Razer’s New Viper Kinda Broke My Brain

Is this the fourth-best “budget” Razer mouse? Or the new champ?

Photo taken by the author. You can see how the coating already has some dust and grime after 11 days of use.

For the second time this year, Razer has implemented their latest and greatest mouse sensor technology in a $69 product, thus throwing their whole mouse performance curve into disarray. No longer do you need to spend $150 for the best tracking performance the company has to offer. This first happened earlier this year with the easy-to-recommend Razer DeathAdder V3, and now it’s the Viper’s turn.

The new Viper series has launched with a “budget” wireless model first. I wrote budget in quotation marks because that concept has changed compared to the bygone days of a couple of years ago. I used to consider the fifty dollar level the comfy sweet spot for an affordable-yet-performant gaming mouse, with stalwarts like the Logitech G305 or the original Razer “X” series coming immediately to mind.

Razer has worked for a while now to change that, gently pushing up the price and performance of their affordable mice to create this new $69 tier. They’ve had a lot of luck in this quest. Their recent Orochi V2 is one of my favorite mice. The Basilisk X V3, while kind of just a platform for an amazing mouse wheel RGB light, was still a solid performer. And the aforementioned DeathAdder V3 is arguably the most performance-focused gaming…