When comparing Razer Deathadder 2013 vs Steelseries Rival, the Slant community recommends Steelseries Rival for most people. In the question“What is the best gaming mouse?” Steelseries Rival is ranked 9th while Razer Deathadder 2013 is ranked 10th. The most important reason people chose Steelseries Rival is:
The Steelseries Rival gaming mouse has a built in Pixart PAW3310 optical sensor that offers great tracking control.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Comfortable gaming mouse for palm and claw grips
While being mainly designed for palm grips using a claw grip will still work, though with a weird placing for the palm.
Pro Left- and right-click buttons have a concave that helps fingers stay in place
The users fingers rest easily inside of the concave left and right buttons. By being concaved the users fingers also stay in place.
Pro Affordable
At $50 it's not an expensive gaming mouse for what it offers.
Pro Slightly larger than a common mouse
With dimensions, 127 mm/5.00” x 70 mm/2.76” x 44 mm/1.73”, Deathadder is just a bit bigger than an everyday gaming mouse.
Pro Accurate 6400 CPI optical sensor
The mouse has a 6400 CPI optical sensor with X & Y variable axis. No angle snapping, no acceleration, no prediction.
Pro Two side buttons in an easily accessible yet unobtrusive position
The two left side buttons are position so that they stay unobtrusive yet easily accessible.
Pro Braided cord
Helps prevent kinking, curling and protects the cable prolonging life of the gaming mouse.
Pro True rubber grip helps to get a better hold of the mouse
The mouse has a true rubber grip as opposed to common rubberized or plain plastic grips.
Pro Reliable, notched scroll wheel
High quality scroll wheel.
Pro Reasonably lightweight at 105 grams
The Razer Deathadder 2013 sits at a reasonable weight of 105 grams, which is 8 grams lighter than the previous 3.5 version.
Pro Synapse is well-designed driver software
Synapse can be a useful tool by saving a users setting to the cloud automatically, setting do not need to be remembered upon re-installs or using a friends PC.
Pro Rubber grips are smooth
Pro Left hand edition available
Razer offers a right and left hand edition for the Deathadder model.
Pro Great tracking
The Steelseries Rival gaming mouse has a built in Pixart PAW3310 optical sensor that offers great tracking control.
Pro Works great on Linux, using the libratbagd software
Pro Satisfying clicks
Steelseries boast of new in house built switches used inside of the Rival. Use reports have claimed that the clicks as "satisfying".
Pro Great accompanying software suite
Steelseries uses a software suite called Engine 3 that is low resource and used to customize their gaming mouse options.
Pro Great value for money
At $59 the Rival gaming mouse has a great balance between build quality and value for money.
Pro Great grip and comfortable
Pro Customizable colors for scroll wheel and palm lights
The Steelseries Rival gaming mouse offers 16.8 million colors with two zone illumination.
Pro Absolutely the best for a gaming mouse claw grip
When You have relatively large hands.
Pro DPI can be doubled with software
The 5000 DPI of the Steelseries Rival can be doubled to 10000 with Steelseries firmware.
Cons
Con Requires signing in and connecting to a server before the mouse can be used to its full potential
To get the latest drivers or edit settings you have to download "synapse" an "online cloud device updater and profile storage" application. You have to register an account with your email and have it running in the background constantly for changes to take effect.
Con Poor build quality
Con Scroll Wheel may stop working
You can look it up on youtube, there's a video which explains how you can fix it but you'll need to physically open up the mouse and void the warranty.
Con Driver for side buttons in not open source
The mouse has two button for thumb control. The driver for the mouse and is not open source and not available for Linux users.
Con Distracting lights, wich can be turned of this can be done trough the Synapse software
Although the lights on the mouse look nice, they may bother or be distracting to some people. If they are too distracting, they can be turned off but that does require proprietary software that many do not like having installed.
Con Software issues
Using Razer Synapse causes slower boot up times as well as forced online sign in to use which is just a cheap attempt at an always online DRM.
Con Middle click dies way too fast
Several users of this mouse have complained that the middle click doesn't last long, in some cases not even 1 year.
Con Rubber coating
Like all of razer's mice, this one has a rubber coating. Which means that it's hard to clean, will drip oil after long period of disuse and generally less comfortable than hard plastic.
Con Rubber grips get worn out very quickly
Con Rubber grips get slippery with sweaty hands
When using the mouse for long duration's the sweat from the users hands can make the rubber side grips slippery.
Con Cannot turn of lighting without Steelseries proprietary software
The lighting on the device can not be adjusted without the Steelseries software.
Con Labled DPI is incorrect
Steelseries labels the DPI as 6500 for the Rival when in fact it is 5000.