1. Introduction2. Unboxing3. Razer Mamba Tournament Edition4. Testing5. Final Thoughts6. View All Pages

Razer has been at the forefront of gaming grade mouse development for years, helping to push the boundaries of what a gamer's right and left hand man are capable of. Its newly announced – at E3 – Mamba gaming mouse is perhaps the world's most advanced wireless gaming rodent, but even with improvements in battery technology, not everyone trusts a mouse without a hardwired cable. That is where the Mamba Tournament Edition comes in.

Packing the same 16,000 DPI laser sensor, RGB lighting and versatile back-end software, this version of the Mamba has some features that no other mice can come close to. But are they really necessary?

As well as packing the highest of high-end laser sensors into this mouse, Razer conducted many testing and prototyping sessions with esports athletes – to find a design that appeals to their ideals of comfort and usability. While that does not necessarily mean it will be perfect for average gamers, it should mean that the Mamba can be a great companion for those that take their play seriously.

Specifications

• Ergonomic right-handed design with textured rubber side grips.
• 16,000 DPI 5G laser sensor.
• 210 inches per second / 50 G acceleration.
• 1000 Hz Ultrapolling / 1 ms response time.
• Nine independently programmable buttons including the tilt-click scroll wheel.
• Chroma lighting with true 16.8 million customizable colour options.
• Inter-device colour synchronization.
• Razer Synapse enabled.
• Approximate size: 128 mm / 5 in (Length) x 70 mm / 2.76 in (Width) x 42.5 mm / 1.67 in (Height).
• Approximate weight: 133 g / 0.29 lbs.

The packaging for the Razer Mamba Tournament Edition is very minimalist. While it does have a nice image of the mouse on the front and some specifications and feature break downs on the rear, it is not much bigger than the peripheral it contains. That seems less wasteful than some products we have looked at lately and is a nice change.

 

Along with the mouse itself, the only accessories are a small sticker sheet of the Razer logo with various coloured outlines, and a pair of mufti-lingual sheets welcoming the buyer to the Razer club. It also provides details on signing up for exclusive giveaways and encourages users to post a review of the mouse.

The Razer Mamba Tournament Edition looks very much like the Mamba that Razer recently announced at E3; except this one has a cable. Its main body is black plastic, with some clear-cut outs for the palm rest Razer logo, the curved lighting strips down the sides and the surround on the scroll wheel. These will light up when the mouse is powered on.

The overall feel of the mouse is sturdy, with no creaking or clicking as you squeeze it. The buttons are built into the main body and can be pressed from as far back as the apex of the spine's curve, meaning this should work just as well for claw gamers as palm grippers. Although it could probably be used by a left-handed gamer, the Mamba Tournament Edition has a specifically designed curve for right-handed comfort.

 
The left and right hand sides are a little different from one another. While both feature rubber grips for thumbs and fingers, the left hand side has a pair of buttons, which are placed in a fashion so that a ‘rocking' motion can press them. That should make it easier to use them mid-game if that is something you like to do.

  

At the front end, you have the usual left and right mouse buttons, surrounding the embedded scroll wheel. The wheel has a textured rubber surface to make it easy to grip and as well as having the secondary button press function when depressed, it can also be rocked from side to side for two additional keys. By default, they scroll up and down without you needing to flick the wheel.

That said, should you install the Synapse software, those are automatically remapped to scrolling left and right instead.

 

The underside of the mouse (besides being something you should not look at when it is plugged in: laser!) has a centrally located sensor, and three polytetrafluoroethylene (unbranded Teflon) pads. The cable is braided, with a gold leaf header.
How do you go about testing a mouse like this? You use it. For a period of just over a week, I used the Razer Mamba Tournament Edition as my main gaming rodent, putting it through its paces in games from a number of different genres, as well as using it for more office related tasks, like web browsing and photo editing. All the while, it was considered for its accuracy, speed and comfort, with the back-end software also evaluated.

Gaming wise, I was very impressed with the Mamba's abilities. It is supremely accurate and has fantastically smooth movement, regardless of the genre or game. I tried it out in FPS titles, MOBAs, puzzlers, exploration and point and click titles and it performed equally well in all of them.

This is a little surprising considering its use of a laser sensor, as most professional and high-end gamers prefer an optical mouse, but I struggled to see any faults with this one. That may be because I am not a high enough level of gamer to appreciate it, but I have tested a lot of mice and been playing PC games for nearly three decades, and this one was a joy to use.

 
The software is easy to navigate and make adjustments in

Admittedly, this was at a much lower resolution that this mouse can hit. I honestly have no idea how anyone could play a game at 16,000 DPI. Despite it being “native,” and not achieved through some interpolation, I did not even get close, using the mouse mostly at around the 2,000 DPI mark. That may seem silly when there is all that sensitivity head room, but I did try to use the mouse at its maximum resolution and found myself wondering what possible application it could have.

Even Razer itself admits that unless you have three 4K monitors, 16,000 DPI is unnecessary and even then it's usefulness is dubious. Still it can't kill to have the option.

I am not a big side button user, but found their positioning nice and especially the fact that they were slightly larger, which should mean it caters well to those of different hand sizes. The thumb and finger grips were equally strong and even during the most perspiration inducing games, I did not find my hand slipping even the slightest.

Tracking wise, I found that the Mamba worked slightly better on hard surfaces, but was equally at home on various mouse mats or even on the desk top.

 
Despite the fact that the Razer Mamba Tournament Edition has a fantastically deep back-end software suite – as part of Razer's Synapse system – it is not something you need to play with if you do not want to. The mouse is wound really tightly right from the get go, with acceleration at zero, plenty of DPI steps to play with in reasonable jumps and buttons that are mapped to obvious choices.

Thanks to the fact that it comes fitted with DPI up and down selector buttons too, I was able to drop down into much lower DPI steps when gaming and when conducting sensitive tasks in Photoshop. However, for general web browsing when I was clicking on big, obvious headlines or images, I was able to raise the sensitivity up at the click of a button. That is much more preferable to the single-button cycle system some mice use, which can leave you waving the mouse around wondering which sensitivity you are at.

Those with long fingers may run into some issues when adjusting DPI on the fly, as the buttons are a little far back from the front of the mouse – particularly the DPI lowering switch – but for those with smaller hands like myself, it was not much of a problem.

If you do not like the DPI steps offered at stock however, you travel into the back-end software where the Razer mouse does offer adjustments of sensitivity down to the single digit DPI, so if you particularly want a step that is 1768 DPI, you can set it so.

Liftoff distance can also be adjusted, all the way down to a claimed 0.1mm. While I am a little dubious as to that being the case – since even at the lowest setting I was able to hover the mouse and move the cursor, which I do not think is possible to do at the 10th of a millimeter level – this mouse is certainly great at avoiding any unnecessary lift-off based tracking. During gaming and general usage I did not see it happen once.

Lighting options are surprisingly deep and though perhaps a little redundant, for those that love to tweak, they're there

The only downside to the software seemed to be that it requires an internet connection and only lets you save profiles in the cloud – not in the mouse itself. It does however have an SDK, so as well as Razer continuing to develop the platform in the future, it is also hoping some enterprising developers can come up with third-party applications to expand its usefulness. So perhaps someone will find a way to locally save your profiles or take them with you on a USB stick.

Razer explained to us after the review went live ‘it does save the profile locally and then backs it up to the cloud, very similar to DropBox – you can, once Synapse is installed, just set it in offline mode and never touch the web again with it.'

 

Although I feel like mouse lighting is designed more for when the mouse is not in use, or to show off to friends, the application of it on the Mamba Tournament Edition is well done. It is subtle enough that is not in your face, and the fact that you can choose the colours from the entire RGB spectrum and the different lighting options – including a reactive one which is quite fun – should keep everyone happy. Plus, for this price tag (£80) you would expect some fancy lighting.

If you want to know how often you click, Razer has some software for that too

The Razer Mamba Tournament Edition is one of those mice that is difficult to criticise in any meaningful sense.

It has a fantastic laser sensor that may make some of the optical die-hards question their faith, a comfortable and perspiration ignoring shell and some very versatile back-end software. This makes it an excellent choice for gamers and general office users, especially if you happen to have three 4K monitors – as otherwise there is absolutely no way you will even get close to using the full 16,000 DPI that this sensor can deliver.

Lighting options are also really well done and I loved how usable the mouse is right out of the box. Even though the back-end software is excellent Razer has done a great job of defaulting to the most popular of settings – meaning you can plug and play this mouse anywhere in the world without issue.

That might be why Razer has not been so forthcoming with making profiles available locally, but they do save in the cloud, so as long as you have internet access your macros are safe and sound. Razer said it does save the profile locally and then backs it up to the cloud, very similar to DropBox – you can, once Synapse is installed, just set it in offline mode and never touch the web again with it.

The only aspect of this mouse that may provide a stumbling block for potential buyers is the price. At £80, it is one of the most expensive mice money can buy, only eclipsed by a select few such as the wallet sapping Razer Ouroboros.

Followers of Razer and those looking for one of the best performing mice on the planet will need to suck it up if they want to enjoy all of the features of the Mamba – as Razer has patented this laser sensor for their use only.

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The Razer Mama Tournament Edition can be found on Overclockers for £79.99 inc vat.

Pros:

• Fantastic laser sensor, best in class DPI options.
• Comfortable over long periods, good grip.
• Works well on a variety of surfaces.
• In-depth back-end software and lighting options.
• Up/Down DPI selection and plenty of additional.

Cons:

• 16,000 DPI seems overkill to us.
• It sure as hell ain't cheap.

KitGuru Says: This is one of the most capable mice ever released, but the price point means it will target only the wealthy enthusiast audience.

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