Razer DeathAdder Chroma review

Over the years, Razer has built a reputation for creating some of the best PC gaming hardware. Some gamers swear by the brand and buy nothing but its products. However, not everyone adores Razer’s neon-green aesthetic.

But, now Razer has finally created a mouse that everyone can get into. Whether you prefer a claw or palm grip, the Razer Deathadder Chroma is one of the best mice we’ve ever held. The biggest style addition is the subdued customizable lighting system that really sets the Chroma apart from the pack.

Also, now that the Xbox One X is going to support keyboard and mouse soon, you might want to keep an eye on all the latest and best gaming mice.

Design

The Razer DeathAdder Chroma shares the same dimensions as the regular Razer DeathAdder - 5 x 2.76 x 1.73 inches (L x W x H) Don't worry about slipping with this mouse, as it's made out of a nicely textured hard plastic with grippy rubber on the sides, as well as the scroll wheel.

The mouse has five buttons: the standard right and left-click buttons, a scroll wheel that functions as a third button and two customizable buttons on the left side of the peripheral. These extra buttons feel great, and have been designed to have the same actuation force that the main left and right click buttons require.

On the front of the mouse, it’s designed to have a concave, natural ‘W’-shape that allows for the perfect amount of finger space and supports your palm without fatiguing your wrist.

Last but not least is the the IR optical sensor that delivers an outstanding 10,000 dpi.

Software and customization

While the mouse itself is great, Razer’s software (while being easy to use) can get sluggish, and the use of cloud computing rather than native memory for the mouse is an odd move. However, the mouse doesn’t necessarily need the proprietary Razer drivers to work, but you’ll need them to customize the mouse. What’s worse is finding the drivers on Razer’s website is convoluted and could really use an auto detect feature.

Synapse itself is a fairly robust customization program. It features Razer's typical design structure, and allows multiple users to each create their own profile, which is handy for those who have to share a computer. Razer also uses the cloud so users can access their settings from different computers. However, it seems a bit intrusive to expect users to install Synapse on every computer that they want to use the DeathAdder Chroma on if they want to keep their customized settings on the go; built-in memory would've been a better way to go.

Synapse offers plenty of options for users to change their sensor sensitivity, pointer acceleration and polling rate as well as the lighting for the mouse. Each LED can be set either together or independently and colors can be set to cycle through a set of hues with Spectrum Cycling, set to a single shade which can pulse or remain steady, or synced to other Razer Chroma devices for uniformity.

Synapse can also be used to calibrate the mouse's optical sensor to be optimized to a particular surface, including a Razer mousepad or another surface, a function we first saw on the Logitech G502. Synapse is also used to set macros which can include any combination of keys or mouse clicks and can be assigned to one of the two customizable side keys.

Final verdict

The Razer DeathAdder Chroma isn't revolutionary or a huge improvement over the previous entries in the DeathAdder series, but it is a great barebones mouse for those who wish to have the quality, comfort and accuracy of a gaming mouse without all the flash.

The software is usable and for the most part fairly unobtrusive, but suffers from a bit of slowdown. The cloud computing features could be taken either as a pro or con depending on the user's preferences and usage - though, in all honesty, on-board storage would've made more sense. It won't affect those who only use their mouse on one computer, but those who game or work on various computers may find having to re-download and install Synapse multiple times to be a bit of a hassle.

Overall, this DeathAdder Chroma is great for the price ($69.99 about £40, AU$80) and is a fantastic entry-level gaming mouse for those who are either just getting started with PC gaming, or those who don't need or want the glitz and potential headache of the more expensive gaming mice.