While Razer’s peripherals are anything but subtle, its most recent mice have been stripped down in favor of no-frills, lightweight builds. These light mice make them a great option for serious gamers, especially those that play first-person shooters. But their new Razer Basilisk v3 Pro is emphatically not that. It’s got… pretty much everything, from Qi wireless charging to RGB lighting, to a hilariously over-the-top 30K DPI sensor. It’s also built to take advantage of Razer’s new Qi dock, which syncs with its Chroma software and displays your mouse on a high-tech pedestal. But all this gadgetry comes at a steep price: it’ll run you a whopping $159, or $199 to pair it with the pedestal.
And as ridiculous as that sounds, for those that want it all, it’s worth it.
Razer Basilisk V3 Pro – Design and Features
The Razer Basilisk V3 Pro looks and feels a lot like its previous iterations. It’s got that same angular shape so common in gaming mice, with a textured finish, a ribbed scroll wheel, a big three-headed snake logo, a support for your thumb, and a mid-width design that’s comfortable to hold for pretty much every grip style. The thumb rest is a pretty wide pad, so even though the mouse feels a tad on the skinny side, my thumb never dragged.
From a design perspective, this is simply not a mouse for minimalists. It’s packed with Chroma, Razer’s lighting platform that enables peripherals (like this very mouse) to match up with the lighting of whatever game you’re playing. The Basilisk V3 Pro has a light on the scroll wheel, a light on the palm rest logo, and a light that wraps around the bottom of the mouse which provides a soft glow on whatever surface it rests on. Even an RGB skeptic like me has to admit this looks pretty cool, like the StreetGlow on one of those decked-out Fast & Furious Civics.
Razer’s marketing makes a big deal of its new scroll wheel, which can automatically cycle between a tactile scrolling mode and a free scroll that uses virtual acceleration to scroll through long documents, websites, or whatever. It felt a little gimmicky to me and never really worked in a meaningful way.
The scroll wheel can be clicked to the left or to the right and like with many other mouse configuration softwares, you can change what you want it to do in Razer’s Synapse software. I changed the scroll wheel side clicking to raise and lower the volume, which was actually incredibly useful.
The mouse can be connected with Bluetooth or Razer’s 2.4 dongle, which can connect multiple Razer devices or be stashed in a hideaway compartment under the mouse so you don’t lose it before the day comes when you might need it.
This mouse has Razer’s Focus+ sensor, which lets you change the sensitivity all the way up to a mind-boggling 30,000 dots-per-inch (DPI). While it’s amazing that it’s even possible to reach these levels of sensitivity programming, it wasn’t particularly useful in anything I tried, and it was difficult to tell the difference between 15,000 and 30,000.
On the other hand, the Basilisk’s polling rate – which can be cycled between 125, 500, 1000, 2000, and 4000 Hz updates – felt both wonderfully smooth and noticeable.
But its main differentiator is the Qi charging puck that can be slid into the bottom of the mouse. Technically, just about any charger will do, but Razer is selling its own branded charger for $80 that does more than just charge your device. It is both functionally and aesthetically pleasing, offering both a 4K Hz wireless transceiver and a USB Type-C port at the front, which can be used to play and charge simultaneously.
Razer Basilisk V3 Pro – Gaming
First thing’s first: the ergonomics of this mouse are quite good. It’s not much different than any other Basilisk, with a comfortable, bulbous palm rest, a mid-width chassis
Personally, the weight of a mouse I’m playing first-person shooters with isn’t a big concern, but the Basilisk V3 Pro is fairly heavy. It weighs in at 112 grams, and that’s before adding the Qi puck, which adds a few more grams. That will likely make it a non-starter for pros who demand the lightest possible mouse, but for me it wasn’t prohibitive in the slightest, and I liked the feel of the five PFTE feet at the bottom, which gave it a smooth slide on my wood desk.
The button layout is a familiar 10+1 that should be familiar to many gamers. There’s the scroll wheel, two buttons below it, two elongated buttons on the left side of the chassis, and a multi-function trigger button that sits forward and low on the left-hand side.
By default, the multi-function button works as a sensitivity clutch, which when pressed can drastically lower your sensitivity. This was simple to integrate into my gaming and had a measurable impact on my sniping. But if FPSs aren’t your bag, this button (and all of the rest) can be switched to almost anything. And that includes what Razer calls Hypershift” an option that basically turns the button into a function key that, when held down, can change any of the other buttons clicked.
For instance, you can click and hold the Hypershift button and then right-click to control-click or pause your music, or something entirely different. Admittedly, I couldn’t quite wrap my head around all the potential uses for the games that I played, but it strikes me that the button is a bit too out of reach to be quintessential in twitch and fast-paced games.
I found the scroll wheel to be a bit gimmicky for gaming purposes. I kept it on the tactile cycling mode (which is the normal mode), as compared to Free Spin, which continues scrolling until you catch it with your finger. There’s also a virtual acceleration mode, which increases the on-screen scroll speed the faster you spin the wheel, but I didn’t find this to catch at the spots I expected it to. There’s also a mode called Smart-Reel which automatically activates free-spin scrolling when you quickly flick the scroll wheel, then returns to tactile scrolling when there’s no scrolling movement. In general, I didn’t really like this, as you can hear it clutching and actually feel a vibration in the controller when it makes the switch. But more generally, I just didn’t like the way it felt and don’t like relinquishing control over my scrolls.
The battery is rated for 90 hours, but your DPI and Chroma selections will have a noticeable impact on this. Many times when I’m testing a mouse, it never dies, but the Basilisk Pro did – twice. That’s due to my own habits, because I left it off the pedestal (or didn’t have a USB cable supplying power when the PC was off). That made having a pedestal around feel necessary rather than like a convenience.
Razer Basilisk V3 Pro – Software
The Razer Basilisk V3 Pro syncs to Razer’s proprietary Synapse software, which offers a range of utilities from adjusting the controller’s polling rate to its button configuration and color scheme. For most of these use cases, I find Synapse to be more than adequate.
For instance, changing scroll acceleration or button configurations is as easy as clicking Mouse > Customize and then cycling through the options. You can also save, import, or duplicate profiles – which is great for those that would prefer their mouse to work one way in Valorant and another when using it for Microsoft Word. And, as has been the case for a while, you don’t have to have Synapse running at all times. So long as your profile setting is synced to your mouse, your device will remember what you selected.
Customizing the lighting is where Synapse is beginning to feel a little long in the tooth. I’ve used it many times before, but it never seems quite as intuitive as I’d like. Changing the color is easy enough in theory, but the mouse often got desynchronized from the base, which meant they were cycling with different colors – which was awfully distracting. Resetting the profile provided temporary reprieve, but using the Chroma Visualizer app almost always turned off the lights entirely. Eventually, I gave up on the app and simply switched to one of the quick effects—like Audio Meter, which pulses in color cycles to the sounds of your music or games.
Purchasing Guide
The Razer Basilisk V3 Pro is available at Amazon, Best Buy, and Razer for $159.99.
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