Razer DeathAdder V2 - STILL The Best Gaming Mouse After 14 Years?

Razer DeathAdder V2 - STILL The Best Gaming Mouse After 14 Years?
7 min read
10 May 2020

The Razer DeathAdder is one of the most iconic gaming mice that first came out in 2006, and the most interesting thing about its evolution are all the drastic gut and technical upgrades that the mouse has received, but also, the shape.Razer DeathAdder V2 - STILL The Best Gaming Mouse After 14 Years? In the latest 2020 release is unmistakably at that pattern. It's a V2 and it's damn good one. It's really the shape that makes this Mouse so special, even after 14 plus years. Because it's comfortable for so many, it fits all types of grip styles and even though our options they have grown many fold the DeathAdder is one-of-a-kind.Razer DeathAdder V2 - STILL The Best Gaming Mouse After 14 Years? And the really fun part of comparing the original versus what we have now, is basically seeing how small details and gaming mice have been perfected over the last 14 years. But in reality seeing all the major changes really come into effect over the last a year or so. Meaning better cable, better feed, better lightweight shells, better sensor upgrades and implementations that actually matter to human response and not just being technically better for the sake of being better. Razer DeathAdder V2 - STILL The Best Gaming Mouse After 14 Years? I won't talk about what made the DeathAdder so special and compare the original versus the V2 and whether or not the V2 is competitive in the 2020 context.

New Death Adder V2 - $69 Mouse that is perfect for the mainstream in 2020. First it's almost half the weight of the original, and I'm kind of glad they didn't reduce the weight any further, because the Death Adder is a pretty large Mouse and anything lighter would just feel weird.Razer DeathAdder V2 - STILL The Best Gaming Mouse After 14 Years? While the Guild Wars from 2007 is a heavy weight in comparison, but still with the legit comfortable shape. The DeathAdder is for right-hand use only and it's almost approaching that economic shape but with a precise curvature to support a wide range of hand sizes and grip styles. The finger groove on the right click is perfect and the flaring at the front is just right to separate your ring and pinky fingers. It is a slightly taller body that I'm used to, but for my large hand it's an extremely easy mouse to adjust to after using much smaller mice, as my MM711 or the G3 or G5.

The body width has reduced by a few millimeters, from the original, but the main core shape has stayed the same.

The surface coating has improved, to include the rubberized texture on the side grips versus the glossy sides on the original.Razer DeathAdder V2 - STILL The Best Gaming Mouse After 14 Years?

I'm actually hoping for a return of this like dual tone color variations in the future mice, because the plain black is just getting bland. And I get that RGB customization is here, but, I wish that Razer would have a bit more fun with textures and colors.

The V2 also has some of the best my switches around using optical switches, so debounce delay is non-existent and 70 million lifespan will outlive the two-year warranty. They sound better they feel better and it's exactly what you'd expect in 2020, and by the way, those sight browser buttons are still quite chunky with a similar profile or dpi switch at the bottom and two additional buttons behind a school wheel on the V2.Razer DeathAdder V2 - STILL The Best Gaming Mouse After 14 Years? Perhaps, the only other similar element between the original and the V2 would be the scroll wheel. The design, of course, is different and the V2 has more tactility and control, but they feel very alike, light scroll steps, excellent middle-click and a super low profile.

The sensor of course is best-in-class on the V2 the focus plus 20k optical with the smart lift off distance adjustment and the handy surface calibration, so it's a lot more accurate versus the 3G infrared sensor with 1800 DPI on the original. So, sensitivity wise it looks like we've increased to 20X, but in reality that's just the technical specification, because literally nobody plays at 20k dpi, but it does show the technological leap we've experienced in terms of sensor performance and the instruments can measure 20K precision but the human can't.

And lastly, the cable and mouse feet are probably one of the most important upgrades on the V2 versus the original. The cable, for example, is flexible, its life, it does not kink, but, I will say the thin and the rubber cable from 2007 is still in such a great shape, and we're actually seeing the return of this cable style on budget mice and that is interesting to see. While the new PTFE feet are more of a response to gamers smarting their mice for better glide, so inclusion of such feature is just a nice value add on the V2.

I've been using the V2 as my main desktop mouse for the past week and this is my first Death Adder and I can see why people like it. The shape literally fits me and all the technical and slight upgrades and the body are all there so that it's competitive in 2020.

In the past 12 months we've seen so many amazing gaming mice launched, including the ergonomic XTRFY M4, the light and small MM711, the comfortable glorious Model D, that is a direct competitor to the V2, and the Razor's own awesome Viper collection, and the fruitful Basilisk lineup to, making the Death Adder V2 a bit less important and significant, in the current scheme of things in terms of competition, but still, somewhat ahead of the curve, and I would say, Razer has been such a good player in the mice space, in terms of improvement and pushing certain things forward. That they are ahead of SteelSeries in many ways and even in some aspects ahead of Logitech. And it's really simple, the legendary DeathAdder shape is what people love and will come back to and that is why the V2 is still quite important in 2020.

But I would love to hear if you have your own DeathAdder story, if you've been using one for a while, let me know in the comments and yeah it was just a little bit of an adjustment for me going from my MM711 to the V2, which is slightly bigger and a bit chunkier. It's like the heavier but literally after 5 hours it was just like super comfortable.

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Alex 9.8K
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