We’ve reviewed a number of mice in the last few months, and with Razer they seem to be a company that are trying to cater to many use-cases of this peripheral.
From the Basilisk to the Naga Trinity, Razer have kept up a decent track record in the quality of their mice line, and even though 2020 has been a strange year to say the least, people have been looking at their PC setups and peripherals to see what they could improve on, just to mix things up in this ‘WFH’ life.
The Viper Mini is a mouse that we’ve been trying out these last few weeks, and even though it’s smaller than other Razer mice products, it’s a great on-the-road peripheral for when you can work in other places in time.
Table of Contents
Razer Viper Mini is under £40 on Amazon
Here’s why this is the mouse to take on that mantle, and also why it’s a fantastic iPad mouse too...
Design - Score 90
The Viper Mini has all the hallmarks of a Razer mouse; the familiar logo where your palm usually rests, two buttons on the side for useful shortcuts, and two lights that you can configure with Synapse 3 once again.
The main differences here are the peripheral being wired, which is no big deal here, and that it’s smaller. At 118 millimeters it’s 8mm shorter than its other Viper brethrens, which gives it a compact feel, so if you’ve got significantly large hands, look somewhere else.
But when using it for TitanFall 2 and Hitman, it did its job, which is no surprise after reviewing other Razer mice peripherals. The DPI can be set at 8500, which is a welcome addition, so you can easily go from one target when using a sniper for example, straight to another with minimal delay. But the mouse is so quaint here, you may find yourself going just too far away from the desired target, but it works well after some practice.
You can’t review a Razer mouse without mentioning its RGB feature and Synapse 3. There are two lights; one for the logo, and another at the underside of the mouse, so there’s a nice glow while you’re moving it around as best you can. There were no issues in setting the mouse up in Synapse 3 here, and again, you can configure profiles for it, depending on the apps and games you’d like to use for it. I recently installed Spotify onto this Gaming PC, and configured my keyboard to light up to the rhythm of certain tracks, and I thought I’d do it with the Viper Mini. Now it’s all I use the RGB for with the mouse; playing ‘Stop’ by Spice Girls or just ‘Charmless Man’ by Blue really makes it come alive as you’re playing a game or just using Google Docs, and the soft glow of the underside really makes this feature sing, to pardon a pun.
I use my iPad Pro as the ‘work’ machine, from emails, to writing, to editing podcasts, and thanks to a recent iOS 13 release, there is now trackpad support. Plugging the Viper Mini in to my iPad Pro with a USB-C adapter, it recognised the mouse right away, and the glow of the logo shone as I was switching between Twitch, Outlook and Slack. For now anyway, there’s no way of customising the RGB in iPadOS, so you get the mouse control only. But using it was a treat, and I found that having this mouse as something to throw in a bag if you’re staying somewhere, or just going to work, it’s a great use-case. Especially as the wire is surprisingly long, you could plug it in to your work machine and just use it as normal, regardless of how far that USB port could be.
Value - Score 90
Razer is known for its quality, and it carries on here. For
it’s a fair price for what it offers.
When you think of how small and light this mouse is, it’s not just going to be used for one room and one PC. It’s a great mouse to have in your bag for when you need to go and finish off some work on a laptop or tablet, or even as a gift for someone’s birthday.
Our Score
Pros
- Great RGB
- Great build quality
- Welcome entry-price for Razer
Cons
- Mouse may be on the short-side for some hands
- Wired, and not even USB-C
You get what you pay for with a mouse, and with Razer it’s just that bit extra. You get the light-weight of the mouse, alongside the customisable RGB for
.
Yes it's wired, yes there's not much customisation in RGB, but for a mouse from Razer it does its job and at that price-point it does it well. Just don’t expect anything incredible here; it focuses on being a mouse from Razer, and it achieves that in spades.
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