Razer Viper Ultimate Review – On Top of the Wireless Charts

What an end to 2019 for Razer, the Razer Viper Ultimate is a clear top tier mouse and the best wireless gaming mouse right now, ending the reign of the Logitech G Pro Wireless. If you’re a claw, hybrid or fingertip gripper with medium to large hands, this is the wireless mouse of choice, don’t look any further, this is it. Palm grippers might still be better off with the Logitech G Pro wireless with its taller height and more egg-y shape. 

It’s been a great year for mice and the Viper Ultimate is a great way to cap off the year before holiday season. If you’re a little more budget conscious, take a look into the Zowie S series, Model O  and O- or G Wolves Hati to satisfy your claw or fingertip gaming needs.

Wireless 

Razer has officially caught and surpassed Logitech in the wireless mouse space, the Razer Viper Ultimate is the best overall wireless mouse out right now with a ton of great little features that make this mouse the most enjoyable to use.

Somehow, Razer has managed to make a lighter mouse than the G Pro Wireless that has a longer battery life, without the use of holes. I can confirm that the Razer Viper Ultimate gets very close to its advertised battery life of 70 hours.

Beyond just the weight and battery life, Razer has made charging the mouse a dream when it does run out of juice, the extended charging dock provides two magnetic contacts for the Ultimate to sit on to charge, charging consists of just resting the mouse lightly on the dock, no need to plug in a cable to charge the mouse.

If you do need to charge directly with a wire, the Razer Viper Ultimate has a micro USB port at the front.  

The dock can also extend the range of the USB dongle, it’s a great design, Razer has really thought of the details for the dock. The dock itself has a grippy rubber bottom that keeps it in place very well.

If you’re travelling, the Viper has a little door to store the dongle, it’s by far the best wireless gaming mouse package.

Sensor & Performance

The Razer Viper Ultimate packs a brand new sensor dubbed the Razer Focus+, a 20,000 DPI optical sensor that Razer has developed in partnership with Pixart. The sensor is likely a lower power sensor that enables the Viper Ultimate to sip power while in use.

I can happily report that the new sensor is still flawless, no issues with acceleration, jitter or prediction on this sensor. The mouse has no input lag, which is something that is expected of wireless mice in 2019. Razer is holding no punches here, everything is up to snuff and then some, The Viper Ultimate gives you marathon battery life, with a light weight with no trade-offs in sensor performance or input lag.

The Focus+ can store 5 stages of sensitivity from 100 to 20,000 DPI with a polling rate of 125, 500 or 1000, there’s no reason not to set it to 1000 Hz unless you’re trying to save more battery life. The Viper Ultimate has a power saving mode, which drastically worsens the performance of the mouse, I was experiencing quite a bit of jumping around, it felt like the Viper was tracking but not reporting and the cursor would recover every once in a while. If you don’t want to risk any performance inconsistencies like that, I’d recommend dropping the low power threshold to only activate at 5 or 10% battery life.

Razer is claiming that the Focus+ syncs polling rate and sensor report rate, sort of like GSync or Freesync, so that there isn’t any unsynced reporting from the mouse, at 1000 reports a second, I didn’t really notice any difference in performance between this mouse and a mouse that doesn’t have Motion Sync. 

The Viper Ultimate adds a couple of new sensor features that I haven’t seen on other mice. Asymmetric cut-off allows users to set both lift off distance and landing distance, in theory, this should reduce the amount of movement your cursor makes when putting the mouse back on the surface. In reality, the mouse performs roughly the same in lift off and land off as other mice that have “basic” PMW3360 sensors, I’m not noticing too much difference in performance with asymmetric cut-offs. 

Razer is also touting that the Viper Ultimate will auto-calibrate to difference surfaces to prevent lift off and landing differences between surfaces. I’m not sure how to properly test this, but the Viper Ultimate has been performing admirably on  the control and speed mouse pads that I’ve played it on. 

Shape & Design

The shape hasn’t changed at all coming from the original Viper, and it doesn’t need to, it’s a fantastic claw and fingertip grip mouse. 

The Viper and Viper Ultimate is an ambidextrous shape with side buttons on both sides (woo lefties!), the height of the mouse is pretty low, with moderate curves on the side. The closest mouse comparison in terms of shape is somewhere between the Zowie S2 and Finalmouse Air58. Comparing the Viper Ultimate to the Model O, the Viper is a little taller and shorter making it a slightly more comfortable shape for palm grippers. 

The Viper features one RGB zone, the all too familiar Razer logo glows on the back up of the Viper. I’ve primarily kept the RGB on, even with it on the Viper Ultimate lasts quite a while on one charge. On low charge, the logo will blink red indicating it needs to be charged.

The feet have been upgraded from the original Viper, the Ultimate version now sports 4 PTFE feet instead of two larger feet, one of the complaints I had with the original Viper is the scratchiness of the feet, the black feet has a sharp edge that would scratch on the mouse pad. The Viper Ultimates feet are slightly faster in glide as well as more rounded off. The Viper Ultimate still does scratch a little bit due to the cut out for the charging pins.

Build Quality & Coating

The Razer Viper Ultimate manages to keep it light at 74 grams without a holey architecture and while keeping its built quality rock solid. The shell from what I can tell, has no weak points, no flex or creaks, no rattles, it’s very well built.

The top shell and buttons on the mouse have a textured matte plastic surface, definitely something I appreciate has a sweatier gamer. The sides of the mouse are made up of a slightly grippy dotted rubber, which is something that I’m sure the dry handed gamers appreciate. 

Buttons & Scroll Wheel

The Razer Viper Ultimate’s primary buttons still have a good amount of pretravel to them, I’m able to press the button down about half of its total travel distance without actuation the Razer Optical switch underneath. What the pretravel produces is a slightly less tactile experience compared to the kind of buttons I like.

The switches underneath are optical, which is something that Razer seems to be going all in on in all their tech. I’ve seen no performance issues with the optical switches, no durability issues, double clicking or debouncing. 

The Viper Ultimate has 4 total side buttons, 2 on each side making it a great left handed mouse. The side buttons are pretty recessed, barely poking out past the shell of the mouse. Fortunately, the shape of the button produces a good edge to detect the beginning and end of the side buttons, I haven’t had issues locating the side buttons in the middle of a fire fight.

Because of their recessed design, the side buttons on the opposite side of the mouse are of pretty low risk of being accidentally clicked, this is something that the FK2 series combats by disabling the opposite side buttons, with the Viper, you have the option of mapping something there if you want to give your pinky a job. 

The scroll wheel is solid, it has distinct steps, with a stippled rubber coating that provides good traction.

The middle click is tactile and provides good feedback with good recovery, I haven’t had any issues spamming pings while crawling around dead in Apex Legends at all. The scroll wheel looks to be set firmly in place, no side travel or wobble on the Viper Ultimate.

Features & Software

The Razer Viper uses Synapse 3.0 to customize its settings, you can download it here: https://www.razer.com/synapse-3

Razer has finally listened, you DO NOT have to install Razer Synapse to use the Viper Ultimate, it won’t prompt a software install and furthermore, you DO NOT have to have an account to access Synapse features! Razer is really on a crazy tear, without needing to log in, Synapse is very intuitive and easy to use.

We’ve covered Synapse in several places, like our How to use Synapse post, so we’ll go over some Viper specific screens.

Synapse allows you to remap every button on the Viper Ultimate with the exception of the primary left click, a quick toggle lets you swap the primary click to the right side.

As previously mentioned, on the power tab you can set the threshold for when the Viper turns on lower power mode and how quickly the Viper goes to sleep, the Viper wakes up pretty quickly, I haven’t had issues with a 5 minute sleep threshold. 

You can also set some settings for the dock, mostly how you want the indicators to look when charging as well as default RGB modes. 

Warranty & Reliability

Razer is backing the Viper Ultimate with a 2 year warranty. Check out their warranty page here: https://www.razer.com/us-en/warranty.

I haven’t come across a lot of reliability complaints for the Viper or the Viper Ultimate, so far it looks like a solid mouse.

Conclusion & Value

The Razer Viper Ultimate is a wireless mouse with virtually no compromises, it is a culmination of the progress Razer has made in designing gaming products in 2019. Its only rival is the Logitech G Pro  Wireless and that preference largely comes down to shape, I’d argue the G Pro Wireless is only strictly better if you palm grip, otherwise the Viper Ultimate is likely going to be a better offering for you in the high-end ultralight wireless gaming mouse category. 

 There’s really nothing like a light wireless mouse, it feels really great not having to futz around with a cable even with a good mouse bungee. If you are looking for that wireless freedom, then the Viper Ultimate must be considered.

The Viper Ultimate is $150 USD at retail. If looking at the price tag is looking like it’ll hurt your wallet too much, the Viper shape is well represented by wired ultralight mice, the Model O, the G Wolves Hati are great alternatives that are much much cheaper.

Tech Specs

Razer Viper Ultimate vs Logitech G Pro Wireless

These are the top two light wireless gaming mice, in terms of feature set they’re pretty close. Both mice have long battery life, the GPW has a 60 hour battery life while the Viper Ultimate edges it out with a 70 hour battery life. The G Pro Wireless weighs 80 grams, the Viper comes in at 74 grams. 

The Viper Ultimate has a significantly better default charging solution, it comes with a charging dock that uses magnetic pins to charge the mouse. Even on the mouse itself the GPW uses a pronged micro USB, super annoying to use, while the Viper Ultimate uses a USB-C for the dock, and a micro USB on the front. 

The G Pro Wireless has a smooth and uniform shape, the GPW is a taller mouse and sits higher in the hand which is going to be a better fit for the palm grips. The Viper Ultimate is a short mouse, more suited for claw grip, both mice shapes are safe and comfortable, and do a great job for each grip type. 

Both mice are ambidextrous mice with compatibility with left handers, the G Pro Wireless has modular side buttons that you can add or remove as needed, while the Viper Ultimate has fixed side buttons that don’t extend past the shell very far to avoid accidental clicks. The Razer Viper Ultimate has a better grip with its contouring and rubber sides, the G Pro Wireless is all matte plastic, it’s not difficult to pick up but it’s not as easy as the Viper Ultimate. 

Both mice are similar sizes both sitting firmly in the medium/large category. The Ultimate and GPW have similar widths and lengths, not much to say here other than they serve medium to large hands. 

The buttons on the G Pro Wireless are better, the primary buttons feel more tactile, the side buttons are more easily distinguishable by feel and the modular system is a better approach to having buttons on both sides. 

The scroll wheels are a wash, both have fantastic ones. 

Razer Viper Ultimate vs OG Viper

The Razer Viper Ultimate has very few changes outside of the obvious difference of wireless ability vs wired. The Viper Ultimate only adds 5 grams of weight, from 69 grams to 74 grams in its transition to wireless. 

Otherwise the shape is exactly same, the materials and coating is the same, same rubber on the sides and same textured matte coating.

There are changes on the underside of the mouse, the Viper Ultimate has an updated feet design using 4 PTFE pads vs 2 large feet, the PTFE pads are more rounded doing away with the sharp edges found in the OG Viper, resulting in a less scratchy experience on the Ultimate.