The Razer Deathadder mouse has been a signature of the PC gaming community for a few years now. Since its inception in 2006 it’s been a firm favourite amongst high end gamers and the trend doesn’t stop with the Deathadder. Razer have continuously pushed the boundaries and released a cavalcade of gaming mice for almost every type of user.

Jump forward a few years and we find ourselves reviewing yet another iteration of the iconic Deathadder in the form of the Razer Deathadder Chroma. This Razer Deathadder Chroma review offers a new insight into a newly imagined classic.

Razer Deathadder Chroma Mouse Design

On first glance the new Chroma version of the Razer Deathadder mouse looks exactly the same as the older versions, and you’d be correct in thinking that. The dimensions are exactly the same in every way, shape and form. Razer have gone for the adage of ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’, so they haven’t.

This gaming mouse in question has measurements of 5″ x 2.76″ x 1.73″ and feels very comfortable in the hand. Like the last mouse everything seems oversized to the point where you’d have trouble to miss any of the sweeping buttons. It’s like they’ve over-exaggerated the features of this mouse. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing though as it fits my hand very well and feels like it was made for me, sculpted perfectly and giving no fatigue after extended use.

Its shape is better suited for a palm grip and gives me greater control by being in contact with a lot more of the hand than other grip styles. The rubber side grip textures are a welcome addition and are also present on the scroll wheel giving you ultimate control in other parts of the mouse where the rubber isn’t present you’ll find high quality textured hard plastic. The left and right click buttons themselves are flared at the ends easily being able to nestle even the largest of fingertips.

Razer have kept with a minimal design and makes all of it’s features obvious with no frills to hide behind. As they haven’t changed any of the design features it’s as safe as a safe bet can get for a gaming mouse.

Razer Deathadder Chroma Features

Down to the nitty gritty of the features and we can see that the Deathadder Chroma has 5 buttons. These have been left unaltered from the last versions too and has a left, right and middle/scroll button along with 2 thumb buttons. All of the buttons are over-sized so you’d be hard pushed to miss them. Even the scroll wheel is chunky so there’s no mistaking it’s location. The thumb buttons are so large they really do command most of the side of the mouse, you’d almost have to go out of your way to miss these bad boys! The buttons themselves make a satisfying click from the Omro switches underneath and never miss a beat.

For those of you lefty’s out there you’ll be happy to hear that there is a left handed version available.

Performance of the Deathadder Chroma

As with many gaming mice out today it’s all about the performance. By now you’ll probably be asking yourself the question of what is different in the Chroma version in terms of its performance.

The Chroma has a braided cable sheath now compared to the plastic cable from before. It also offers a DPI sensor range from 200 DPI up to a whopping 10,000 DPI instead of the standard 6400. Is this something that you will realistically use or is this just a marketing gimmick for all those fans who love a big number? Only time will tell. You’ll not be surprised to hear that the, now standard, 1000Hz polling rate is present in the Chroma Deathadder too.

As with other Razer products this one also used the Synapse 2.0 software. If you already have a Razer product then you, no doubt, already have the Synapse software installed. It’s a simple case of plugging your mouse in and the software will automatically find the latest software and firmware for the Deathadder. This is great as it means there isn’t any extra steps taken to be able to use the mouse in it’s full functionality.

Specific to the Razer Deathadder Chroma mouse you can reprogram all buttons except for the left click button giving you ultimate gaming control. There are, however, no fine-tuning options which would have been a welcome addition using the Synapse 2.0 software.

With the addition of cloud computing and Synapse you can also use your mouse on the go using your own personal settings. In fact, with Synapse 2.0 it lets you customise button configurations, lighting schemes, adjust the polling rate and also calibrate the mouse to whichever surface you choose to use it on. There is also a set of pre-added surfaces through Razers own range of mouse pads.

Obviously you’ll need to have Synapse already installed on other PCs or laptops to take advantage of this. It feels like Razer have missed a trick here as it would have been great to have the option to have built-in memory so you could have even less hassle free personal customisation rather than rely on external software on other systems.

What’s New on The Chroma Version?

So we already know that the Deathadder was a great, no-frills, gaming mouse. What’s new?

There are some notable differences that may make or break your buying decision.

It’s an RGB-enabled mouse and so has access to 16.9 million colours. Will you notice the difference in all of these millions of different colours? Of course not but it’s good to know there’s a huge variety of colours and shades to customise with.

Interestingly only the scroll wheel edges and the Razer logo light up on the mouse so although you can customise these, you probably won’t see it when it’s in use as your hand will be covering the vast majority of the mouse. Another neat feature is the fact that you can independently change the colour schemes so you can have the scroll wheel one colour and the logo a different colour.

There are 3 different lighting options using the Synapse 2.0 software to configure it; Static, Spectrum or Breathing. Curiously only the logo can utilise all 3 types of colour system whereas the scroll wheel only has the choice of 2; Static or Spectrum.

If you like a bit of balance in your gaming software then you’ll be pleased to hear that the colour scheme can also be synced with other Razer software you have connected and also can be controlled by Chroma-enabled apps.