Mouse: Razer Lachesis
As part of a broad line of Razer gaming mice, the Lachesis stands out for its higher-end specs and high degree of customizability. The model has a smooth, curved design that rises to meet your palm and dips where your fingers rest, almost cradling them right over the pressure sensors for the left and right buttons. The top of the mouse is a single molded sheet of textured plastic, giving it an elegant look.
The Lachesis delivers reasonable performance along with its good looks. The laser sensor boasts up to 4,000 DPI sensitivity, and you can toggle the sensitivity on the fly using the buttons just under the mouse wheel. The Lachesis also sports programmable buttons on both the left and right sides of the mouse, so they work as thumb buttons for left- and right-handed users, as well as macro buttons for your favorite games. Razer designates the left and right mouse buttons, two DPI selector buttons, and the scroll wheel as "programmable buttons." However, just because you can do something doesn’t mean customers will rush to program buttons that already have a commonly-used function.
Razer adds on-board memory so that you can create up to five profiles specifying DPI and button commands. This way, if you want to give one of the DPI selector buttons a specific job in your favorite game, you can do so, hop into game, activate your profile, and change the buttons to their default configurations when you leave the game. For example, I programmed the lower button to cast a specific spell in World of Warcraft, and then programmed it again as an instant jump to my melee weapon in Team Fortress 2.
The Lachesis is one of the most elegant mice I've ever seen, and would be one of my favorites if it weren't for one nagging problem: the laser sensor on the bottom of the mouse is housed in a very shallow opening at the center of an area that's not smooth and is busy with lines and stickers. In other words, it's a dust magnet. I found myself frequently flipping the Lachesis over to blow dust away from the sensor.
Aside from that, the Lachesis is competitive with the Logitech G5 and G9 in almost every way. The fact that it's also programmable gives gamers the freedom to configure the buttons as they choose. Unfortunately, it's easy to lose track of which profile you're in, so you might find yourself using the wrong DPI setting for the wrong game. Even so, like many other high-DPI gaming mice, I found myself picking a "sweet spot" and sticking to that DPI for most activities.
