- Mm. Can you smell that brother?
Yeah, that's right.
We've got the Razer Boomslang wire gaming mouse.
Top of the line, cream of the crop.
Oh yeah.
Or at least it was the top of the line back in 1999.
But gaming mice have changed a lot over the last couple
of decades.
So, I think the question on everyone's mind is,
can this candy ass
RGB lightweight take on the Intercontinental champion
of gaming mice?
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- Representing modern gaming mice.
We've got my daily driver, the G pro wireless.
It features 25,000 DPI sensitivity, one millisecond pulling
and it weighs in it just 80 grams.
Let's see how I do in aim labs.
Wait, there are people who do 200 of these in a minute.
- [Nick] Oh yeah.
- This sensitivity is definitely not right for me.
It's a little bit high and I'm just
I'm, I'm ending up just past everything
and I'm trying to compensate and then I'm ending up
not going far enough.
Oh my gosh!
Okay. Well,
score of 82.
Accuracy 63%.
Not bad, not bad.
Woo!
Is the Logitech gaming software installed on here?
- [Nick] No.
Oh, I might be 500 and that doesn't feel quite right.
I don't know.
Maybe I'm just making all this up and I just suck.
If I don't break a hundred, I will be tres embarrassed
96.
- [Nick] Aw, not nice.
- 71% accuracy though.
All right, fine.
That's that's as good a gamer as I'm ever gonna be.
I'm number 52,000 in the world.
- [Nick] Hell yeah.
- Now the question is how does something from 1999 stack up?
Our Razer Boomslang is still packed away
in its original tin,
and we got our hands on the collector's edition.
So this is one of just 5,000 units.
And this is pretty special for me
because back when this was the king, I don't
think my whole gaming rig was worth a hundred dollars
and gamer specific hardware was a relatively new concept.
And so was Razer's edgy green marketing.
Diabolical synergy (murmurs)
scroll wheel 45 DPR more than twice as precise
as a standard mouse. Ambidextrous ergo design levels
the playing field for right and left handed gamers.
Patented dust barrier, seven foot cord.
Wow. That's a long chord.
Bag lunch, unprecedented strikes be venomous accuracy
a revolutionary step in the evolution of game controllers.
That's right.
Evolution, revolution.
It's both.
And you know what?
Compared to its competitors,
the Boomslang had a lot more going
for it than just marketing.
It's rated a whopping 2000 DPI
which was massive back then especially for
a ball mouse.
- [Nick] Oh noooo
- Right?
Oh, I love this gray cable.
Can I just say gray?
We want you back.
That is so classy.
Even now it feels like alien technology.
We got number 1,671, and this is interesting powered
by karna precision patent pending karna actually
ceased operations due to financial issues in 2000.
But in 2005, Razer was revived by former karna employees
Robert Krakoff and Min-liang Tan.
That's a familiar name.
Little fun fact for you. Want another one?
The backpack and screwdriver are finally almost
ready at lttstore.com get signed up
and be notified when they go live.
So for those
of you who don't know the way that this sensor
works is this little ball down here actually rolls around
as you move the mouse, transferring that movement
to inside rollers here at the back
of the mouse and here on its left.
As these
well
also roll
they break a thin light beam.
So the more the beam breaks, the more the mouse
has been moved.
Some of you might actually remember needing to
clean your balls about once a month growing up.
(beep)
But I bet you forgot that you also had to clean
out your rollers because if either of them got caked up
with dust or in my household with so many ladies
living there, hair you'd get terrible tracking resulting
in a very frustrating gaming experience.
My mom had hair down to probably the small of her back
when I was growing up.
So there would be hairs wrapped around these rollers
that were like...
- [Nick] Ewww!
- I pulled them out almost like this. Anyway.
Sorry. That story aside.
What else have we got in here?
Nestled in the mouse foam is a USB to PS
2 adapter, probably pretty handy 23 years ago.
And then below the foam.
Whew, we've got a first edition certificate of ownership.
We got our quick setup guide. Install driver, shut
down, plugin and reboot.
That's right friends.
It was the year 2000 after all.
We've got uh,
the latest and greatest on technique
and technicalia.
This is not your mother's mouse.
We know you're chomping at the bit to put this baby
through the paces.
You loaded the drivers, tweaked your system settings,
plugged in your new Razer.
Oh my goodness.
This is amazing.
To get the ultimate experience and movement
and control, we highly recommend
the 3M precision mousing surface
3M used to make first party mouse pads?
I did not know that.
We've also got the master guide.
"Genre defining weapons that make for penetrating
explosive gameplay",
- [David] Excuse me?
- Penetrating explosive gameplay. You heard me.
- [Nick] Prepare to get penetrated David.
- [David] Explosively.
- Finally, our handy dandy installation CD.
This was pretty crucial back then when
downloading software could take ages and cost you money.
Not so much anymore though. Get subscribed
or you might miss our 100% legal way to emulate games
video. Back to our mouse.
The construction here is a mix
of a black rubberized material that actually
for all its years still feels really good and really grippy.
And this semi-transparent green plastic that hasn't
aged quite as well in terms of its aesthetics.
You can see some of the internals though.
And probably the coolest thing about them is that it looks
like you could probably repair this mouse by hand.
Like the solder points are so big.
It's got what appeared to be PTFE feet and
on a modern mouse pad, like our Northern lights,
LTT store,
It slides around just fine.
Can you hear the, can you hear the wheel?
- [David] Yeah, that doesn't sound good.
- That does not sound that great.
Our right click is a little mushy, but still functional.
And our left click sounds like it should.
One of the most interesting thing
about the primary buttons is how long they are.
This was actually an ergonomic feature
because it allowed you to rest your hand
and click away no matter what your grip type was.
Oh wow.
Those are that's where the side buttons are.
Huh.
Wow. That's a stiff scroll wheel.
- [Nick] Yeah.
- It feels like it's kind of designed for ring finger
right click and pinky and thumb.
Well, its ambidextrous right? So...
Interesting.
I would say that when it comes to ergonomics
your mileage may, no, will vary on this one.
That's a very, it's a very claw grip.
You kind of can't spoon it cuz it just
it doesn't support you on the sides.
And I guess the reason
for the widths is it's not really designed
for middle and index finger that would put your wrist
at like this unnatural angle.
Okay. I'm gonna try and use it as intended.
- [Nick] Okay.
- We ready?
- [Nick] Yeah.
- Did the computer just restart?
- [Nick] Yeah.
- Did it just freaking crash my computer?
Wow.
- [David] Too much boom.
- I mean, in fairness
the instructions did say install driver, shut down.
Plug in. reboot.
RTFM fair enough.
Touche, Razer.
I can feel the aches in here and here already.
I haven't even done my small flex aim test yet.
Whoa, whoa.
Wow. That wasn't good.
Oh my gosh.
Okay. I swear to you.
I'm not hamming this up.
This is really hard.
I feel my whole
I feel my whole forearm like tensing up here.
Okay. Now I'm feeling, I'm feeling it.
I'm feeling it.
Watch me not actually be any worse.
Oh no, this is worse.
- [Nick] You're definitely getting worse.
- I can't look at the score right now cuz I'm aiming.
Okay. Come on.
Oh, that's a lot worse.
It didn't feel that much worse.
Like my intensity was high.
Oh wow.
I did get more accurate over time.
Okay. One more time.
One more time.
That was warm up.
I'm going for it.
I'm beating the G pro wireless.
There we go, there we go.
Getting my rhythm, getting my rhythm here.
Yeah. Yeah.
Rhythm, rhythm.
Feel the rhythm.
Feel the rhyme.
Get on up.
It's bobsled time.
Cool runnings... 61! 60% accuracy.
Yeah. It's still not, not as good as the g pro wireless.
The truth is that dragging around a heavy mass
and it has to be heavy because otherwise it won't stay
down on the mouse pad just cannot provide the
same experience as a proper modern optical sensor.
I mean, yeah.
I no pro at the best of times
but the ball causes a lot of issues.
First of all, trying to make small adjustments
well you're running up against the friction
between the ball and the little plastic retainer for it.
And second of all, when you try to do bigger flicks
or sweeps, it's hard to control the ball fully.
So a quick flick shot could overshoot significantly
because that ball has momentum.
It'll keep rolling for up to half a second.
As for the smaller issues, the mouse is overall pretty heavy
at 137 grams the shape while being advertised
as ergonomic and ambidextrous kind of resembles a
a ducks foot and me was incredibly uncomfortable.
Like my arm is really uncomfortable
after using it for just a few moments.
But apparently after a week, you end up
with Stockholm syndrome.
Ploof who wrote this video claims
that he kind of likes it now.
- [Nick] Razer was onto something
- What's cool is that all five of the buttons,
the two on the sides that and the three on the top
including clicking the scroll wheel are programmable.
That's right.
I mean, no gaming mouse would truly be a gaming mouse
without software and programmable buttons.
And guys, I gotta say while the utility looks
like it came straight outta 1999
it does have some pretty interesting features.
You can change input on the X and Y axis independently.
You could alter your double click speed,
your scroll wheel speed.
You've got these cute little test areas
(vocalizes explosion noises)
- [Nick] The links to work, they still take you to Razer.
Oh my God.
It totally did.
It takes me to their Chinese site now, which is interesting.
And shockingly, this program is still on Razer's website
with the last release coming in April, 2011.
We did manage to install it on Windows 10
in spite of the warning about it requiring Windows XP.
But our sensitivity adjustments did not appear to
actually do anything.
So, I can't really say that it works.
With that said, if you're looking for the shape
and feel of the Boomslang
you can still use it on a modern gaming rig.
I just wouldn't recommend it because whether you like it
or not, this is what peak performance looks like now.
And we're gonna have a handful
of excellent modern gaming mice at various price points
in the video description that are not this.
If what you really care about is the nostalgia though,
There was actually a sort of reissue or update back
in 2007 with the Boomslang collector's edition.
It had an 1800 DPI 3G, infrared sensor
and 1000 Hertz pulling rate.
Unfortunately it was limited to just 10,000 units.
So we might have a hard time getting your hands on one.
We did find two on eBay
but they ranged from 169 US dollars,
nice,
to 500 US dollars
which is not nice by any measure.
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- If you guys liked this video, make sure to check
out our review of the G502 Hero
from Logitech in one of our recent additions
of why the flipping hell is everyone buying this.