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Razer Orochi review: Razer Orochi

It's a tough ask, but Razer's Orochi mostly succeeds at infusing gaming quality into a portable mouse. If you're an on-the-road gamer, we'd recommend making the space for a full-sized mouse. If you need the space, though, and want good wireless performance, give this one a look-in.

Craig Simms Special to CNET News
Craig was sucked into the endless vortex of tech at an early age, only to be spat back out babbling things like "phase-locked-loop crystal oscillators!". Mostly this receives a pat on the head from the listener, followed closely by a question about what laptop they should buy.
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Craig Simms
2 min read

The Orochi is smaller than your usual mouse, as it's built for laptop use. This is emphasised by the short cable — it's meant to be used in short proximity to the machine. Thankfully for those who find this an issue, the cable can be removed and the mouse used wirelessly via Bluetooth.

7.5

Razer Orochi

The Good

Portable size. Good wired performance. Bluetooth performance good for application use. Ambidextrous. Highly customisable.

The Bad

Bluetooth adds perceptible lag during gameplay. Driver control panel not usable in Bluetooth mode. Small size could mean discomfort during long play sessions. Macro support limited to 16 entries.

The Bottom Line

It's a tough ask, but Razer's Orochi mostly succeeds at infusing gaming quality into a portable mouse. If you're an on-the-road gamer, we'd recommend making the space for a full-sized mouse. If you need the space, though, and want good wireless performance, give this one a look-in.

Razer doesn't include a Bluetooth adapter, so you'll either need a laptop that supports it, or you'll need to buy your own.

It's ambidextrous, with back and forward buttons on the left- and right-hand sides, in addition to the usual scroll wheel and left/right mouse buttons. Its small size means that you'll most likely use it with your thumb and pinky gripping the sides of mouse, which is comfortable in the short term, but may become fatiguing if used for extended periods of time.

The software is the usual Razer fare, which is actually a step up from most mobile mice — custom button assignment, independent DPI settings, USB polling rates, acceleration settings and the ability to turn on or off the scroll wheel and battery LEDs. Of note are the differences between Bluetooth and cabled: while cabled, the Orochi will go up to 4000dpi; under Bluetooth, it'll only do 2000. The control panel won't work either, unless your mouse cable is connected.

You can tell Razer software a mile away.
(Screenshot by Craig Simms/CBS Interactive)

There are macros here, as well, but Razer has limited the user to 16 entries, the equivalent of eight key presses — making it next to worthless.

Play testing in Serious Sam: HD, the Bluetooth connection introduced a perceptible lag to the gameplay, something that was fixed by plugging the mouse in via cable. At this point, it became a quite decent gaming mouse, although, once again, the small size may cause early fatigue.

It's a tough ask, but Razer's Orochi mostly succeeds at infusing gaming quality into a portable mouse. If you're an on-the-road gamer, we'd recommend making the space for a full-sized mouse. If you need the space, though, and want good wireless performance, give this one a look-in.