Razer Cobra Pro Wireless Gaming Mouse Review
In 2020, Razer released the Viper Mini, and it was a huge hit both with the enthusiast mouse audience and with gamers looking to enter their vast hardware ecosystem on more of a budget. Coming in under fifty bucks, it nevertheless had a lean weight, optical buttons, and gaming performance that competed with some of the better pro gaming mice on the market at the time.
Unfortunately, Razer claimed that the “Mini” branding and the relative lack of RGB support meant that it didn’t land with their much bigger mainstream audience that buys stuff at Target and Best Buy. So rather than cave to endless enthusiast demands for a wireless model — they did nothing for years.
This year, the Viper Mini tide finally broke, but rather than give in to fan demands for a cheap-yet-powerful wireless model, Razer went in two wildly different directions. First, they created the nearly three hundred dollar “Viper Signature Edition,” a limited drop-based magnesium monstrosity filled with huge holes and high-end hardware. Each time they put some of these on their web site, they sell out in spite of the fact that it’s one of the most obvious cash grab products the company has ever made. It’s also one of their least efficient in terms of carbon waste, apparently requiring a new mold to be used for each individual magnesium mouse body in order to maintain their production tolerances.
Razer made promises after this luxury drop that a cheaper model was coming, and many assumed that it would be something closer to Razer’s excellent Orochi V2 but with the Viper Mini body shape.
Instead, perhaps in an attempt to find the mainstream audience that the original model never mustered, Razer brought forth the Cobra and Cobra Pro. Both use roughly the same shape as the original Viper Mini, with the non-Pro edition using modestly revised internals. The Cobra Pro packs in the same great hardware from Razer’s other recent “Pro” releases…but then bafflingly saddles them with weight-killing things like RGB and thick rubber sides.
All of this context is important to understanding the weird design of the Cobra Pro, and why it’s such a frustrating mouse. This would have issues even if it weren’t a high-priced thing that…
