Pros: Ergonomics, lightweight, customisable colours
Cons: Lack of buttons, no weight adjustment, no dedicated physical profile button switch

Build Quality: 10/10
Design & Looks: 5/10
Performance: 10/10
Software: 8/10
Value: 7/10
My final Rating: 7/10

Purchase Date: November 2014
Purchase Price: £65

First of all I would like to thank Razer for sending me the mouse for review. After having reviewed an array of mice and hearing so much about the DeathAdder, I was keen to see how it performed.

In my video review, I had looked at the mouse at the £55 price tag (as that was the current pricing) – but since, the price has risen to £65 – and thus I’ll be reviewing it at the higher price tag.
You can purchase the mouse on AmazonUK for around £65 & AmazonUSA for around $60, which is around £20 more than the original 2013 DeathAdder – the older version can also be found on AmazonUSA for $58

Here’s my video review of the DeathAdder Chroma:

Now let’s get into this written review!

Full specification and a description of the keyboard can be found on Razer’s website.

Build quality

The build quality of the mouse is absolutely excellent. I’ll try to break this down.
First of all, the ergonomics (which I’ll expand on, in the design part) are exceptional – in fact for me, it is the most comfortable mouse I’ve ever come across, simply due to it’s ergonomics and design. Relating this back to build quality, Razer have used a slightly granulated surface, which goes hand-in-hand (pun intended) with the overall “feel” of the mouse.
Expanding on this, the scroll wheel has groves throughout the scroll wheel, which make it comfortable for scrolling – I didn’t notice any sort of rattling or any problems with the scroll wheel either.

The mouse clicks are reasonably quiet – which is always a great for late night gaming sessions.
Other than that, the mouse’s wire is a nice braided cable, that’s terminated with a gold-plated USB.

Overall, the build quality is very good and Razer have done a great job for the actual feel and build of the mouse.

Design

Now the design part of the mouse is great, in terms of actual ergonomics, but has little to be desired, especially at the £65 price tag, in terms of features – therefore the 5/10 rating is a little weighted in two ways – one in the actual ergonomics and looks of the mouse, and separately the actual design element of the mouse (such as the button placement etc) – I thought of separating the ratings, but in all honesty it all comes down to “design” – it was all the design process that had the DeathAdder only have 2 buttons on the left and not three.

So let’s get into the design:
As said above, the ergonomics of the mouse are amazing – the form factor is really well done and is extremely comfortable – in fact I find the DeathAdder Chroma the most comfortable mouse I’ve ever come across. I tried the 2013 version and Mamba (but didn’t review them) and they share (almost) the same ergonomics, which is excellent to see.

Now on to the other design elements of the mouse – I found the lack of any additional buttons extremely disturbing at the £65 price tag. Only 2 buttons in total (5 if you count the scroll wheel and the mandatory left and right mouse buttons) – I mean to me that’s really “bare bone” – a £10 mouse has the exact same amount of buttons. This meant for me a limiting factor when gaming – it just wasn’t sufficient enough, and that was in FPS games, let alone if we take this into the MMO games, 2 buttons are laughable.
Then one might say: “But you can switch profile, why are you complaining?” Sure you can – but you have to use the software, which can be tiresome when you’re in a game, then have to ALT+TAB, yet again, there’s a lack of features here – where’s my dedicated profile button at Razer? My £25 Anker mouse has it – why doesn’t a £65 mouse froma world renowned peripheral company not have it? Disappointing to say the least.

Continuing on the features I would have expected in a £65 mouse are weight adjustments – none present, again lack of features. It’s a shame really, because not everyone wants a light-esk mouse. Some might prefer slightly heavier ones. This is unfortunately not possible with the Razer DeathAdder.
Now this might seem like all doom and gloom, but really these are just points I’m picking out, as they’re things I would want in a £65 mouse. If it were cheaper, I wouldn’t be drawing the point out as much (just as I didn’t do as much with the Steelseries Sensei [RAW], due to its slightly cheaper price of £50).
On a brighter note (pun intended), you can customise the colour to whatever you wish! This is great and especially well thought out, as you can independently change the colour of the scroll wheel and the logo – they are independent from each other and aren’t linked, meaning you can have some quite cool colour schemes!

Overall, the design of the mouse, physically speaking and in terms of ergonomics is excellent, in fact it’s amazing. However, in terms of actual features to boast about, the Razer DeathAdder is really struggling, and this unfortunately effects my gameplay and my feelings about the mouse.

Performance

The mouse houses the Avago S3989 sensor.
Now the performance was excellent for me – it has “over 9,000” DPI – to be precise 10,000 – which is ridiculous. The 2013 DeathAdder had 6,400 dpi, which again is more than enough.
I don’t quite understand this whole point of going higher. I personally use mine at around 2,000 and again, that will all depend on mouse sensitivity settings (which are set to around 10%) – what’s the need of 10k DPI? It’s beyond me, but anyway, it’s in there if you want it.
Performance wise though, be it 10,000 or 2,000, I couldn’t careless and the performance is excellent either way. There was no noticeable lag nor acceleration problems etc. A top quality performer.

Software

Razer’s software was very good – responsive and worked flawlessly for me – however, putting this mouse on my friend’s PC – he told me: “You of all people, I can’t believe hasn’t had any problems with Synapse 2.0” – after going over to his house and plugging in the mouse on his PC – there were tons of problems. So the software for me, personally was flawless, but bear in mind if you ahve problems, you wouldn’t be the only one out there.
Speaking about the software itself, it is great – does the job valiantly and you could assign the mouse buttons to literally anything you can imagine – Impressive to say the least.

Therefore, due to the known problems I’ve left the rating at 8/10 – other than that the software is flawless.

Conclusion

Overall, this mouse is a great performer, the most comfortable mouse I’ve ever come across and brings a little colour on your desk. However for £65 it’s a big ask, especially for previous 2013 DeathAdder owners, which essentially are only gaining a “more DPI” sensor, and the chance to change the colour – other than that the 2014 version, doesn’t really bring anything new to the table. If you’re going to get a new mouse for the first time, you should have the DeathAdder on your consideration-list. However, if you’re a 2013 owner, I would just look elsewhere for something different or “more”.

Hope you enjoyed my review!
–TotallydubbedHD