Recently, Razer released their latest gaming mouse, the Lachesis. Unlike their Death Adder (a great mouse to be sure), the Lachesis is an ambidextrous-designed mouse. It features a much lower profile than the Death Adder, opting instead for what seems to be a nod to the design of it’s ancestor, the Boomslang. It’s flared head definitely points to this being the case as does the placement of the sensor. The Lachesis’ sensor is set much farther back than on the Death Adder, and on the Boomslang of old it was the same way, albeit a ball instead of a laser. The buttons of the Lachesis are very ‘crisp’, with a heavier tension than usually needed on Razer mice to click them. One of the biggest problems on the Boomslang was what we affectionately called ‘razer error’, which ocurred when picking up the mouse to place back on the pad after moving too far. When doing so it was not uncommon to brush the buttons with your forefinger, causing them to depress…causing the giving away of many a position to the enemy…With these higher-tension buttons, brushing over them will not be enough to set them off.
A problem does exist with picking the Lachesis up, however, and that is the side buttons are exactly where your thumb goes to pick the unit up. This can cause them to depress as they are not as high-tension as the primary and secondary buttons. I suggest not assigning anything important to them.
The Lachesis features a 4000dpi 3G laser sensor with a 1000Hz polling rate. When turned up full it will traverse a 1920×1200 display in no time flat and will do so not only quickly, but smoothly too! Performance in Bioshock was excellent, but when used in simple desktop applications we felt the need to turn down it’s sensitivity a bit. During gaming, the mouse consistently provided great performance, and even with the v1.00 drivers, we found it to be a joy to use.
All things being considered, the Lachesis is the best gaming mouse brought out by Razer to date, and that is high praise considering the popularity and capabilities of the Death Adder. It is a lesson in remembering the past, as it’s callbacks to previous mice make this the Boomslang for the next generation.
