I have not always been a Razer fan. I mean their laptops are a marvel of design and engineering typically but have always been extremely expensive and hard to recommend. I have also reviewed the Razer Deathadder Essential in the past and was not a fan of it. But Amazon has stepped in with a a decent enough sale on the Viper Mini that I decided to take the plunge one again.
The mouse comes in the typical black and green themed packaging you would expect from Razer with all the marketing again you would expect.
Taking the Viper Mini out of the box you immediately notice a few things.
One, the Viper Mini is incredibly light. Indeed Razer says the Mini comes in at 61g total. I believe this as I feel it in hand and in use but it’s incredible to see this without any honeycombing anywhere on device. Yet the mouse feels incredibly sturdy.
Two, the plastic with its rougher texture feels a bit cheap. Yet in use the mouse feels very positive in the hand and that rougher texture actually prevents fingerprinting that you see on other plastics of other mice. It also allows for a firmer grip of the mouse though the shape of the Viper Mini makes it fit very securely.
Three, the braided mouse cable is flexible but not overly so as to concern me that the wire inside would break prematurely. If I could change anything, I would like the cable to be detachable.
The Viper Mini’s left and right mouse buttons feel very similar with a positive actuation accompanied by a satisfying but non-obtrusive click sound. In between both of those buttons the click wheel is perfect. Honestly, I really love how it feels while scrolling with a decent detent but fluid motion. And pressing down on the wheel you feel almost the same click from the left and right buttons that again is satisfying and not mushy at all. Behind the scroll wheel there is a DPI button that can go through either the default on board DPI levels or the custom ones you set in software. The two side forward and back buttons are slightly on the mushy side but not in a bad way. They have a positive click feeling as well though the click is not as pronounced.
Around the back top there is the RGB backlit Razer logo and along the bottom there is also an RGB strip. These two RGB sections can only be lit the same colour but that’s enough for me. Of course by default it’s set to Razer’s trademark green. And naturally there’s a suite of other modes available though, as you may imagine, with one zone of RGB there is a limit to the technicolour vomit the Viper Mini can put out.
The skates are very good at sliding smoothly over my desk mat. And Razer’s optical sensor here is really good as well. It’s smooth and not aggressively accelerated. The sensor can be customized at 5 levels of DPI all the way up to 8500. There is no feedback for what level of DPI you are set to unless you have the Razer Synapse software installed. If the software is installed a notification will pop up showing what DPI you are set to.
Speaking of the software, Razer Synapse really is the software to beat. It works great and is incredibly easy to configure with no weird English anywhere to be seen. And on top of that, as it was with the Deathadder Essential, the Viper Mini comes with Razer’s software on board and initiates installation upon connection to your computer. This is handy if you don’t have the software already on board though spooky if you aren’t expecting it.
The shape here is similar to the HyperX Pulse Haste that I have reviewed previously and as such fits my hand like a glove. This mouse is an absolute pleasure to use and for $45 CAD I can’t not recommend this mouse. The value is incredible here and I can see why the Razer Viper Mini has been a very successful addition to their gaming mouse arsenal.
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