Performance
Alright, let’s cut the crap. No one cares about numbers, optical engines, drivers, and firmware unless the mouse is a performance beast. It was time to run it through the gauntlet. First on my list of high speed games that require incredible speed and accuracy was Spider Solitaire. This is one of those games that if you aren’t on your toes, the whole game can go to pieces causing a complete mental break down until you hit F2 for a new game.

The mouse was impeccable. During my use of it, I noticed solid tracking and found a great speed for me. Kidding aside I do use simple games like this to get my settings right where I want them. For instance, in order to adjust the DPI and setting to just the right speed for me, I practice grabbing a certain card in a certain spot and dragging it to another location in one solid sweep. For example, I grab the Ace of Spade in the center of the “A” and by center I mean the middle of the triangle. Then I sweep it over into another position being sure to drop it correctly. I do this, rapidly moving cards across the screen, while thinking of exactly where I am going to grab the next card and on what part of that card. I do this until the speed and accuracy are where I need them to perform this feat quickly and consistently. Nothing is more important in gaming, especially competitive gaming, than consistency and accuracy.


Now, for some serious fragging I plan to use Counter-Strike, Quake 3 Pro, Unreal Tournament, and Starcraft.
This little gem shined in Counter-Strike: Source and 1.6. Truth is, I only missed shots because of me. I never once noticed any jittering, skipping, or loss of tracking. Everything was smooth and the mouse was ever present. However, I wanted to really test its tracking so I moved over to Quake 3 Pro.

Quake 3 provides a speed of play that many games can’t match with its closed quarters, splash damage weapons, and fast moving models. I rocketed, railed, and shotgun blasted my way to the top of a few servers before realizing that I need to watch how the mouse was performing. However, if I didn’t even have to think about the mouse, then I knew it was doing its job and doing it well. Again I notice that the mouse was rock solid in terms of tracking and performance; nothing to worry about there.

Unreal offers up so many spray weapons it is not even funny. This game relies more on strategy than any sort of pinpoint accuracy. Here I was testing for comfort and glide. I just tried blowing up as many members of the opposing team as I could while running straight in through the front door of their base while shooting wildly with the flak cannon. In my large sweeps with the flak cannon, I never had a problem. Everything tracked correctly and even some of the custom things I had the buttons programmed to worked flawlessly. The mouse is a dream in terms of glide. It was nice and smooth on my Steelpad 5L and even faster on some of the hard pads I had around the house. Nice glide.

Starcraft is a game I have loved since I was just a young lad. I used to fake sick just so I could stay home and play matches online. One thing I can remember from those days is being younger and my wrists not hurting after hours upon hours of play. That is not the case anymore even at just 22-years-old. If I play an RTS for more than just a few hours, the constant sitting and micro-ing can seriously put a toll on my hand. Thus, the ultimate test for comfort was me sitting and playing Starcraft for hours upon hours upon hours… at least that is what I told my girl. After about eight hours my eyes were getting heavy before my hand started to hurt. The DeathAdder curved to my hand and supports the weight of it. I am one of those gamers that prefer to grip the mouse and this was just what the doctor ordered. I felt very comfortable and was very happy with the performance.

Finally, the buttons were fantastic. I never liked the buttons on Razer’s previous mice such as the Diamondback or the Copperhead. They were small and too close to the rubber strip that surrounded the mice. The side buttons on the DeathAdder are large, stand out from the casing, and they provide a great tactile response when depressed. They are easy to find quickly and large enough to where you couldn’t miss them. The primary mouse buttons are contoured slightly to cradle your fingers and also have a nice feel to them. The scroll wheel is something that seems to be different on every single mouse on the market. There is no standard whatsoever as to the depth of the divots that provide a scrolling “bump” as it rotates, nor are any the same in texture. The scroll wheel on the DeathAdder scrolls easy while providing a solid divot to indicate movement. The divots are deep enough to provide response and not too deep so as to make it require a lot of effort to rotate the wheel. In a world where tabbed browsing is almost required, the middle click has become much more prevalent in today’s world. I have to say that the mouse does a nice job of being able to click down the wheel without accidentally scrolling at the same time.