Razer Deathadder V4 Pro Gaming Mouse Review – Razer’s Best Yet

Razer’s Deathadder lineup has some of the

It is also a remarkably study mouse. I really

One flaw of the Deathadder V3 Pro was its scroll wheel, which felt mushy and loose with age. The new scroll wheel is optical, rather than mechanical, which reduces the friction between components and should reduce wear over time. I can’t promise that, but I can say that it feels taught and precise, with no side-to-side wobble. I didn’t have a single scroll jump, where the wheel goes further than intended, and I never got caught between scroll increments. The scroll wheel press itself is mechanical, rather than optical, but it too felt reliable: I used it loads when playing the recently released Rematch (you press the scroll wheel to call for a pass), and it never let me down.

The left and right mouse clickers have brand-new optical switches, and I think they’ll be divisive. Not because of how they feel, since they are responsive and require very little force to press, which makes fast clicks easy, but because of how they sound. They are loud with a high-pitch ‘ping’ that I’ve seen others call cheap and tinny. I personally like a louder click, and to me it sounded crisp and satisfying. Crucially, they work flawlessly. I never misclicked, and every single press registered instantly.

That goes for the side buttons as well, and unlike in the V3, there’s a small gap between them, which makes it easier to distinguish one from the other in an intense firefight, for example. There are only two of them, so if you like lots of buttons on your mouse, then this isn’t for you. Even the DPI button (which many mice put on the top) is on the bottom, so you have to turn the mouse over to adjust it. That doesn’t bother me because once I’ve picked a DPI for a game I usually stick with it, making minor adjustments using the in-game settings.

Be aware, too, that it’s also not a particularly portable mouse: there is no Bluetooth connectivity, and you can only use it if you plug in the large, half-orb dongle, so if you like to travel with your mouse or switch between machines, this might not be for you.

The dongle itself is a fantastic bit of kit, though. I like the way it looks on my desk; the embossed, shiny Razer logo occasionally catches the light and stands out from the smooth matte coating of the rest of it. It’s satisfyingly weighty (at around 44g, it’s nearly as heavy as the mouse itself) and it has a grippy rubber underside, so it’s hard to accidentally shift it on your desk. The accompanying cable is stiff and unlikely to tangle.

The three indicator lights, which reflect your chosen settings, are bright and I like having the at-a-glance reminder of my setup: I never had to wonder what polling rate or DPI I’d picked. My only gripe is a minor one – it uses two shades of green to distinguish between different battery levels, and they’re hard to tell apart at a glance.

Most importantly, the connection is both instant and constant whenever you turn the mouse on. It never dropped in all my testing, and whenever I tweaked the mouse settings, such as adjusting the DPI or the polling rate, the indicator lights flicked immediately, giving me extra confidence that the settings had actually changed.

Razer says this new version of their HyperSpeed wireless tech, with an adjustable polling rate from 125Hz up to 8000Hz, has much lower latency than the previous one, while the sensor is its fastest and most accurate yet. We’re at a point where top-end gaming mice are so good that it’s nearly impossible to notice incremental differences. The Deathadder V4 Pro blows past Razer’s other mice on paper, and it’s reassuring to know you’re using the best tech possible, but it doesn’t feel like a generational leap when I’m playing. Faultless, yes, but not life-changing.

You can also auto-switch your polling rate for gaming: I toggled this setting on and it worked every time. It means you can stay at, say, 1000 Hz to preserve battery life when you’re working, and then automatically bump up the polling rate for gaming. And having the rate displayed on the dongle means you can be certain it’s switched.

The mouse rotation setting is not new, but it’s worth mentioning. The idea is that not everyone moves their mouse in exact right angles relative to their set up. I slightly tilt my mouse to the left in relation to my mousemat, but swipe in line with the pad, meaning my left and right movements are, technically, slightly off-line. Razer has a tool that asks you to move side to side and then recommends an adjustment to the sensor axis to accommodate for this. I stuck with its recommended tweak and it felt natural.

Annoyingly, that testing tool is in your browser, rather than in Synapse. This is a bit of a theme with Razer tools: when you use the mouse you’ll be prompted to make a firmware update, which takes you to your browser, and a tool to test polling rate is separate, and downloadable from Razer’s website. Synapse is, overall, as imperfect as it always has been, but it does offer a robust level of customisation and nails the basics.

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