At first we would like to thank Razer for offering us their Basilisk Gaming Mouse for testing and reviewing.

 

About Razer:

"Razer is more than just the world's leading brand in gaming.

We were founded in 1998 in San Diego, California by our CEO Min-Liang Tan and our President Robert “Razerguy” Krakoff in a tiny shared office with a couple other gamers. We have grown today to hundreds of employees worldwide with offices in seven cities, including San Francisco, Hamburg, Seoul, Shanghai and Singapore.

Our vision from the very beginning was to be the world's greatest gaming brand and we've set out to achieve that by designing the best gaming products that any gamer has ever seen.

We believe that truly great products are based on technology, designed with extensive human factors and user ergonomic studies and then tested by the top professional gamers. In simpler terms, our own world class scientists and engineers develop cutting edge technology in-house or with partners, design phenomenal products around core technologies – and test the hell out of them in the field with our pro-gamers before we launch them.

We are the only gaming hardware company in the world with dedicated gaming user interface research and development labs, and our technology and designs are incubated in three dedicated design centers located in facilities in California, Singapore and Shenzhen. No other company boasts of technology like we do – because we're the only guys who have what it takes under the hood.

We tell it like it is: some can pretend to co-develop products with professional gamers, but gamers don't develop technology: scientists and engineers do (and ours just happen to be gamers as well).

We develop and design our products in our own labs and then put them to the test with top professional gamers who use them in pro-level tournaments and then provide us with feedback. Then we iterate on the product, refining it with the feedback – over and over and over again. That's how it's done, that's how a Razer product is built from ground up. No marketing BS and no hype.

We pioneered the eSports movement with the world's first $100K tournament back in 2000 and we have continued to give back to the community by sponsoring top eSports athletes who give back to Razer by beta-testing our products. We remain one of the largest sponsors of eSports community sponsoring top global eSports teams worldwide.

The people that work here at Razer are gamers just like you – some amateur, some ex-professional gamers, some just play for fun, just ask our CEO who will lay the smack down on you in Quake Live or our President, who has over ten level 80's on his local server. Hell, he will even take you on a raid in the middle of the work day.

We are the same gamers who are told by the suits that we need adult supervision and we need a professional CEO or management team – and we're the same gamers who tell the suits exactly where to shove it because we like doing what we do – and we do it on our own terms.

We hope our passion for gaming speaks to you like it does to us, through our products and we hope you enjoy the competitive edge we bring to your game."

Product Features:

 

The world's most advanced optical gaming sensor

Scroll wheel with customizable resistance

Removable DPI clutch in 2 different lengths

Gaming-optimized Razer™ Mechanical Mouse Switches

Powered by Razer Chroma

 

Product Specifications:

 

Razer 5G optical sensor with true 16,000 DPI

Up to 450 inches per second (IPS) / 50 G acceleration

Razer™ Mechanical Mouse Switches

Eight independently programmable Hyperesponse buttons

Gaming-grade tactile scroll wheel with customizable resistance

Ergonomic right-handed design with enhanced rubber side grips

Razer Chroma™ lighting with true 16.8 million customizable color options

1000 Hz Ultrapolling

Razer Synapse 3 (Beta) enabled

Approximate size: 124 mm / 4.88 in (Length) X 75 mm / 2.94 in (Width) X 43 mm / 1.69 in (Height)

Approximate weight 107 g / 0.24 lbs (Excluding cable)

 

In this article we will discuss about a brand-new mouse from Razer, which was mostly thought for FPS games such as Doom, Quake, Overwatch, Paladins, Paragon and many more…It does also feature a new 5G optical sensor with true 16000 DPI, Razer mechanical switches with a 50-million clicks lifespan, but also some other unique design features.

 

Our sample packaging got a little bent because of the shipping guys, but fortunately the inside product was unharmed. The Basilisk did arrive in a small cardboard box, which does explain that its format was mainly thought for FPS gaming:

 

 

 

The main product highlights are carefully explained on the back:

 

 

 

The bottom box area does display the product serial number, the system requirements but also the approximative size and weight:

 

 

 

Besides the mouse, we will also receive some documentation:

 

 

 

The leaflet which explains the registration benefits is accompanied by a quick product guide, but also a nice set of case stickers:

 

 

Inside the manual, we will be able to check out the main mouse components and more:

 

 

The Basilisk mouse does feature a fully-braided cable, for durability purposes:

 

 

Regarding the design of the mouse, we can spot a curved shape, with a large thumb rest on the left side; the black color theme is a signature for most Razer mice:

 

 

The curved back does also show a RGB-enabled manufacturer logo, which is easily visible when the mouse is powered on:

 

 

Besides the large thumb rest on the left side panel of the mouse, here we do also have two extra programmable buttons and one unique feature: the clutch. The clutch is practically a different approach to the “sniper” button, which does lower the DPI while it is pressed:

 

 

The said clutch can be replaced by a smaller version of it, but if we decide to use the Basilisk mouse without this feature, Razer has also included a cover for the assembly:

 

 

 

 

The right side of the mouse does house a secondary rubber layer, which is meant to rest the ring and pinky fingers:

 

 

 

The top area of the mouse does house a large RGB-enabled scroll wheel, two extra programmable buttons but also the usual left/right click buttons; these do use Razer’s own Mechanical Switches with a lifespan of 50 million clicks:

 

 

 

The bottom area of the mouse does house PTFE feet for a smooth glide on the surface we will use the product on; here we will find two other unique features: the Profile button which allows cycling through up to four on-board profiles stored in the mouse hardware but also a Resistance wheel that allows fine-tuning the scroll wheel behavior:

 

 

 

The previously-mentioned cable does end up with a customized Razer USB connector:

 

 

 

As soon as the mouse is plugged in to a spare USB port, the Chroma LED lighting system will provide some nice effects:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For an unknown reason, Basilisk is not supported by the Synapse 2 final software, but only by the Synapse 3, which is currently in Beta status; this new software does include a different looking software interface and from its Dashboard we can access the main resources:

 

 

 

Basilisk has been detected correctly and different menus are available for us to work with; within the Customize menu, we can change the default mappings of all buttons:

 

 

Hypershift from Razer is similar to the Easy-Shift[+] function we have seen many times before at ROCCAT and it practically adds a secondary function to each button:

 

 

The functions we can choose from will appear on the left side of the interface:

 

 

Keyboard Function

 

 

Mouse Function

 

 

Sensitivity

 

 

Macro

 

 

Switch Profile

 

 

Switch Lighting

 

 

Razer Hypershift

 

 

Launch Program

 

 

Multimedia

 

 

Windows Shortcuts

 

 

Text Function

 

 

Unused buttons can be disabled as well:

 

 

From the main Performance tab, we can adjust the DPI of each sensitivity stage, work with the default Windows Mouse Properties but also work with the Polling Rate:

 

 

The Lighting area provides us with the option to configure the LED brightness, switch off the lighting in certain conditions, work with some pre-defined effects or define custom ones via Chroma Studio:

 

 

A very important part is also Mouse Mat Surface Calibration, which must be performed each time we do change the mouse pad we are working with, in order to obtain optimal tracking results:

 

 

After the calibration has been completed, we can adjust the lift-off range:

 

 

Chroma Studio allows the user to define its own lighting effects, and provides as base several effect layers:

 

 

Here are the stock effects we can work with:

 

 

Depending on the effect we choose, we will have different configuration option on the right side of the screen; these effects can be applied independently in the two available areas of the Basilisk:

 

 

The Macro area does allow us to record different key sequences; several delay settings and mouse movement tracking options are also available to choose from:

 

 

Since the Basilisk is aimed mostly towards FPS, we have tested it in titles such as Quake Champions, Battleborn, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and DOOM. After calibration, the mouse performed excellent thanks to the modded PWM3389, which supports up to 16000 DPI, in increments of 50 and starting at a minimal value of 100. Considering that Synapse 3 is a beta software, we were surprised to find out that it was quite stable on our system and we have not experienced any crash during the test period. We are also seeing the Hypershift function which is similar to the Easy-Shift[+] employed by ROCCAT and layered LED lighting options in the Chroma Studio for even more interesting LED lighting effects.

 

The unique Resistance wheel on the bottom does really change the overall experience when gaming if we need more precision, while when doing Internet browsing we can leave the resistance level at a minimum for smooth scrolling. We do also have now the profile selector on the bottom, which helps the user to choose between up to four on-board profiles, while the clutch is offered in two different lengths in order to accommodate most hand shapes and sizes. If we are doing regular office work or browsing the web, we can always remove the said clutch and use the protective cap that is also included in the original packaging.

 

The Razer Basilisk mouse is offered at a very attractive price of 55 Euros, so it should be an excellent item to look after during the Winter holidays!

Razer Basilisk Gaming Mouse is Recommended for:

 

We would like to thank again to Razer for making this review possible!