Razer Death Adder Gaming Mouse

Intro - So far, this is the best mouse I have used. A strong introductory statement, but true. It looks great, feels great, and performs well. Also the software is better than previous Razer products (personal opinion). Read more to see why this mouse is so good!

Looks - The mouse looks great. Very cleanly styled, with only one distraction - the pulsing snakes on the back. Perhaps "pulsing" is too strong a word, because it is a very gradual fade in and out, emitted in a pulsating fashion. The rest of the mouse is black except for the pulsing snakes and scroll wheel. If you prefer, you can turn both of these options off in the driver software. The USB cord has a gold connector, like most of Razer's mice. The sides of the mouse are slick plastic, almost the opposite of a Logitech G5 in the way that the G5 has rough, grippy sides. The Death Adder is slick and easy to move your hand around on to get comfortable if needed. This will take some getting used to if you're used to the grippy Logitech surfaces, but overall I believe I like it more. The slick look works much better as it is shiny, so that's pretty cool. Usually the dull plastics don't draw much attention in the looks department.

Shape - This mouse has the best shape of any I've used. It very much reminds me of the Microsoft Intellimouse. I've read many people who swear to the Intellimouse and won't use anything else because it's the only one with that great shape. Now, people who want a great gaming mouse with high DPI can get the Death Adder with a similar (if not the same) shape, or the Microsoft Habu, which is basically a Razer Death Adder with Microsoft's name on it and switchable side buttons.
The comfort level of the mouse is great. After getting used to it, it leaves my mind that I'm even using it, and I'm just doing what I need to do on screen. In this aspect it reminds me of the G3, as it's the only other mouse I can say that truly does that for me. This is a very comfortable mouse.
The size of the mouse is somewhere in between that of the G5 and the G3, if you compare it to Logitech's line. It's not large, but not small either, so it fits me very well. The G5 was always a little too cumbersome I thought, and I preferred the G3 out of Logitech's line. Comparing it to Razer's own line, it is definitely larger than the Diamondback, but not in a way that makes the mouse too large. The shape is partially to blame for the size increase, but the height of the mouse is very good, where to me the G5 is too much of a humpback.

Performance - Precision is great. I don't know if I can really tell a difference between Infrared and Laser, but I can tell an enhanced precision over LED. That could be because most LED mice are 800dpi as well, so it is debatable on whether or not it is the different engines or DPI setting that I notice. There does seem to be more precision over Razer's own Diamondback unit, which is LED driven at 1600dpi.
The thumb buttons are a huge improvement over the past Razer mice. Two large buttons are placed in easy range of the thumb, perfect for going back and forward in everyday browsing, but more importantly, game functions or other mouse functions. Personally I leave the rear side button as a default Windows mouse button and set the forward button to allow On-The-Fly sensitivity adjustments. Razer seems to have done a great job listening to customers on this one, as the previous versions of their mice had odd positioning for the thumb buttons. Granted they were built for left or right handed users, but it still left either user feeling like they had two buttons on the other side they really couldn't use.
I use the mouse for everything obviously, from WoW to FPS games. I have only used it in WoW and Windows so far, and for both it is doing very well. I'm going to test it with Counter Strike as well, and I predict great precision there.
The Death Adder also has a lift-off feature where it supposedly stops tracking sooner than other mice, therefore limiting unwanted mouse movement when you have to pickup and move your mouse to recenter or any other reason. I haven't noticed a big difference in this so far, so I can't really comment more on that feature.

Software - The Death Adder software is laid out better than Razer's previous software (at least for the Diamondback). Not that the Diamondback's software was bad, just that it was a little less intuitive. This software looks much more intuitive. The settings are easily understandable, easily adjustable, and it accepts settings quickly and adjust the mouse accordingly. As always, I love the On-The-Fly sensitivity adjustment that Razer software provides. Overall, great software. I have noticed that both Razer and Logitech's software has made my mouse cursor in WoW not work properly in Hardware mode, and I'm not sure what is causing this. Using just the windows driver I do not have this issue, however I obviously can't remap my buttons to the mouse itself this way or use the great On-The-Fly ability, so I unchecked hardware cursor in the WoW options to keep using the software. All seems well after that for the most part, however if I alt+tab out of the game, most of the time my mouse pointer has disappeared from Windows.

Conclusion - 10/10. So far the Death Adder is my favorite mouse, and one I hope to keep for a long time. Even though it's 200dpi shy of the 2k mark at 1800dpi, the Infrared tracking engine is new technology that seems to be working just as well or better than the other technologies before it. I don't think 200dpi at that high of a range will be noticeably missing, honestly. Anything over 1000dpi starts getting difficult to tell much of a difference to the average user, unless of course you are doing some sort of CAD, graphic design, or you switch DPI settings in games frequently. I do not, so I have a harder time telling a difference I suppose. I do think higher DPI produces more fluid movement (combined with at least 500 report rate via USB). Overall a great mouse that I will hopefully use for a long while.

-Rav