Razer Copperhead Review

What are IT shows for if not for reckless spending? At Singapore’s Comex 2005, held from the 1st to 4th September, I bought a Razer Copperhead gaming mouse. Now, I spent quite a lot (S$129) of my hard-earned savings on this, and here I’m going to try and justify my purchase by writing about it’s pros and (hopefully nonexistent) cons. The salesman at Elite Infotech, which was the only store at Comex carrying this precious peripheral, told me that I am one of only 65 proud owners of the Copperhead in Singapore at this point in time. I must say I’m lucky - I got the 11th last one, and Kyle got the tenth.

The Razer Copperhead is the first of a new generation of gaming mice, utilizing laser-tracking technology for more sensitivity than traditional infra-red optical mice. The previous Razer gaming mouse, the Diamondback, was met with much success at its launch last year, and the Copperhead is set to continue this trend with its more advanced features.

Features

There are alot of features to mention, but for the sake of not making this review a boring read, I’ll just hilight some in detail:

This mouse has a 2000DPI laser sensor, powered by a proprietary engine. This is more sensitive than any other mouse currently available. The mouse also features 1000 Hz USB “Ultrapolling”, adjustable to 125Hz & 500Hz, with a 1 ms response time. These mean that it polls the USB bus faster than any other mouse available, allowing for faster response time. (All other mice only use a 125Hz/8ms response time.) All this information transfers along a higer-bandwidth 16-bit interface, instead of a 8- or 12-bit data path.

The Copperhead has even more unique features which set it apart: There is 32KB of memory onboard to store mousing preferences, support for customizable weights and ‘dummy’ buttons which will definitely be sold in future, and a 7 foot cord with ends in a gold-plated usb plug.

The rest of the features are similar to conventional gaming mice from logitech and other brands, such as 7 programmable buttons, and teflon pads for smoothness.

Packaging

Now that we roughly know what to expect from such a mouse, let’s have a look at the quality of its packaging.

The box does not disappoint. It shouldn’t, too, for such an expensive gadget. The mouse is displayed prominently in the front of the box with a mesmerizing reflective material flanking it, catching the light, making it look oh-so-shiny. The Razer and Copperhead logos also stand out from the silver background with street-styled font so popular with gaming companies.

The back shows the technical specifications of the mouse in different languages.

The sides of the box contain a technical comparison of the Copperhead with other mice, showing its many perceived benefits, and a message from Razerguy, Razer’s Chairman, inviting you to take out the mouse for a spin.

Opening the box, we find a few pieces of paper stuck to the plastic case containing the mouse itself.

There’s a ‘certifcate of ownership’ congratulating me on my purchase of a piece of gaming history, an instruction manual/driver disk, and a slip of paper listing the default sensitivity profiles.

And here we have the mouse itself. Shiny. Notice it says ‘First Edition’ on the mouse itself. Whoa - that makes me feel all exclusive and lucky.

Looks
Let’s take a look at the design of the mouse. For a quick comparison, I’ll say the Copperhead is slightly shorter than the Diamondback, but has a higher back arch. This bodes well for gamers with larger hands, allowing them to grip the mouse with less difficulty, as the palm bends over the arch.

The wire really is long.

Here are some real-life size comparisons. first with a Palm Vx, and then with a ViewSonic notebook mouse. The size is not really a problem for people used to small mice like me, because pratically half the mouse is button, and the part where i grip is just the right shape, not too big like the Logitech gaming mice. The buttons have equal sensitivity wherever you push down, so gripping the back portion isn’t going to sacrifice clicks.

This mosue is handsome. The lights are always on, giving off a cool blue glow. The flourescence is located at the side grips of the mouse, the middle button, and the razer logo right smack middle of the mouse, which pulsates ever two seconds - a clever aesthetic addition.

It looks FANTASTIC in the dark.

Performance

Now that we’ve seen how it looks, how does it perform?

All I can say is, it’s definitely much more sensitive than that 800dpi Viewsonic. In fact, unless you have unearthly motor skills, it’s next to useless on a 17″ LCD screen when set to full sensitivity. I kept the sensitivity on hardware to full, and only limited it using the mouse properties contorl panel applet. With such a wide range of sensisity options, it’s easy to find one just right for your own style. Therefore, a higer-sensitivity player like me will find this mouse extremely suitable for gaming in a FPS, and the teflon mice feet are unbelievably smooth, good for faster reactions. I’m sure even a low-sensitivity player will appreciate the comfortable grip which suits so many hands, and the smooth glide across his mousepad.

What i like about the mouse is that it doesn’t require any installation of drivers to change sensitivity on-the-fly using the two right side buttons. (The left side buttons are configured to be the 4th and 5th click by default.) What I don’t like are the positioning of these right side buttons - it’s quite hard to get a grip on the mouse while shifting a finger down to press the buttons. In a FPS game, those few seconds spent readjusting a hand might mean *BOOM Headshot!*

The drivers are not very spectacular. All they do is let you change some sensitivity options and button assignments, in addition to mouse DPI and polling preferences, which are saved as profiles. For most, these profiles would turn out to be quite useless, as adapting to a different DPI on-the-fly isn’t very easy. The drivers present these option in a ‘Configurator’ screen, featuring Razer’s distinctive street-style graphics in its interface. This pretty interface and features comes at the cost of high RAM usage (for a mouse driver, anyway).

I would say the drivers are overkill for regular people, and it’s a good thing Razer lets the mosue work just as well without drivers installed. I just can’t see the difference of the polling speed or response time. In other news, I’ve heard that if you plug the Copperhead into a USB 1.1 port rather than a 2.0 port, the response time gets limited to 8ms. Not that there’s any oberservable difference, anyway.

Verdict

Pros:

Cons:

I believe I made a good buy in this mouse, even if it is possibly overkill. It’s going to last me pretty long, that’s for sure.