams at max. First off my concern with the size of the tool to adjust them was justified, multiple times I lost the tool on my desk and I keep it at least somewhat cleaned up. Hopefully in the future the build in a spot to keep it into the base. As for the performance of the trigger switches. Beyond the range of spring rates, the switches felt exactly like any other mouse switch so you don’t need to worry about that. Having the option to tune the mouse to my preference was nice but it also pointed out that somehow I don’t have any preference in mouse trigger weight. I could tell the difference when I turned them up or down but when I got into game I didn’t notice anymore and it didn’t seem to affect my gameplay in a good or bad way. I bet most people set them and never go back to them, but it is still a nice feature to have, especially when you want the perfect experience.

With 16,000 DPI the Mamba surly won’t lack for resolution. But as usual the DPI races don’t really translate to any improvement in performance. The fact is most people aren’t using more than 2,000 DPI and even that is on the high side. So what I was curious about with the Mamba was just how well the PLN-2034 PTE Twin Eye sensor would perform. In the past I would basically discount the whole mouse due to having that sensor because the z-axis issues caused me issues but I wanted to see if they have managed to work out the issues through firmware updates. So in my initial testing I didn’t run into any issues or tracking issues. Over time I did have a few weird issues with the sensor jumping while using a hard mouse pad. In game I never noticed it but I did spot it when doing much slower mouse movements. As for z-axis tracking issues I did notice a slight bit of movement when initially testing it but when lifting while gaming it never became an issue.

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Being a wireless mouse I also had a big focus on any potential input lag and battery performance. Even in the LanOC office that is notoriously bad with any wireless device I didn’t run into noticeable input lag or wireless issues. The good thing about the cord design that can be moved to the mouse itself is if you run into interference at a LAN you aren’t completely out of luck, you just have to go back to wired. For the battery life Razer suggested that you should see 20 hours of continuous gaming on one charge. To put this to the test I set my wife up with the mouse on her day off while she played games all day long. After 9 hours of heavy use the battery was down from 100% to 25% but after that testing I did notice I still had the Chroma lighting turned up to its brightest setting. Dropping that down to a normal level should get you into the 12+ range, or basically more than most people would ever use in a single day. Turning the lighting down to dim or even off would extend that even more. I’m sure the 20 hours is within reach with no lighting though.

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Speaking of the lighting, I did think the Chroma lighting running down the sides of the Mamba look good. It might be a little to flashy, but I think people have always gone with Razer for a little flash.

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Overall and Final Verdict

So after waiting for what almost 7 years, was the new Mamba all I had hoped? Well as I have mentioned multiple times in the review I love the Deathadder’s shape, so starting with that you can’t really go wrong. Wireless peripherals are hit and miss but Razer is spot on with the Mamba. Not only does the wireless perform well and have noticeable input lag but I was also a big fan of the charging dock. The new adjustable spring rates on the trigger switches was an interesting development as well. The razer software is top notch as well with the inclusion of stats. Really my only complaints about the software were the need to log in as always and I think they could improve on how they organize the options for the Mamba. The only REAL issue I had with the Mamba was with its sensor. They have improved on the Phillips Twin Eye by leaps and bounds and the z-axis issue is hardly there at all now. That said I did still have a few tracking issues when using it on a hard mouse pad. If they would have gone with the sensor from the Deathadder I think the Mamba would be close to perfect.

As it sits I would highly recommend it for anyone looking for a wireless mouse but keep in mind it’s not going to be perfect. How does it compare to wireless mice from the competition? Well I really liked the Wireless Sensei but I ran into some wireless issues with it, the 700s from Logitech feels a little dated next to the Mamba. The Logitech G602 lacks a rechargeable battery but has a better sensor than the Mamba. I think the Mamba is the best wireless option currently but they did leave room for improvement.

fv4recommendededitorschoice

Live Pricing: HERE

Author Bio
garfi3ld
Author: garfi3ldWebsite: http://lanoc.org
Editor-in-chief
You might call him obsessed or just a hardcore geek. Wes's obsession with gaming hardware and gadgets isn't anything new, he could be found taking things apart even as a child. When not poking around in PC's he can be found playing League of Legends, Awesomenauts, or Civilization 5 or watching a wide variety of TV shows and Movies. A car guy at heart, the same things that draw him into tweaking cars apply when building good looking fast computers. If you are interested in writing for Wes here at LanOC you can reach out to him directly using our contact form.

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garfi3ld replied the topic: #37401 17 Dec 2015 15:17
Today I check out the new Razer Mamba, check it out and let me know what you think of it!

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