Blah blah blah, theres no need for any Mamba introduction as everyone probably knows the specs already.
if not, just visit www.googleityoumoron.com.

Now as impressive as the case is for the Mamba, upon finally unleashing it, one would be sorely dissapointed at the paper drawers that hold the cable, battery and docking station.

The packaging, like all current Razer products, do not include any CD driver.
They have to be downloaded via razersupport, in this case the driver for the Mamba comes in at a whopping 39mb.

The USB jack surpisingly comes with a little removable protective cover over it, its a nice little touch which could've instead been better placed towards upgrading the paper drawers to something more durable.

The dock. hmmm. The dock looks like a mayan sacrificial altar.
A cut here, a drop of blood there. Instant Godlike.
Yea right.

On to the actual testing of the Mamba.
But obviously it needs charging first, and this mouse apparently doesnt want to stop charging even if its in Off mode.
Anyway, Razer says full charge is reached after 3 hours.
So if your IQ happens to have at least 3 digits, you know what to do.

On the bloated v1.04 driver which takes forever to detect settings everytime its activated, I've set two different profiles.
One at 1800 dpi to mimic my BSCE, and another at the full native 5600 dpi.
Currently, this review unit is on firmware v1.03.
I don't see a point in upgrading yet to the latest v1.07, as that only has a faster wake-up time from a long idle and somewhat fixes the jitter issue (more on this later).



Size wise, The Mamba is relatively average. Relative, that is, compared to my Boomslang CE which just dwarfs it.
Grip wise, the Mamba itself being slightly smaller is still able to somewhat accomodate fingertip style users as well as palm style users.
Comfort wise, well it is loosely based on the Death Adder shape but with a slightly lower hump, so adapting to it is pretty easy and which to me feels more comfortable than the Death Adder.
As for my personal choice of overall comfortable mouse shape, it would have to unfortunately go to the Ikari Optical due solely to it having a rest area for the ring finger (Razer take note).

Now one thing Razer seems to have gotten right with this mouse is the scroll wheel.
Finally it has a nice solid feel to it unlike previous models where it always felt a little loose.

But what Razer has not learnt from previous experience, is to make the teflon feets thicker.
On a cloth pad like the Goliathus, a slight drag is felt at the bottom half of the mouse due to the battery cover not being perfectly flush with the body (perhaps its just the review unit, perhaps not).
There is also a teflon ring around the sensor, as with newer Mambas, which is suppose to help with the Jitter issues.
Razer recommends using a hard pad like the Exactmat to alleviate the jitter issues, this would also somewhat reduce the amount of drag felt.
With the Sphex, the drag issue is hardly noticeable, but there is still jitter.
Guess you can't win them all.

Meanwhile, the lack of a dedicated profile button is somewhat dissapointing. Yes, it can be done by assigning the profile to a key, but that would mean one less key that would be put to better use elsewhere.

The on-the-fly sensitivity adjustment has also changed.
Previous mouses had increments of 0.5 from 0 to 10.
Now it starts at 100, with similar 100 step increments, moving all the way up to 5600 which basically implies very accurate dpi selection.
IMO, its just far too many increment selections. Heres hoping a future driver will revert it to what it once was and should be.

As for the jitter issues, they are still present but only at very high dpi.
Does not seem to be any at 1800 dpi, though that would be short changing the full potential of the mouse.
But as accuracy doesn't seem to be affected that much at 1800 dpi, it would make more sense to play at a lower dpi just to avoid the jitter issues.
Or should you wish to have high dpi but without the jitter, then just upgrade to firmware v1.07, though at the slight expense of accuracy.
Anyway, highly doubtful there are many people out there who can aim accurately at 5600 dpi.

Now for those who are thinking, "it should be easy to switch instantly between wireless and wired mode", well think again as the transmitter / charger dock shares the same cable as the mouse.
Meaning to go from wireless to wired, you would have to remove the cable from the transmitter and then insert it to the mouse, losing precious seconds if in the middle of a game.

Basically, the Mamba with the battery feels and weighs pretty similar to the Death Adder.
But once you remove the battery, it becomes a completely different beast.
Of course this only works in wired mode, but wow, hardly any drag due to the lack of a battery.
It also becomes pretty similar in weight to the Krait, therefore you get a pretty manueverable mouse with the somewhat comfortable Mamba shape.

Anyway, enough writing for now.
So would I buy this? For bragging rights, perhaps. For graphic design or related work, probably. For FPS gaming, let's just say I'll stick with the Death Adder, Copperhead or my darling Boomslang CE.
For the rest who are going to buy this, go request for thicker feet and play at a lower dpi (or until Razer releases another new firmware)


EDIT.
after prolonged usage, i'm starting to notice some very minor irritating jitter which only occurs during mouse movement.
happens on both goliathus and sphex.
maybe i should ask and see if i can upgrade the firmware to v1.07.