RAZER DEATHADDER ELITE
It’s the return of the king... again!
The DeathAdder design has remained popular and in production since 2006. It’s seen many upgrades over the years — the last at the end of 2014 with the Chroma edition — so it’s due for another.
But how do you make an already-great mouse better? Razer’s answer has been to improve the build quality and durability by swapping to mechanical button switches and a 16,000dpi optical sensor. For most players, that upper limit won’t even be touched, but those new switches provide a firmer, slightly more stable feel to clicks, and they’re a bit quieter too.
Razer’s also changed the textured rubber used on the scroll wheel — rather than being made up of grooved horizontal ridges, there are now evenly-spaced sets of three raised nodules. That does seem to increase the overall grippyness, but isn’t quite as comfortable as old ridged design. There’s also a set of DPI switching buttons behind that wheel, so you can now change sensitivity on the fly. Finally.
Tracking performance is unimpeachable; in testing, we were able to be as accurate on this mouse as with the Chroma. That said, at our preferred 1,800dpi setting, there’s not a lot between them.
For now, the Elite’s only available in a right-handed design, and it’s still a very lightweight mouse at 105g, so if you’re a lefty or you prefer a heavier mouse, you should look elsewhere.
For everyone else, this is the best gaming mouse on the market. At present, you’ll pay an extra $40 for it over the Chroma, but if you can wait a few months, that’ll undoubtedly come down a bit.