Razer Lancehead
Razer Lancehead
Razer has big new ambitions for the Lancehead, its latest rodent to roll off the factory line. Most gamers snub wireless gear because of the perceived disadvantages, such as higher latency and unreliable performance.
Logitech’s G900 Chaos Spectrum has since proved that you can have a wireless mouse that works as well as its wired counterparts, and the Lancehead has set its sights on achieving the same.
The good news is that it seems to have succeeded. Razer uses something it calls Adaptive Frequency Technology (AFT) to do this. The mouse operates in the 2.4GHz band, but it scans different frequencies hundreds of times a second and selects the one with the least interference.
This ability to frequency hop ensures better transmission stability, even in a crowded environment with multiple wireless devices. That said, the Lancehead only switches frequencies when it absolutely needs to.
In our week using the Lancehead in wireless mode, we didn’t notice any signal drops or delayed responses, and the mouse continued to track reliably whether we were in game or working. Performance was good even when the dongle was plugged into the rear I/O of our PC, but it should preferably be placed as close to the mouse as possible, such as in a front USB port.
Alternatively, you can plug it into a separate adapter interfaces with the braided cable. This gives you more freedom in positioning the dongle, allowing you to minimize the distance between dongle and mouse in challenging environments.
The Lancehead is an ambidextrous mouse, which when combined with its wireless capabilities, make it quite versatile.
A versatile, but expensive gaming mouse that works well in both wireless and wired modes. CONCLUSION
However, it appears more suited to claw and ngertip gamers, and not as natural to palm. At 111g, the Lancehead is lighter than most wireless gaming mice, but it’s still heavier than it should be for really fastpaced movements.
The sensor is a 16,000 dpi laser sensor that can be adjusted in 100 dpi increments. It is decent, but not great, and mice with the optical PMW3360 sensor still feel smoother, more responsive, and more accurate.
Razer didn’t say if this is the notorious Philips Twin Eye sensor or some variant of that, but the z-axis tracking issue that plagued the latter is fortunately absent.