Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit
The last one I remember is plugging a Razer mouse

Oh, yeah. Bought this overpriced but heavily hyped Razer mouse and it wouldn't even work right until it had an internet connection. A MOUSE. I'd never encountered something so blatantly customer hostile in my life. Never even looked at another Razer product, never will, and will tell anyone who will listen that Razer is a terrible company full of objectively terrible people.

I had a razer mouse and headphones, which from time to time crashed their driver server or whatever and nothing could help until the cold restart of the PC and a laptop. Razer. Never again.
Razer was always low quality garbage at premium prices. Gamer marketing for you.
Gamer marketing for you.

Which I fell for. Fool me once and all that...

What do you recommend instead? In my opinion the Razer mice are always superior for FPS.
I got an ASUS Rog Gladius III Wireless with my Asus ROG laptop. Thought it was a 'free' crap but damned. It is so good and lightweight. Has 3 modes: wifi, BT, cord. Now at my house we all have Asus Gladius mouses! There are also cheaper versions with just a cable connection. And they work without installing Asus Crap Software Center.
I used to pulverize my friends with a Logitech G700 in Quake3/OpenArena. I'm sure it has a newer version.

Razer was never "definitively better". It's merely competitive with other top ones, that's all. Before G700, Logitech even had a mouse with two sensors and was the undisputed king for FPS quite some time.

Mousereview reddit always recommends looking at Chinese gaming mice, they have reasonable prices, often clone popular mouse shapes from large brands (see [1]) and have the latest sensors.

[1] EloShapes find similar: https://www.eloshapes.com/mouse/find-similar

Logitech all the way.

Logitech is a truly innovative company. They actually care deeply about ergonomics. They also introduced the first mass market application of programmable magnets (in the MX Master mouse scroll wheel) - that's incredibly advanced materials science.

I’m no longer sure about their quality though. Out of four Logitech mice I bought recently (four different models), two died within a year. At least their warranty repair/replace process was decent.
I had several Marathon mice which broke their 3-year battery life promises, by lasting way longer. I had to retire them since their plastics degraded in some cases after 6-7 years (I had several at one point due to having multiple PCs being used every day for long stretches).

Currently I use their MX Keys Minis, MX Anywhere mice and trackballs. All are rock solid. Bolt receiver works great with Linux via Solaar allowing full suite of features.

Oh, Firmware Update Daemon supports Logitech hardware, too. If Logitech sends in new firmware, it pops up instantly to upgrade.

In my family we use the Glorious Model O. My son wanted one ages ago (I got him a mini), and it was so nice, I got one for myself. Now my oldest has a big one, and my youngest uses the mini.

We've had them for years. The mini has lost the button that lets you select speed, but other than that they're still great. For better than the various Logitechs I had before.

The only real downside is the bright flashing led patterns. I've gotten used to them.

Their buttons fail way too easily, but can usually be fixed with some WD-40, CRC 5-56, or any similar thin oil.
The switches on my $80 MX Anywhere 3 failed in under 2 years.
What do you do to your mouses to make them fail so quickly? Are you throwing them randomly accross the room?
loading story #48962707
loading story #48962631
loading story #48964409
They also managed to develop a steaming pile of shit called Logi Options+ which you need to set up your mouse (I only used the mac version to be fair)
I can happily share that there is an open-source alternative, https://github.com/TomBadash/Mouser
You don't need it. The mouse functions perfectly fine without it. And you can even switch DPI when the mouse has a button to do that.

The software allows for fine-tuned settings, button remapping, etc. It is awful software, to be sure, but it's not necessary to use the mouse.

I'd say any cheap mouse off Amazon that has a pleasing shape is usually good enough, but I've also never ranked above gold in any competitive PvP shooter, so there's that :')

I'm currently using a wireless ProtoArc mouse. Good shape, can adjust DPI on the fly, hasn't broken even after a year. I think it was like 30 bucks maybe?

80% of a mouse decision should be which form fits best for your hand. Unfortunately for me that's razor mice. (Well, the Viper v2, I dont love the v3 I have now.)
Some Razer mice were somewhat good in the times when the sensor mattered, with the rest of them being absolute garbage (starting with the Copperhead which barely worked). Today there's a ton of niche manufacturers with great internals that will exceed any requirements you might possibly have.

If you're really interested in FPS performance and not just the brand, choose for the ergonomics first, it's not possible to recommend anything without knowing your play style, hand size etc. The shape and weight you like, and complementary feet and mat with the exact static/dynamic friction you need. Then check if the internals are good enough (they likely are) and whether there are any firmware issues like extra jitter on flicks or unavoidable debounce lag, then look at the required software. There's a ton of mice with excellent performance that are configurable without ANY software.

> choose for the ergonomics first

This is unfortunately why I keep buying the Razer Deathadder Pro. It fits my hand perfectly and is super accurate. I hate their software, and the company, but the performance and ergonomics of the mouse are worth it to me.

DA has probably the most widely cloned shape in the market and has many identical or compatible alternatives and clones, check e.g. MCHOSE A7 Ultra RE or Pulsar Xlite v4 Large (never had either so can't vouch for their software)

https://www.eloshapes.com/mouse/compare?p=razer-deathadder-v...

https://www.rtings.com/mouse/tools/3d-model-shape-compare/3d...

If you can find an original Glorious [0] Model O, that's a nice piece of hardware. The new Model O looks like it only works with their new, totally garbage Glorious CORE v2 software.

If you never want to change the DPIs, lighting, or button assignments, & etc then you don't need the software... so if what the hardware does out of the box is fine for you, then you don't need to worry about how trash CORE v2 is.

CORE v1 is okay, but still notably worse than the Model O software. I don't know why they farmed out the development of CORE v2 to "the CEO's middle-school nephew who's 'good with computers'", but they did.

[0] ...they were originally called "Glorious PC Gaming Race" (in homage to the Reddit meme), but dropped that last bit from their company name a while back...

Model I with four thumb buttons is irreplaceable for me
loading story #48961266
Logitech have always made great gaming mice in my experience, at a reasonable price
Most logitech mice have rubberized outsides which turn to goo after about a year.
Depends on which one and when it was sold. Some razers have pretty outdated sensors, plenty of better, lighter and cheaper options available.
I know hardly anything about FPS but the reason I like Razer mice is the hardware macros. Configuration profiles are saved to the device and macros are performed at the hardware level. Some actions work with the razer software but most of them don't have to.
You literally need two or three mouse buttons for a FPS game. This argument might have worked if you said MMO because there’s a million abilities you can use but there’s absolutely nothing special about Razer mice when it comes to FPS specifically.