Razer Deathadder V3 Hyperspeed Wireless Review – Penny-Pinching Premium Gaming Mouse

Razer’s Deathadder line is immensely popular, and this, the newest V3 Hyperspeed, is one hell of a mouse. Perhaps, due to its popularity, that’s why Razer felt it prudent to charge you an extra £30 for a wireless dongle that unlocks all the available features of the mouse! This bad boy, out the box anyway, can only do 1,000 hertz polling, both wired and wirelessly, UNLESS you buy the optional extra HyperPolling wireless dongle, which then lets you use 8,000 hertz polling. Now I did ask Razer for the dongle, and in theory I will get it at some point, but it’s been a couple months now and I’ve got to review this thing at some point, so we’re rolling with what we’ve got – which means no 8,000 hertz support, which is what you’ll get if you don’t pony up the extra anyway.

So, what’s the deal with the Deathadder then? This is one hell of a mouse. It weighs just 55 grams, making it a featherweight option, plus of course being wireless means it’s remarkably free. Shape wise this is quite the departure from the original Deathadder shape, but it’s fair similar to the more recent models. It’s reasonably high arch, making it a pretty decent shape for palm or claw gripping, with larger hands like mine being able to fingertip it if you prefer. This should suit small to medium hands – although if you are on the larger end like me you might find it a tiny bit small, plus the geometry makes it a little less than perfect for your ring and pinky fingers. I found it a touch uncomfortable personally, although I’m certain smaller hands than mine would be much happier with it. I should note that Razer has gone with a pretty smooth, almost soft-touch coating here, which isn’t ideal for gripping onto the mouse. Admittedly the insanely light weight mostly makes this a non-issue, but I definitely prefer the subtly textured finish that the Glorious Series 2 offers instead.

The under-side is where you’ll find the large PTFE skates that cover basically the whole front and back sides, along with an extra ring around the sensor’s lens. Unsurprisingly, both thanks to the skates and the incredibly light weight, this glides perfectly on a nice mouse mat. It’s light and smooth, just what you want. You’ll also find the power and DPI button here – and interestingly there is only one LED on here, sitting right at the front of the mouse between the left and right clicks, and in front of the scroll wheel. That changes colour depending on connectivity and DPI state – which by default you get five modes for. Just below that LED is the USB C port, which of course can charge the internal battery that, at least at 1,000 hertz, should give you 100 hours of usage (or 20 hours at 8,000 hertz), but can also be used for wired operation. Sadly even when wired Synapse won’t let you enable anything higher than 1,000 hertz polling – something that is quite the contrast to the Glorious Model D 2 Pro I reviewed recently which lets you split wired and wireless polling rates.

Sensor wise, this is Razer’s Focus X 26K optical sensor, which much like that Glorious mouse, seems to be a pretty close spec match to the PixArt PAW3395, so I’d assume that’s what they are using here. As expected this tracks incredibly well, even with fast flicks, on both low and high DPI, and to the eye anyway feels really nice and smooth, and pretty low latency. Speaking of latency, the gen 3 optical switches in here must have some serious magic sauce, because this has ridiculously low click latency. Testing with my open source latency testing tool – available at OSRTT.com, link in the description – both wired and wireless offer really good results, at around 2.85 milliseconds for wireless and 2.5 milliseconds wired. That puts it in the ballpark of all the high polling rate options from Glorious I’ve tested, which is mighty impressive. I honestly doubt that the 8,000 hertz polling would reduce this by all that much, with how low it is already. Maybe when I finally get the dongle I’ll revisit it and let you know.

For actually gaming on it, it’s a pretty good time. As I mentioned earlier it’s perhaps a tiny bit too small for my hands to be truly comfortable, but it was able to use it fine enough, and of course that distinct lack of weight makes it really easy to flick around and be accurate with. It tracks really well, it’s certainly not a bottleneck to my experience, that’d be my skill level, and the ridiculously low click latency is definitely nice. In short then, it’s a pretty great time. The only gripe I have is really with the included USB cable, a thick rubber affair that is surprisingly short, and retains kinks from packaging so much so that the included USB C to A adapter doesn’t sit nicely on your desk. The cable is likely too short to use as the charging cable for the mouse too, which is annoying. 

Of course, the most annoying thing is that this, a price-premium gaming mouse, asks you to spend another £30 on a dongle that unlocks more features the mouse is otherwise capable of. This mouse is listed for £100 on Razer’s store, making it an incredibly premium choice, and yet they want even more – not even just increasing the product price to £120 or so to cover the cost of swapping out the included dongle for the Hyperpolling one – that just feels stingy to me. The mouse itself is great, and I’m sure having 8,000 hertz isn’t bad either, but as you can tell this just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Anyway, if you’re interested in the Deathadder V3 Hyperspeed, I’ll leave a link to it in the description below.