My wife is a Graphic Artist, and does a lot of work from home. I watch her sometimes, and she is working at the pixel level in a lot of cases, and it occurred to me that precision and speed in a mouse would be a great help.We were both using basic optical mice- good, much better than standard ball mice, but thinking there had to be better stuff available, I went to my most trusted online retailer, and checked out my options. What I saw was the Razer Diamondback. What I read impressed me, and I bought one.
As I usually do, I just hooked it up and waited for her to notice it. When she finally went to the PC, AFTER a few minutes of use, she noticed it. I asked her why it took so long to notice it, she replied that it felt so natural, she didn't even realize that she was using something different.."it just felt right".
After a month of her using this mouse, AND singing it's praises, which she NEVER does on tech stuff, I bought one for myself. In her mind, Technology should be seamless, or, "it should just work". And she is right.
Now, I play PC games, games that require a monster PC with hi-powered everything. Games like Unreal II, Call of Duty, Medal of Honor (Mohaa AA and PA) and others, just to give you an idea. Wife does Professional graphics design, I got her a Professional Quadro card, but her games are pretty much Pogo (LOL). But our needs for precision, speed and ease of use are the same.
This mouse fills the bill !! When I put my hand on the Razer, it just sort of drapes over it, the main buttons are right where I like them, and minimal pressure is needed to click. You can also lightly rest your fingers on the buttons without an accidental click, thus saving your teammates a gunshot in the back of the head ! The weight it just right for balance, and you DON'T need to move your whole hand, just a flick of the wrist moves the cursor, due to the placement of the sensor..very well thought out. The mouse moves as smooth as butter, cause of the glide pads under it. The Razer also has cool Red lighting; the scroll wheel glows eery red, and LED's light the top and sides. The sensor does glow red at the bottom, which I like, cause I have yet to shoot myself in the eye with my own mouse.
It also has programmable buttons on the side, so gamers can adjust sensitivity on the fly, and other purposes. However, I guess I'm kind of a lazy gamer, as I gave up on that and just use the Mouse settings in Window's control panel. And you know what ? Those setting are just fine!! My wife does the same thing. So if you get nervous that you're gonna have to jump through hoops to make it work right, no worries, mate. just use Control Panel, and take the easy way out. Works for me.
I have read many reviews on the Razer,here and other sources, I'm surprised at the number of complaints. We have had these for over a year, no problems. Remember, this is 2 of the same Razer Diamondback Mouse in the same house with no problems. If you are concerned about the potential problems with warranty/repairs, bear in mind you can buy direct from Razer online, thus eliminating that worry.
All in all, we have been happy with our Razer Diamondback Optical mice (meeses?) (in cool red), and have recommended it to friends without reservation.