Razer’s newest entry into the gaming peripherals market is the Ouroboros. Like the Mamba before it, it is a wireless gaming mouse with an insanely high DPI capability and a fancy charging base that doubles as the receiver.
The mouse is designed to be ambidextrous, unlike the Mamba, and sports magnetic attachment points for custom grips that are included with the mouse. In the picture you can spot the two grips, a rechargeable battery, USB cable, and one of the two “finned” grips for the mouse.
The mouse itself is a testament to Razer’s distinct taste in gaming fashion. It looks sleek, feels sturdy enough in the hands and has green lighting found in many Razer products.
The Ouroboros also has two “clutch” buttons located on either side of the mouse that can be squeezed to activate. This enables the DPI to be dropped or raised on the fly while the button is squeezed. Comes in handy while sniping! It can also be locked in position when the feature is needless via a lock switch located on the undercarriage of the mouse.
Oh, and you see that circular thingy on toward the bottom of the picture? That is a thumb screw which enables you, the gamer, to adjust the rear hump of the mouse. You can raise it or lower it to fit your taste in mouse grips (claw or palm). In addition, the mouse’s rear section can be pulled out to elongate the mouse for larger hands. Customization is king here, folks. So far, the mouse has nothing but features that impress.
Performance
The Ouroboros is capable of reaching DPI of 8200. That’s a lot of dots per inch and it sounds almost too sensitive but after tweaking settings in Windows and in my favorite games, the high resolution did feel nice and the tracking was smooth – no jittering here!
How ever nice the mouse is, I did run into some issues. When switching DPI’s using the two buttons located below the mouse wheel, I experienced lag while the software (Synapse 2.0), did its thing. That was really disconcerting since in most FPS games, you don’t have a few seconds of time to wait for the desired level DPI to be reached. Needless to say, I did a little more dying than usual during my sessions of Planetside 2 and Team Fortress 2. This issue can be circumvented by going wired. This however, takes away one of the most vaunted features of this gaming mouse – wireless. I also found that I was pressing the side mouse buttons near my ring finger by accident constantly during pitch battles. Since by default the forward button was mapped to grenade, I team killed a few folks before dropping out to change the settings. Luckily, Synapse 2.0 allows for full customization of the buttons on the Ouroboros. After simply disabling the side buttons on the far side of the mouse, I was off fragging once more.
Other than the lag while switching DPI, the mouse was comfortable to use. I am speaking from the point of view of a claw grip mouse user. I can only imagine that the mouse would be comfortable for a palm grip user as well. Overall, I was happy with the performance and I’m sure a firmware update could possibly address the DPI lag at some point.
Conclusion
Just like the Mamba before it, the Ouroboros looks the part of a badass gaming mouse. It sports 8200 DPI and a bevy of customizable buttons and chassis (to a certain point). The mouse was comfortable, highly customizable, and I could not even tell the difference between my trusty old wired gaming mouse and Razer’s wireless solution. I can understand that the DPI lag may be a deal breaker for some gamers out there and the price tag may be a big downer ($129!) but if you’ve been looking for a mouse that stands out of the crowd in terms of appearance and performance, the Ouroboros may be the mouse for you. Personally, I’m waiting for a firmware update from Razer and when that day comes, I’m pretty sure this mouse will have a permanent home on my desk.
NOTE: Interestingly enough, although I didn’t mention it, Synapse 2.0 has caused a stir even among its staunch supporters. Check this out HERE and judge for yourself. As of the writing of this review, Razer has updated Synapse 2.0 to 1.07.15. This means that offline mode is now available.