Yeah. It’s pretty much the best Tech Tips ever. I apologize in advance for the intro. I th0ught it would be funny, then it turned out really brutal, but then it got so brutal it got funny again.

I had a lot of fun with these products and making this edition of Tech Tips, and I think that they both represent a compelling value as unique products in the market. Without further ado: The Razer Mamba #5….

Well I have a performance update on the Mamba now that I’ve had some more time to use it. Spent all day at work on it for office/casual testing. I was using (for 1/2 of the day) the Mantis control cloth mouse pad (my very favorite, but doesn’t track well with my Ikari Laser at home, so I use a QCK at home) and (for the other 1/2 of the day) the Razer Destructor mouse pad. The Mamba and the Destructor is a match made in heaven, but it performed very well on the Mantis Control. It didn’t exhibit any jumping when I picked it up at the end of the pad on either of those two surfaces, unlike the QCK at home. It comes down to make sure that you choose a mousing surface and a mouse from the same vendor for best compatibility.

Used the Mamba and the Carcharias tonight for my Left 4 Dead match with the NCIX Steam guys, and let me tell ya… Maybe it’s because I had already used the Mamba last night, but I think I was MORE impressed by the new Razer headset. This thing is awesome. I mean, it’s not the best pair of headphones in existence, but they’ll stand up proudly to any other pair of $100 headphones, and the mic is significantly better in transmit quality (using Mumble) compared to the Sennheiser PC161 I usually wear around my neck. This is according to the other guys on the channel. They were asking me what I did to make my voice so clear tonight and I told them I was using the new Carcharias.

Here are some shots of the Mamba next to all my other mice. I’m getting more and more impressed with this thing the more I use it. Trying to go back to the G7 for comparison testing tonight was painful. The Mamba’s ergonomics are not my favorite, but I think a big part of that is that for YEARS I “cupped” the mouse isntead of using a fingertip grip. The G9 got me out of that habit a little bit (as you can see from the grips, that’s a VERY used G9), but I still find the G5 and the Ikari Laser more comfortable. The Mamba hangs with them though, and it has the HUGE advantage of being cordless. I kept finding myself wanting to “tug” the cord to free it up, something I do reflexively now to ensure it doesn’t get snared on anything, only to find that there was no cord to get snared!

I game at about 1000DPI, so honestly I couldn’t tell you the difference between most of these laser mice as far as that’s concerned. I can’t IMAGINE playing at 5600DPI, but I know there are people out there who want just that. It’d be far too twitchy for me with that kind of sensitivity, but the Mamba offers 5 adjustable sensitivity settings (more than any other mice here) and on-the-fly switching, so you can easily configure it with a variety of different sensitivity schemes.

Enough about the Mamba, and more about the Carcharias now. It’s more comfortable than the PC161 (which I can’t tolerate anywhere but around my neck) and about equal (maybe just a touch less) to my well broken-in Sennheiser HD555 and the SteelSeries 5H V2. The mic is excellent and the audio quality blew me away. I would challenge anyone to show me a better value pair of headphones for $100CDN. They use an open design, so you get more bass out of them than the SteelSeries, but with the disadvantage of them being less effective at isolating your game sounds from others and the voices of others from your game sounds. They still deliver a less “full” sound than my HD555, and they are a little harsh at high volume, but they deliver what I believe gamers want: Clear highs and deep bass. The mid-range is a little weak, but that won’t matter unless you’re listening to a lot of music. Either way, they are 1/2 the price of the 555s AND you don’t have to look like a dork with a clip-on mic on your shirt.

Don’t get me wrong. The HD555s still kill everything else in that picture for sheer audio quality, but it’s like saying a Mazda RX-8 will outsprint a Honda Fit. Of course it will, but the Honda fit delivers amazing value at a great price, and that’s why you’ll see many more of them on the road.

Well, I wasn’t expecting to get this kind of treatment after the initial arrangement with Razer to get a Mamba sample to demonstrate on Tech Tips!

Today our full reviewer kit arrived in a fancy metal briefcase and it included the Razer Mamba, Razer Carcharias, and (I requested a “recommended mouse pad” from them as well) a Razer Destructor mousing surface. There were also some other little goodies inside that I wasn’t expecting. I guess this attention to detail shouldn’t surprise me that much when the box that the Mamba comes packaged in is rumoured to cost as much as $20USD

I see I’m not the only one on the web who was so impressed by this reviewer kit that they simply had to take pictures of it. Engadget has an enormous gallery of this mouse and the unboxing experience. I just wanted to make this blog post to tease the readers and viewers of Tech Tips and give them an idea of what’s coming down the pipe.

A brief history of mice that I have owned:

Logitech MX700 – My first “expensive” set of peripherals was the Logitech MX Duo. Man that thing was sweet back in the day! I had gone from a generic BALL mouse to what felt like heaven.
Logitech G7 – Then I upgraded my monitor. All of a sudden I’m running at 1920×1200 and it feels SOOO laggy. I couldn’t figure out what it was at first, but turning down the resolution seemed to fix it. The MX700 had to go.
Razer DeathAdder – My first G7 died. I used the DeathAdder only briefly while I waited for my G7 to get back from RMA. I didn’t really like it. It felt kinda… cheap to me, and the tracking didn’t feel that impressive, and it died.
Logitech G5 – I bought one of these after the DeathAdder died and I couldn’t believe what I’d been missing out on. Wired is the way to go for sure!
Logitech G9 – This mouse still sits on my work desk, and I spend about 1/2 of my “mousing time” using it. I no longer use it for gaming though.
SteelSeries Ikari Laser – SteelSeries sent me one of these for the recent Tech Tips we did on “Gaming Essentials”. Its tracking is superior to the G9, and it’s FAR more comfortable to use

The Mamba is a unique product. It has no direct competitors because it is both a corded and a cordless mouse but I will be subjectively putting up against every mouse I have on hand. That means you’ll find out how it compares to the G9, Ikari Laser, and the G7 (the closest thing to a wireless competitor). I’m very excited to try it out, but alas I’m still at work…