Razer Ouroboros

I am a big Razer fan. I love there products. So many give them a bad rep but the only one I could agree upon is that they are a bit expensive. The most part is you get what you pay for. They do have a good return policy and they dont take forever for your return. Now the Ouroboros is a very good mouse if your used to the ambidextrous mouse. I love them because of the extra buttons you get with them. I use to use the Lachesis 5600 and I loved that one. When the Taipan came out I was going to get it but I had just purchased the Mamba so I wanted to just use the Mamba for awhile plus I use the Nostromo also so I didnt really need the extra buttons but when I saw the Ouroboros I knew I had to have it. Let me say I am not disappointed either. I had brought the Naga Hex and was disappointed on the size. It is a very small mouse and I dont have really large hands so that makes it worse. I liked the button setup on the Hex but I had to grip it different that was uncomfortable. The Ouroboros lets you adjust to your hearts content until you get it just right. It works with the new Synapse software which I think is genius on there part. I brought it from Razer so I paid the full price which is really my only con. Overall if you are looking for an extra couple of buttons on your mouse to do battle with, a mouse that is comfortable, and has good reaction time then this is the mouse for you. You cant go wrong with this mouse.

When i got the Ouroboros after a long, long wait, i was very pleasantly surprised by the packaging. I don't think I've ever seen a peripheral with such effort put into presentation.

It came in a glass cube, with the mouse suspended in the center. After fiddling a bit with the customization parts, inserting batteries, extending the grip (it actually is a bit clumsy to fine tune the back palm rest), changing and re-changing the side parts, i decided to plug it in and fire it up.

After using it on the default drivers and settings, it didn't seem like such a bad mouse. It wasn't the most comfortable for me strait up, but it was something i could probably get used to. The ability for it to go from wired to wireless was a massive plus in my books, and the recharging stand was great - after putting it down, it Stayed there. Razer has insisted with its new mice with the use of the Razer Synapse software (i am always weary of having software bundled with drivers, it never ends well). I installed the software and had a look through the settings for the mouse.

The customization is great. There are more settings that what you would expect, and cool tweaks and settings for convenience (like surface calibration, light settings- no custom colors, sadly. ) But almost as soon as i saved for the first time - that's where the good stuff stops, and the frustration starts.

With my particular model (not saying this is for everyone) - Every 6 seconds or so, the mouse would freeze and hang. only for a few milliseconds, but with how much it was happening it was a real problem. it made even just browsing the web impossible. this, coupled with the fact i couldn't change DPI on the fly without a 1-2 second hang was causing major frustration for me. I also had a lag problem - the mouse would start lagging while moving - this was less frequent than the other problems but was still there. (all of these problems are both on wired and wireless)

Razer support did not help too much, and after a bit of research found out that i am not alone with any of these problems.

It is the greatest of shame that such a great mouse is ruined by such sloppy software. I've gone back to my Razer Imperator, And because the mouse cant really be used at all, even for mundane/light tasks, I'll probably be returning the Razer Ouroboros this week for a refund, unfortunately.

Hey all,

I recently got myself a little gift!
I managed to find the Razer Ouroboros in stock at best buy, so I grabbed it! I love it so far. It's my first wireless mouse (gaming or otherwise) and I really like it so far, so i figured I'd thow some pics up here and go a little into what I like about this mouse...


PACKAGING

First thing I loved was the packaging. This is the first Razer product ive ever owned, and I knew they usually go a little over the top on their packaging, but I've NEVER seen anything like this before!


First thing you get when opening the shipping box is a ridiculous(-ly awesome) cube reminiscent of the Apple Store entrance in NYC. I thought it was awesome, and it made the $130 i just dropped on this baby immediately seem like it was well spent. I also like how the mouse itself is prominently displayed on a really cool stand. The charging dock / wireless receiver is inside the base of that cool stand.





Inside the box you get all the manuals, razer stickers, and necessary components - the rechargeable battery, USB cable (gold plated - pic later) and the other 2 side panels for the mouse.



THE MOUSE

I love the feel of this mouse. It's lighter than other mice I've used (RAT7 and Logitech G9) but those allowed the use of customizable weights. However, it's nowhere near light enough to feel cheap. For example, my roommate (who only uses razer gear) tried it out and thought it was heavy (in a good way), so it's heavier than other razer mice.

Customization

Like the RAT7, this mouse allows for some cool customization such as the length of the mouse:




Also in the space of customization is the arch of the back portion of the mouse. By turning this wheel in either direction, you can increase or decrease the angle of the back panel of the mouse. I have it pretty much in the default position, as that's what i prefer, but you can get quite the arch going if you crank it all the way.



Again, for customization, you can change out the side panels of the mouse, similar to the RAT series of mice. You can go with what I call the "batwings" or the flatter, lower profile panels. You can also mix and match. This mouse is ambidextrous so you can set it up to your liking. I use the batwings. Also, I took some pictures of the mouse feet (glides, whatever they're called), and the difference between the low profile and batwing panels. The entire mouse LOOKS like it has a soft-touch finish, but it doesnt, its more of a textured plastic. The low profile panels have a rubbery grip on them.





The panels attach by magnets, and are very secure when in place:





The mouse in its different configs:




The Mouse Itself

I love the feel of this mouse, as well as sheer the amount of buttons available to you. There are 11 buttons total:

Right/Left Click
4x Back/Forward Thumb bottons (2 on each side)
2x "DPI Clutch" Buttons (1 on each side)
DPI Up/Down
Scroll Wheel Click

The DPI clutch buttons are amazing! Similar to the sniper button on many current mice, pressing in the entire thumb panel (on either side) defaults to cutting the DPI to 800, perfect for sniping/photo-editing/anything where you need really high accuracy and slow movement. Awesome part about this is it's the first mouse I've seen that allows you to LOCK the entire button. This is good because, being a righty using an ambidextrous mouse, sometimes I accidentally squeezed the lefty thumb clutch. This was an issue, so I just locked it. The following picture shows the locks.



Everything about this mouse is high quality. The right/left clicks are very tactile and responsive, with a god solid clicking noise without any squeaking that I can hear. The other buttons have very good tactile feedback, and you can tell when you are pressing each button. The finish on this mouse is great as well. The closest thing I can liken it to is the smaller (non soft-touch) finish of the Logitech G9 mouse. It looks like it would be soft touch, but it's actually a very finely textured hard plastic. This is the best picture I could find to illustrate the texture.



This is a wired and wireless mouse. I love this - absolutely love it. Similar to the Razer Orochi Bluetooth mouse and from what I gather the Mamba, you can plug in the included USB cable and turn it into a wired mouse. The Mini-USB cable is grooved and specially designed to fit into the front of the mouse, as well as the back of the charging dock/receiver. The cables are also gold-plated (I know, it's kind of standard now, but I figured I'd mention it)




Here are some pictures of the mouse in wired mode, with the cable in the front of the mouse:







Here is the mouse in wireless mode, with some pics of the receiver and the mouse charging:







The charging dock/receiver is also a huge positive for me. The thing is solid as a BOULDER!!! I swear, I don't know what kind of rubber razer uses on the bottom of the thing, but it doesnt move ANYWHERE. It actually requires solid effort just to lift it off the desk to pack it back up to take home.

The Sensor(s)

This mouse uses a dual, 8200dpi, combo sensor mixing laser and optical sensors. The big issue I had (and why I am replacing my RAT) is because the dual sensor in the rat jumped all over on certain mouse pads as well as upon lift off from my desk. I'm happy to report that I have had zero issues from the Ouroboros sensor so far! The 8200dpi is pure insanity, and IMO, very unnecessary, but hey, maybe some people will use that high of a DPI. I tend to stick with a DPI range of 1200 - 3200, with 2800 being my level of choice for this mouse. Unfortunately, I don't have a mouse pad with me here in college, so I'm forced to use my wooden desk, but it still tracks and glides VERY easily. This picture shows the two sensors. The laser sensor is the small hole above the two charging pins, and the hole even higher up is the optical sensor.



Software

This mouse takes advantage (or disadvantage depending on your view) of Razer's new Synapse 2.0 cloud-based software. Yes, you need to make an account to create profiles and customize the buttons on your mouse. For me, this is not a problem at all, since I only use this on one computer (currently two, but when I get home to my main desktop it wont be moving again) but I can see this being an issue for those who go to LAN parties or have a lot of PC's they use the mouse on.

Unfortunately, my laptop (15" MacBook Pro) is running OSX 10.8, which isnt officially supported at this point, so I've been having some issues with the software so far. The app itself freezes a lot, which doesnt affect mouse performance during normal use, but also doesnt allow me to make quick tweaks to the profiles I have set up. The other issue I've run into is when using the DPI switch or the DPI clutch, for a few seconds after the DPI changes, the cursor skips around and seems to stutter when tracking. I attribute this to the lack of OSX 10.8 support, but I will test this on my windows PC when I get home.

Speaking of profiles, I have my mouse set up with a "Mac" profile currently, and this ability to set up profiles is an absolute godsend. I had never actually taken the time to set up profiles before, but with Apple making it impossible to make mice scroll the correct direction without disabling the opposite scrolling on the trackpad (think like the iPhone - swipe up to scroll down), I need to set my mice up with the mac to have the scroll wheel sown action mapped to scrolling up - STUPID APPLE, JUST STUPID. But the profiles absolutely help in this regard. I can set each profile to link to an application, so I just link Mac to the finder app and it auto switches to mac when on my laptop. When using windows, I hear if you link your global profile to the windows explorer, it'll auto switch to a global profile - useful if you have profiles set up for games and dont want to manually switch when returning to the desktop.

I will post screenshots of the software later, when it't not frozen on me


OVERALL

Overall, I love this mouse. When I get back home and I'm on my desktop running windows, I will update this review in the software section, as well as a quick update on how the mouse works with my mouse pad - the Mionix Ensis 320. Until then, I hope this review helped to answer your questions, and if not, let me know what else you want to see from me and I'll try my best to answer your questions. Please bear in mind this is my first review of anything ever so I may have missed something.

Pros:
+ Great feel
+ 11 Buttons!!!
+ Highly Customizable
+ Glows (I like lights)
+ Super-accurate sensor
+ Wired/Wireless capability
+ Charging Dock - solid as a rock and near immobile when placed
+ Packaging
+ Synapse 2.0 allows for insane customization - when it works for me

Cons:
- Software (lack of Mac support, will update when home)
- DPI Switching causes cursor jump (may be due to lack of OSX 10.8 support)
- Glows green only (I would've liked a color option)


Thanks for reading this, I hope it helps some of you / was informative!