I have been on the wireless mouse bandwagon since I first felt the joys of gliding sans cable drag. As they've developed, latency is almost a thing of the past, and now the only real downside to a wireless mouse is remembering to charge it. Not for me, mind, as I'm a big fan of charging mouse mat solutions. Unfortunately, they need mice that work with them, which is why I'm excited for Razer's new Cobra HyperSpeed.
Razer may be touting the new Cobra as a new lightweight mouse packed with features, but for me it's another king to sit on my electric mouse-throne. Light-weight was one of the first things that drew me to these HyperFlux style solutions back when they first launched as they didn't need internal batteries. This Cobra has one that boasts around 110 hours of HyperSpeed dongle connected play, but still only comes in at 62 grams.
Of course you can also go Bluetooth connection, or wired if you're not the owner of a cool mat like I am. It will also work with Razer's Wireless Charging Puck if that's more your speed and the Mouse Dock Pro if you want an even higher poling rate to convey the 26,000 DPI tracking and 99.6% accuracy that the included Razer Focus X 26K Optical Sensor claims to deliver.
The Cobra HyperSpeed is also using the gen-4 optical mouse switches rated for over 100 million clicks, on heads or otherwise. These are on your standard clickers but also the side buttons, which are positioned as such to make this a righties mouse only. Sorry left-handed gamers. The scroll wheel also has that new optical tech, that Razer recently revamped to avoid misreads, and is positioned in the middle making it easy for everyone to enjoy.
For the lit gamers among us, this one is fully functional with four zones of programmable RGB lighting that has game profiles ready to go. The Razer Synapse software and its various extensions are likely needed to get the most out of this, mind. You can also store your own profiles on the mouse with five memory slots so you can easily swap between your most played games, even if you're not at your own PC. This goes beyond just colour allowing for specific macros and button designations.
But possibly the most exciting feature of this mouse is the price. This Cobra is meant to be a slight step down from Razer Cobra Pro, which we thought was an excellent all-rounder, so it comes with a stepped down cost. This puts the new Cobra HyperSpeed at $100 USD or $190 AUD, making it the cheapest mouse to work with the HyperFlux V2 wireless charging system. And that's a pretty big win for those of us who know this little secret about Razer mice.
If you've wanted to try living the charging mat life, now might just be the time. I do warn you, it's easy to forget mice actually need to charge whenever you're working with other setups. Do not, my friends, become addicted to not needing to charge your mouse. It will take hold of you, and you will resent its absence.
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Hope’s been writing about games for about a decade, starting out way back when on the Australian Nintendo fan site Vooks.net. Since then, she’s talked far too much about games and tech for publications such as Techlife, Byteside, IGN, and GameSpot. Of course there’s also here at PC Gamer, where she gets to indulge her inner hardware nerd with news and reviews. You can usually find Hope fawning over some art, tech, or likely a wonderful combination of them both and where relevant she’ll share them with you here. When she’s not writing about the amazing creations of others, she’s working on what she hopes will one day be her own. You can find her fictional chill out ambient far future sci-fi radio show/album/listening experience podcast right here.
No, she’s not kidding.
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