Razer Abyssus/Razer Deathadder 3500DPI review
A new infrared 3500DPI sensor forms the core of an updated Razer Deathadder and an updated Razer Salmosa, the Razer Abyssus. Their predecessors were good mice, with some small issues.
The original Deathadder is Razer’s best mouse in my opinion. It has a great sensor which tracks very well on a lot of surfaces, is capable of tracking at high speeds, has DC and NDC firmwares and has no acceleration or other side effects when set up right.
The Salmosa has received little love from Razer. 1 driver update, no firmware updates and only the default DC firmware available.
Salmosa
So let’s talk a bit first about the thing the new mice have in common, the 3500DPI sensor. It’s not as good as the trusty old 1800DPI sensor used in the Salmosa and Deathadder-new. It has a lot of issues tracking on cloth mousepads, some more than others. Ironically, it’s pretty bad on the Razer Goliathus. If you like to play on cloth pads, don’t buy an Abyssus or a Deathadder-new.
Deathadder-new
With that out of the way, a bit about the Deathadder-new. It’s pretty much exactly the same as the old one. It has a nicer braided cable, replacing the very thin plastic wire from the old one, which was prone to breaking internally. That’s basically all there is to this new Deathadder. If you have an old one, keep it, if you want a new one, try to find an old one. The changes are not worth the upgrade and extra costs.
Deathadder new, or old?
Abyssus
Compared to the old Salmosa there isn’t much new either, but at least the 3500DPI sensor doesn’t have drift control. The hardware buttons to switch DPI and mouse refresh rate are still there, but the 500Hz option is gone. The scroll wheel is the worst I’ve seen on a Razer mouse. It feels cheap, makes a weird noise and is definitely not as good as the Deathadder or Imperator scroll wheel. Just as with other Razer mice there are a lot of reports of squeaking mouse wheels on the Abyssus.
Abyssus
For some reason I still like the Razer Abyssus. It’s really light and small, easy to throw around. Great for people looking for a finger grip mouse. The buttons are easy to press, I’d rankthem like this (easy -> hard to press): Boomslang CE2007, Abyssus, Deathadder, Imperator
Hello and thank you for the nice review. I just wanted to comment about the new sensors razer is using. The newer Philips sensors offer faster ips and higher dpi than the 3g sensor(Original DA). I don’t think that we should be so hasty to nag. Even though the sensor may not work with some mouse pads it is quite indeed more precise than the avago 9500 (g9x) and just as precise as the 3g sensor. The z-axis issue has never taken away from my gaming experience. I am VERY picky about my mice and If I can tolerate the z-axis that says a lot about how bad it really is not. The 3.5g sensor isn’t without fault but is worthy of being the new flagship for razer. You may argue that it can’t track on a certain surface so why not bring up that the 3.5g tracks on surfaces that the 3g cannot like pure teflon for example…
Well I’ve learned to tolerate the Imperator’s sensor. The tracking is very accurate and it seems impossible to make this mouse skip. I could live with the Z-axis and weird lift-off problems, but I really dislike the dynamic DPI scaling it seems to have. On low speeds it’s just weird compared to the other mice I have.
With the old DA sensor in it, it would have been just great, same for Abyssus.
It’s nice how the new 3500DPI sensor tracks on a surface like teflon, but fails to work on something as common as a cloth pad
On a good plastic pad it provides tracking that’s basically just as good as the old 1800DPI sensors.
camplo, new DA sensor isnt philips, it’s avago 3088
I think camplo was referring to the Imperator, Mamba and Naga when talking about the new phillips twin-eye.
The avago 3088 is in the diamondback non 3g and krait non 3g, just googled it. Its not in the new deathadder, are you crazy? The new deathadder is philips twin eye, just googled that…The old deathadder was philips also. Where are you getting your information.
To Arie about the dpi scaling. I also would like to see a firmware version available without the dpi scaling. In that sense we have lost precision and for the most part has cause a response scale that performs as if acceleration was on but really its just negative accel that only becomes active during low mouse speeds. Maybe we should email razer tech support? Atleast with the naga the dpi scaling was always the case straight out of the box with original firmware!
The old Deathadder has an Avago S3668, the new one doesn’t have a Philips sensor either. It looks like a typical Avago sensor, but I don’t know the type/number.
Are you sure you are sure you’re sure?
http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?hl=en&sl=ja&u=http://wikis.jp/interfacedevice/index.php%3FMouseSensor&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dhttp://sousuch.hp.infoseek.co.jp/DIY/%26hl%3Den%26rlz%3D1C1GGLS_enUS361US361&rurl=translate.google.com&twu=1&usg=ALkJrhijPB4L12A2Rein2H_KxhKCsmuuyg
according to this both 3g and 3.5g sensors are philips.
The laser sensors, yes, but the Deathadder, Deathadder new and Abyssus have infrared optical sensors.
Is it true that it doesn’t have problems tracking on the Goliathus Control?
No, vertical tracking can be quite jittery on the Goliathus with the 3500 dpi sensor.
That sucks…some said that on the Speed version of the Goliathus it would jitter and on the Control version it wouldn’t…looked like a promising mouse otherwise.
in your opinion is it worth it to exchange my new DA for an old one? I’m using the 3.5DA on a qck+, and there doesn’t seem to be any jittering at all. is the 3g sensor that much better than the 3.5g sensor?
If you don’t experience the jitter, there’s no reason to switch to the old one.
Cant be the Avagotech ADNS-3080 either, doesnt match the specs
http://www.avagotech.com/docs/AV02-0366EN
Well I have just bought Abyssus and I already had goliathus, the mouse works fine on the pad, but I wish it could be a little bigger, I am a claw-gripper though. But sometimes it seems I’m using some kinda cheap mouse as there arent any other buttons at all. Still I’m happy with the lightweight device that helps me frag a lot
I’ve saw a review on the Deathadder 3.5G that stated that it’s now on the same level of sensor quality as the 3G after firmware updates. True?
On cloth pads (e.g. Goliathus), the 1800 DPI has better tracking.
On a white plastic pad (e.g. Destructor), the 1800 DPI has better tracking.
On a black plastic pad (e.g. Destructor or Sphex), they’re about the same.
There haven’t been any firmware updates to fix the jitter on cloth pads.
Deathadder 3500 dpi has same engine as the other ones. Has jitter issues. Very obvious when maxed out dpi and panning horizontally in FPS games.
What about when the new da on 450dpi and 500hz?
Camplo your lost if you tought the da was a philip sensor, ROFL.
Same sensor, same problems. Should be ok on most plastic, black mousepads.
Don’t use it on cloth (jitter on almost every single one) and white/light plastic pads like the white Destructor.