The mobile gaming mouse market is rather sparse these days, what with the best-selling laptops actually being netbooks that usually don’t have any gaming potency to speak of. Most laptop mice are of the Bluetooth variety and designed for casual or business usage – not gaming.
Razer has unleashed a new challenger to the mobile mouse market with their Orochi mobile gaming mouse. The Orochi features an all-black plastic design with rubberized buttons and some minor lighting effects which fit in well with the unit’s small form factor. The Orochi measures roughly 4-inches long and 1.4-inches tall making it perfect for carrying about in your backpack or messenger bag.
The Orochi features a 3G, 4,000 dpi laser sensor which rivals any standard-size gaming mouse in performance. As with all of Razer’s mice, the Orochi can be used with or without the included configuration software. The software is really a necessity if you plan to game using the mouse as without it you cannot get the Orochi into 1Ghz ultra-polling mode which allows the mouse to transmit location/state updates to the laptop every millisecond.
Playing games with the Orochi is pretty much just like playing them with and of Razer’s gaming mice so I won’t talk about the mouse’s responsiveness and 4,000 dpi sensitivity – you should just know it works very well. Something to note, however, is that the Orochi’s form-factor does allow for ambidextrous usage, although don’t expect to use the two side buttons located on the opposite side of the mouse as your thumb as their position makes it difficult to move the mouse and buttons at the same time. The two buttons on the thumb-side of the mouse work very well, however, and I know quite a few lefties who will be picking this up thanks to its versatile shape.
Unfortunately, in what otherwise would be a stellar review, a little rain must fall. In this case, it is rain made of a a micro USB Bluetooth receiver, which Razer DID NOT include with the mouse. Their reasoning is that most laptops include built-in BT receivers. Well, mine doesn’t and it would be nice to use the Orochi in wireless mode when necessary. Thankfully, Razer includes a cable for those of you like me without built-in BT on your laptop which works just as well and doesn’t eat up the two AA batteries used by the unit to power its BT transmitter.
Overall, the Orochi is well worth the $80 dollar price tag should you have a powerful gaming laptop in need of an equivalent human interface device or just can’t find a left-handed laptop mouse of comfort. For those of you who NEED a Bluetooth mobile mouse and don’t have a built-in receiver, or just don’t game a lot on your laptop – chances are that the Orochi is not for you.
The Razer Orochi Official Product Page
