The gaming mouse industry has benefited greatly from Razer. With the Razer Boomslang, they even contributed to its inception, and the original DeathAdder forged a legacy that continues to impact performance and design decisions today.
Now in 2023, Razer appears to be making every effort to discard this illustrious past. They switched to a much less recognizable shell than the original DeathAdder. Over the Viper Mini design, they twice cash-grabbed their fervent customers. With their Basilisk series, they keep producing clone after clone of the well-liked Logitech G502, each time adding a brilliant light in an effort to earn your business.
But it seems that was just the beginning. This past week, Razer unveiled the Viper V3 Hyper Speed, kicking off the new “V3” series of one of their most well-liked designs with a low-cost battery-operated device rather than a pro-focused one. This is all backward, even in terms of the release of the product, before I tear it into its design. The Viper is a brand of passionate mice, end of story. It was always intended for the most devoted of devotees. It was the first gaming mouse made in vast quantities to follow lightweight designs that had emerged in the boutique market, and it did it without having large cutouts that some players found annoying.
Why therefore would you start this series’ newest installment with a “budget” model? How come the
Already confused and preoccupied. The absence of any of its namesake’s distinctive design cues in the Viper V3 HyperSpeed is the real letdown here. The buttons that swoop? Gone. Gone is the low-profile, flat frame. the fast-acting optical switches that guarantee click performance? Gone.
Instead, they’ve provided a product that, when combined with Razer parts, practically resembles a copy of the perennially successful Logitech G Pro design. Yay?
