Razer Basilisk Ultimate gaming mouse comes 'painfully close to perfection'

Have you ever met someone who is your polar opposite? Everything about them in direct contrast to you. They are sedentary, while you are active. They prefer tea, while you prefer coffee. They thought the dress was black and blue, while you know it’s definitely white and gold. And yet despite how infuriatingly different to you they are, there’s just… something about them, that lingers after they’re gone, and makes you question yourself. That’s basically how I feel about this, um, gaming mouse from Razer.

I’ll just come right out and say it – I am not a fan of the design of the Razer Basilisk Ultimate. Taking design cues from Logitech’s large and heavy right-handed ergonomic mouse, the extremely popular G502, is not necessarily a bad idea. But the net result is a large and heavy right-handed ergonomic mouse, and I really don’t like that. Especially because looking at it intimidates me to the point that I feel I need to get a gym membership just to be able to use it.

It also has Chroma RGB coming out of every hole, with a grand total of 14 lighting zones across the left and right buttons, the scroll wheel, and the palm area, which surely can’t be good for the battery life? It even has an excess of buttons, with no less than 11 programmable buttons including an optional paddle button that sits in front of the thumb rest, four-way scrolling, and the ability to adjust the tension of the scroll wheel.

Everything about this mouse screams over-designed gamer nonsense.

So why then do I absolutely love it???

Despite its size and weight, it actually fits my hand and grip style very comfortably. I’ve been happily claw-gripping my featherweight Viper Ultimate for the past few weeks, so I automatically thought this mouse would be too large and too heavy for my hand.

Turns out it’s insanely comfortable, and is coated in the smoothest textured plastic I’ve ever felt, to the point that it feels more like my hands are caressing, rather than gripping, this mouse. Is this getting awkward? Good, now you understand how I feel.

The Basilisk Ultimate has lots of cool stuff in common with the Viper Ultimate. The same excellent Focus+ sensor capable of up to 20,000 DPI, the same Hyperspeed wireless technology that claims to be the fastest on the market, the same charging dock for mounting the mouse when it needs some juice, and the same ultra-long battery life.

There’s one other thing that’s exactly the same, and that’s this mouse’s ability to click heads. I played a bunch of FPS games, a MOBA, and even some strategy games to really stretch this mouse out. It handled everything I threw at it with flying RGB colours [groan – ed]. Especially in FPS games where a lighter mouse is typically preferable, I don’t think I’ve ever been so accurate in my life.

Of course, given the weight of the mouse, my hand did tire out after a while. And really that’s the only thing that’s kept it back from being just the perfect mouse. Because it really comes so painfully close to perfection, I would say regardless of hand size or grip style. Some might argue that copying the G502 is unoriginal, but in this case it’s less about imitation and more about improving on an already popular formula. Because that’s what the Basilisk Ultimate wholeheartedly does. It takes what the G502 was, and it elevates it to new levels.

Razer keep impressing in the peripherals department, and the Basilisk Ultimate is no exception. It’s going to cost a lot, and you will feel the weight of this absolute chonker of a mouse, but if you give it a chance, your hands, and your K/D ratio, will thank you for it.