Razer Mamba 2015 Review

The bitch is back.

Way back in 2012 while every idiot was waiting for the world to end, I reviewed my first gaming mouse: a Razer Mamba. It was a glorious piece of hardware that unlike anything I had used prior to it and that mouse has been proudly serving me to this day however it's gotten a bit old. Nearly five years of heavy use haven't exactly been kind to the old mouse, it's hardware is still performing sound but the cosmetics are starting to wear and the battery, even though it was never very good to begin with is bordering on toast. While I could have kept the old mouse going for a couple more years with some replacement parts, I figured I might as well relieve myself of what flaws it had entirely and upgrade to it's newly spawned successor. Say hello to the new Razer Mamba.

The Mamba has sat at the top of Razer's mouse lineup sine 2009 and it derives much of it's design from the even older Deathadder. It's hardly changed since then, and the new model, despite it's new bells and whistles is still very reminiscent of it's predecessor. One thing that struck me about the old Mamba was how elaborate it's packaging was with it's clear plastic case and floating pedestal. The new model dials down the crazy and gives you a nice metal box with the mouse cushioned in foam, all still very premium.

Like the mouse before it, the Mamba is still a wireless mouse with an option to use it wired. The dock is very similar to the old one except it now sports a matte finish and and ditches the pairing button. They are not cross compatible as a result of this. Also noteworthy is that the new mouse no long has a replaceable battery but compensates for this by giving the Mamba around 20 hours of battery life versus the somewhat enthusiastic 12 hours of the old mouse. There is also the less expensive Tournament Edition which is hard wired only and lacks the adjustable buttons which I will touch on later.

As for the mouse itself I will gladly say that users of the old Mamba and the Deathadder will adapt to the new model quite well as the differences in shape and feel are hardly different. You still get the two side buttons and the scroll wheel is improved over the old mouse. The grips on the sides are significantly larger and feel much more robust than on the old mouse and the DPI buttons have been moved right below the scroll wheel. I honestly liked the old position better but considering you will hardly be using these unless you have them remapped for something else, it's not a huge deal breaker. On the whole it's nice improvement but it gets even better.

One new party trick that the new mouse crammed in is an addition to the scroll wheel to allow you to scroll left and right by pushing the wheel in those directions. I haven't found a use for these since I use an ultrawide monitor which is more than enough for most webpages but like the rest of the buttons you can simply remap them to another function. The other neat feature is the ability to tune the amount of force need to press the left and right buttons using an included tool. This is way more important than it sounds because on the old mouse I would often rest my hand on it and accidentally trigger a click. Cranking up the click force to maximum totally alleviates this problem and that's fantastic.

Of course the sensor has also been improved significantly over the old mouse. While the old Mamba packed a 6400 DPI sensor which was honestly much too fast when maxed out, the new Mamba sports a ludicrously powerful 16000 DPI sensor which is way more than anybody should ever need. I typically only use 4000 DPI which the old mouse covered fine and honestly it's probably just a generally bullshit marketing tactic much like megapixels on phones were but whatever, it's there if you need it. Also let's not forget the addition of the lovely Chroma lighting system when put next to the old mouse is like comparing the northern lights to a dollar store christmas tree.

The new Mamba is a very nice mouse and a nice improvement over the old one. Would I say it's entirely worth it to replace the old mouse with this one? Not really, a lot of the changes are really just subtle like the feel or completely without reason like the 16000 DPI sensor and like I said earlier, the old Mamba is still viable. Adjustable buttons and a better battery isn't exactly a whole lot to sell a $150 buck mouse on when you strip it down to bare necessities. It's a luxury item for sure; expensive and with a lot of party tricks but not exactly a whole lot of useful functions to justify it over much less expensive mice. That being said, if you really want it, it's a fantastic mouse but the Mamba is probably just too much for the average gamer. It's excessive at it's finest.

The Razer Mamba currently costs $149.99 or $89.99 for the Tournament Edition.

Is it Better Than?

Razer Mamba 2012- Depends, overall the Mamba 2015 takes everything about the old model and improves on it. One thing to note is that while the battery is replaceable, it's duration is worse than the 2015. That's not to say you can't get away with using the Mamba 2012 over the new model. I can say firsthand that this mouse still rocks and it can be had for much less nowadays.

Razer Ouroboros- Yes, the Ouroboros took the role of Razer's flagship for a few years while the new Mamba was being developed. It shares a lot of features with the earlier Mambas, excessively powerful sensor included but it's modular ambidextrious form factor left a lot to be desired in the realm of comfort and it unfortunately felt kind of cheap. The Mamba 2015 is better in every way, if you're right handed that is.