Razer Taipan Expert Ambidextrous Gaming Mouse

Before this mouse, I used the Razer Deathadder.I am an avid gamer and spend a long time gaming every day, as well as graphical design, programming and much more, and using a good mouse that I can be precise and quick with is very important.I use this with 8200dpi, and coming from the Deathadder that's a HUGE difference, way more than double the DPI (3500 on the Deathadder).I've had to reduce my overall sensitivity, and the same in games, and it did take me a day or two to get used to it, but now that I am, it's amazing. It has no glitchy movements, the laser on it is quite blatantly the best I've ever used, and if you ever decide to purchase one you'll see exactly what I mean by that.I find that often my hands have very little 'grip' on them, and with the Deathadder that made it extremely hard to hold on to the mouse sometimes. With the Taipan I am able to grip it no matter what, and just now I found this out as my hands are like that again, and that's what prompted me to write this review.It looks very smart, the design amongst other mice is like that of a Ferrari amongst most day to day cars. It's sharp and smooth at the same time, and has a very nice green glow to it.Due to it being ambidextrous, it has the thumb buttons on each side, but they can be programmed however you like, so you don't have to have the same ones on the other side of your hand, you can actually use them as separate buttons. The DPI+ and DPI- buttons can also be re-programmed, I just made them press buttons on my keyboard such as ; [ ] and then bound those keys in-game, so that I can use them as extra buttons, which proved very helpful in WoW and CoD4.This mouse is a bit smaller than the Deathadder, but I have quite large hands and found it very easy to use still, so it's not problematic as far as I'm concerned.Overall I am very pleased with this mouse, and although for a mouse it's very expensive, the only thing I am not sure about yet is how long it will last! Everything else I wanted in a mouse is present in this one, so I rate it 5/5.I might make another review in a years time or so, just to point out the lifetime of the mouse, or if it breaks I will be sure to post that here too.If you can afford this mouse, it's definitely worth the purchase.Enjoy!~p.

I changed from a right-handed Logitech G5, which worked fine for 4 years. As a left-hander it was proving inconvenient to change grip slightly in order to reach the side buttons. It was increasing my RSI too, so I decided to try this ambidextrous Taipan mouse from Razer.1) Hardware Pros:* Excellent precision from dual sensor - up to 8200 DPI.* 1000Hz polling simple to activate - confirmed by freeware 'mouserate' app.* Smoother wheel action is good.* Has rubber side grips.* Good for palm-grip style, and OK for fingertip-grip style.2) Hardware Cons:* Button clicks are slightly noisy - may reduce over time.* The two side buttons need to be a millimeter wider, further apart, and less inclined.* Button construction feels rather lightweight - doubt if will last several years' hard gaming.3) Software Pros:* Good range of options.* Good UI layout.* Settings stored online for simple portability.4) Software Cons:* No option for local storage of settings - it has to connect to the internet every reboot which can only slow the boot time. A terrible decision which almost stopped me buying. Will it still work if the servers are down temporarily, hacked, or even shut down permanently one day? Imagine if all your PC peripherals demanded online connection!!* Must leave app running all the time, otherwise some settings are not applied.* Takes over 50Mb of memory while running - as a developer I know this is unnecessary and a far smaller footprint should easily be achievable.* Would be easier if single-clicking tray icon showed UI immediately.In conclusion, this is a good gaming mouse let down by both the permanent app and permanent online requirements. The latter also makes the price a bit high because you are paying for the ongoing cloud storage.