There’s a couple of headline specs and features here, but the most noteworthy is Razer’s new HyperSpeed technology. Gaming manufacturers have realised Bluetooth has been throttling the performance of gaming mice, with the latency and accuracy not quite high enough to compete with wired peripherals. Common wisdom would suggest that a wireless mouse might be heavier, thanks to the additional radio-frequency (RF) components and battery hardware. As it happens, it's a scant five grams heavier than the original wired Viper: 74 grams (that's 2.61 ounces) versus 69 grams (2.43 ounces). Many argue that weight is everything when it comes to competitive mice. The Viper Ultimate isn't the lightest mouse on the market, but it is exceptionally well-balanced, and light enough that you barely notice you're pushing it around when you move your cursor. I went hands-on with the new peripheral to see whether those incredible specs can equate to an incredible performance.

The Razer Viper Ultimate weighs 74 grams, which admittedly doesn’t make it the lightest gaming wireless mouse, but it at least undercuts the the 121g heft of the Viper Ultimate’s closest rival, the Logitech G Pro Wireless . The USB wireless dongle is stored in a compartment on the underside of the mouse itself. Simply remove the cover to store or remove your USBdongle. Razer demonstrated (with benchmark software it had developed itself, admittedly) that HyperSpeed boasts an even more stable performance than a wired Logitech rival. Razer did admit the difference was so negligible a human wouldn’t notice the difference, but it’s still remarkable to see its mouse offering a wireless performance equivalent to a wired connection. Designed especially for e-sport players, the Viper Ultimate sees the same streamlined form as the wired Razer Viper, cutting off any excess fat or buttons to see the weight fall to a feather-light 74 grams. Factor in an impressive 70-hour battery life, and the Viper Ultimate is shaping up to be an extremely good wireless option for competitive gamers. You could accuse the Viper Ultimate of looking somewhat plain, but there’s a good reason for this. Razer has chopped away all the needless plastic to make its e-sports focused peripheral as light as possible.

Okay, so let's get to the good stuff—the wireless stuff. The Viper Ultimate connects to your PC using a 2.4GHz RF dongle. As we've seen throughout the year on mice like the Logitech G502 Lightspeed and the Corsair Ironclaw Wireless RGB, these connections generally work better than Bluetooth, providing a stable, nearly lag-free experience. Will you have to give up a USB port for your trouble? Sure. But you'd have to do the same thing for the cable on a wired mouse.

Razer Chroma RGB lighting is of course still present, boasting 16.8 million colours, but is far more understated than consumer-level gaming mice. It’s only the Razer Logo that glows, and even that can be turned off via the Razer Synapse app if users find it distracting. Successor to the award-winning Razer Viper Ultimate. More than 20% lighter, armed with all-round upgrades, and one of the lightest wireless gaming mice evercreated. Learn More > The Razer Viper Ultimate also has the privilege of being the first gaming mouse to own Razer’s new optical sensor, the Focus+. The benefits this brings to Razer’s mouse include the industry’s highest DPI sensitivity and inches per second performance. The Razer Viper Ultimate sports a simplistic design, prioritising performance over fashion. In fact, it looks pretty much like a traditional gaming mouse, with the green Razer logo slapped on for good measure.

The Viper Let Loose

I was unable to test how accurate Razer’s battery claim is, since I was only given a few hours with the peripheral at Razer’s HQ office. I already have a review sample though, so watch out for our final review and verdict soon. Playing a few rounds of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, it was genuinely difficult to tell the difference between the Viper Ultimate and a wired mouse – I even found myself winning more 50/50 shootout duels than usual. So, y ou’re not sacrificing performance at all by cutting the cord. Razer suggests HyperSpeed is 25% faster than other wireless technologies – a bold claim given the success of Logitech’s Lightspeed. HyperSpeed connectivity gives the Viper Ultimate an excellent and stable 998Hz polling rate, which effectively means the mouse is reporting its position to the computer every millisecond for pin-point accuracy. The Razer Viper Ultimate is a new wireless mouse aimed at e-sports, with Razer claiming its new HyperSpeed wireless technology is a significantly superior alternative to Bluetooth in terms of speed, reliability and accuracy. With a whopping 20,000 DPI (dots per inch), the Viper Ultimate is the world’s most sensitive gaming mouse. This is an impressive record, but by Razer’s own admission, this isn’t as big of a game-changer as you might expect, with the ideal sensitivity level for gamers said to be around 800-1600. I suppose it’s nice to have the option though, even if 20,000 is very much overkill.

Razer has concentrated its efforts into making the Viper Ultimate the absolute best performing gaming mouse in the e-sports market, and on first impressions, it’s done an outstanding job.

The Serpent by the…Wait, Where's the Tail?

Enjoy faster and smoother control with a lightweight wireless mouse designed for esports. Weighing just 74g, it achieves its weight without compromising on the build strength of its ambidextrous formfactor. With 16.8 million colors, countless patterns, dynamic in-game lighting effects—experience full RGB customization and deeper immersion with the world’s largest lighting ecosystem for gaming devices. Supporting a growing list of thousands of devices and hundreds of games & applications, take it to the next level with advanced features such as Chroma Studio, Visualizer, Connect andWorkshop. The Viper Ultimate relies on Razer's software suite for all its customization, including Razer Synapse to change its settings and Razer Chroma to customize its lighting. If you've used any Razer products before, the systems are as easy to use as ever. If you haven't, it's generally snap-simple to reset DPI presets and remap buttons across your profiles.