If you are into First Person Shooters or other games where you need precise control, then you need a Razer mouse. I recently had the opportunity to try out the Razer Diamondback. For just $54.99, its quite a deal, especially if it can (and it does) improve your game.
I have been following the Razer line going back to the original boomslang, and it is good to see that they are back and expanding into gaming mats, keyboards, and headphones (and sound cards).
To really put the Razer Diamondback through its paces; I grabbed a copy of the latest Ghost Recon title and went to my computer. I played the game for a bit with my old Dell optical mouse and then I switched out to the Razer and judged my performance improvement.
I did ok with my regular optical mouse, nothing spectacular, pretty much what I have come to expect from playing online FPS games for the first time. Ok, I got walloped. After 30 minutes or so of play I was doing pretty good. After an hour, I stopped playing and installed the drivers for the Razer Diamondback and plugged in the mouse and started playing again.
Having gotten used to the old mouse, things did not go well from the start, basically I was over compensating, but once I got the hang of the diamondback things began to improve and I was able to gain control. After playing an hour on each and examining my scores, I am estimating a good 200%+ improvement on my performance just from a $50 mouse.
Now just by reading the box you can expect some improvement in your performance. The 1600 DPI, perfect for a 1600×1200 screen resolution, alone is a selling point, that means you can move pixel by pixel at that size, for ultimate accuracy. So what else makes this mouse worth your hard earned money? The first things you will notice are the large left and right buttons that are slightly curved down so that your fingers fit naturally. They are also rubberized so your fingers are less likely to slip during long gaming sessions. The scroll wheel is very smooth, but you can still feel the clicks.
Unlike other mice that power down with inactivity, the diamondback always stays on. The feet on the mouse are Teflon coated and slide almost effortlessly across new and old mouse pads and boards alike.
When you take a closer look, you will notice four tiny additional buttons, two on each side of the mouse. All seven buttons are fully programmable. And the mouse is perfect for both left and right handed users. From the box you will find that the mouse has a length of 5.04" length and a width of 2.5" and a height of 1.54" along with a seven foot cable and a gold plated USB connector. A 16 bit data path and a frame rate over 6400 FPS (frames per second). Both the cable and the mouse are light weight. Finally the mouse is available in both Chameleon Green and Magma (red) translucent chassis.
Overall I have just one issue with this mouse, though if what I hear is true then competition gamers might have a second issue. My issue is the four little buttons on the sides of the mouse (two per side). I never used them because they were 1) not in the right spot for my hand and 2) hard to find in the heat of the moment. I think that if you force yourself to use them, then perhaps they could become useful. The one negative for competition gamers is that you have to install the mouse drivers on the computer that you are using, which is not good if, from what I hear you are sometimes not allowed to install your own software.
Over all the Diamondback is another great product from the guys at Razer. If your into First Person Shooters then you need a Razer mouse, it will be the best $50 you have ever spent.