Comments on: Razer Deathadder Review

By: VIZARI

VIZARI — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 15:31:52 +0000

I’ve actually taken time out to see the Steelseries Xai and I can say the shape of the mouse is up my street, it looks similar in shape as the Deathadder, I’m definitely interested in testing one of these mice, it looks interesting. I also want to test some Roccat stuff, they look decent as well, had the DA for sometime now, perhaps its time for a change, just not sure in which direction to go, it’ll take a while to adapt to something new after playing on this for so long.

By: bst

bst — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 08:14:25 +0000

Btw the name of the new laser sensor is Avago ADNS-9500. So any mouse with that should be a winner :)
Theres a thread about it here, it mentions most of the mice that have it:
http://esreality.hexus.net/?a=post&id=1767295

By: bst

bst — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 08:08:18 +0000

Definately the Xai is the wrong shape for you then. But I wouldn’t discount steelseries if they make a mouse in the shape you like (I wouldn’t get an Ikari though). They have a lot of nice features on their mice, like whatever DPI you want (anything between 100-5000 on the xai), also you can adjust the amount of angle snapping/prediction, and jitter control, which pretty much all mice have but you can’t adjust. I don’t know how much of a difference it makes, but its nice that they thought of these things.

Personally I’m not sure about the Roccat Kone. The only laser sensor I trust is the one in the Xai, G9x, g500, qpad 5K. I think if I were you I’d be more eager to try the Qpad 5K:
http://www.corporate.qpad.se/modules/news/article.php?storyid=229

There is also a new deathadder out, which has 3500DPI. Its the one I nearly got :) It doesn’t have any other new features though afaik. Its still optical.

The G5 sounds pretty crap but then again all laser mice using those sensors were. I don’t know if I would blame logitech on their own, afterall the MX518 is a great mouse, and these new ones are good too.

I had a Razer diamondback a few years ago, and that started moving on its own aswell. Its just bad luck.. credit to Razer though, they sent me a new one, and it was about 3 years old. Nice warranty :)

As for skipping pixels at long range, well, it shouldn’t, but I think it could be more down to the human hand. At those kinds of sens, it doesn’t matter what DPI you have on the mouse, because hands just can’t use that kind of presision. I mean how many dots do you think your hand can move in an inch? :)

Having said that its nice to have the DPI, so you at least know your mouse won’t be skipping any pixels. Its easy to test, just try and move the xhair slowly, pixel by pixel, then you’ll know if its your hands or your mouse which is causing the skipping. Higher DPI @ the same cm/360 will help.

Another way to reduce skipping is to make the surface of the mouse mat and the bottom of the mouse as frictionless as possible. Ie. teflon mouse feet and a glass or teflon coated mouse mat. Such as the Icemat or the ulti-mat:
http://www.ulti-mat.com/v4/index.php?page=product&pid=10

By: Vizari

Vizari — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 18:13:49 +0000

See I found the G5 to skip, and I know what you mean about DA and at distance its hard to track or lock on with the smallest of movements, but then I think that’s down to the settings you use, if you use lower sent and lower DPI, it’s smooth and responsive, but if you’re like me and use higher/faster sens then yeah it’s hard to track with DA at long distance, but then I aim for having faster movement for flick rails and fast rocket play and not so much on my LG or anything for long distance.

Logitech laser mice and stuff always skipped for me, must’ve been my sens, but I can actually shake the DA as fast as I can and it never does, if I did that with certain Logitech mice, shake it, say i shook it right, it’d skip and move left all on its own, it even got to a stage where I’d leave my mouse stationary, not touching it, yet my cursor was moving on it’s own slightly to the left, lol. Never experienced anything like that with the DA in the 3 or so years I’ve been using it, same mouse as well since I started Quake4 all those years ago, not changed it once.

By: Vizari

Vizari — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 18:07:51 +0000

Hey dude, yeah I’ve read recently about laser mice being more responsive and don’t skip so much anymore, I’ve never used a Steelseries mouse, doubt I ever will so I’ll have to take your word on how good it is mate. I’m biased towards the Deathadder it seems but after being a Logitech kiddy for over 10 years it was hard for me to switch and once I did I wished I had done it sooner.

A mouse i’m eager to test/try is the Roccat Kone – Here is the URL to the mouse, tell me what you think, may be up your street as well (Well not now as you’ve got your Xai mouse, but still.) Take a look.
http://www.roccat.org/Products/Gaming-Mice/ROCCAT-Kone/

Yeah hyper-response, responsive buttons that are too sensitivity I think on times, especially if you’re heavy handed or just naturally got big heavy fingers, haha.

I can only use certain shaped mice, like the ball mouse from Logitech the ‘mouseman’ was perfect, and the MX518 and G5’s were up my street on the design as well, and the only Razer mouse I found that was similar in shape / size was the Deathadder and now the Kone from Roccat i’m interested in trying.

By: bst

bst — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 14:00:04 +0000

Hi mate :)

Got the Xai today, tested it for negative accel etc, and I can’t get it to malfuntion. I was concerned about it being a laser mouse but it looks like they’ve ironed out the problems of the older laser sensors.
So far I’m really pleased with it, I can’t find a single thing I don’t like about it. Some people might not like the ambidextrous design though.
The buttons are very similar to my old intellimouse but feels, which I really like. Also it has a screen on the bottom of the mouse where you can adjust all the settings so you don’t need drivers, which is a bit of a gimmick for most people but for a pro I can see it being really useful.
If I would review the mouse I’d give it a 10/10 easily.
I can’t speak for the deathadder as I never used one, the buttons sound like the ones I had on my razer diamondback though (I used to use in Q2). They are a bit annoying but I got used to them :)
I think razer calls it “Hyper-response” :)

By: KG

KG — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 23:07:35 +0000

Nice review BST :)

yer it is a GOOD mouse for a gamer

but i hate it in windows with apps, as the buttons are way to light to press tbh
so you tend to have menus pop wen you DONT WANT then :(

By: bst

bst — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 06:21:13 +0000

Was on the verge of getting one of these until I saw the steelseries xai. I can’t resist the WMO shape updated with high dpi/driverless etc. But if the xai isn’t as good as its supposed to be I’ll be sending it back and getting a da for sure :)
Nice review and I agree, high dpi is great. I recently stopped using accel+low sens and want high sens only, but my wmo can’t do it, the tiniest movement skips about 5 pixels, making it impossible to aim at long distance and track smoothly.
Its really nice to have all these great mice on the market to choose from.
Also I’ve heard a lot of bad things about the G5, but apparently the G500 and G9x are much better (sensor wise). But still I think the DA/ms explorer and WMO shapes are the best overall, and shape is one of the most important things to consider when buying a mouse.

By: Vizari

Vizari — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 19:03:15 +0000

I use the Qpad UC, not really test any other pads with this mouse as I haven’t felt the need to do so as I’m comfortable with this as it is. No skates either, just standard out of the box.

By: teh_stryder

teh_stryder — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 18:46:59 +0000

with what mousepad do you use the deathadder?
do you use skates?