I recently picked up the Razer Orochi V2 mouse as my daily driver for all things coding, design and even some slight gaming. What drew me to it was the small form factor, the relatively long battery life and the programmable keys that blended into the sides seamlessly.
But more specifically, I love the way that the Orochi V2 looks. I'm a mobile person, and as such I like my gadgets to be as portable as possible. And the Orochi delivers great performance in a tidy compact form-factor coming in at a mid-tier price range.
You can currently find the Orochi on Amazon for around $59, though it does go on sale relatively often.
But let's see what else is good about it.
What's to like
Let's get into it, because there is alot that the Orochi V2 gets right straight out of the box. For one, the design is fantastic. It's as compact as you can get when it comes to gaming mice and it is very lightweight coming in at less than 60g.
The Orochi V2 supports both AAA and AA battery sizes and brings in around 950 hours of usage depending on the method of connectivity. Using the 2.4Ghz dongle instead of Bluetooth will bring the overall battery life down by a fair amount.
And it's performance is impressive with an 18K DPI optical sensor, in which you can specify any level of sensitivity in between.
Battery life
The Orochi V2 is marketed as having a 950 hour battery life using a single AA or AAA battery, because you can add either type of battery and you will get that same great performance.
The downfall here is that you can only use a single battery at a time, meaning that you will have to swap them out every couple of weeks or so depending on your daily usage.
I'm personally getting around 2 weeks of full-time use using the 2.4GHz connector, which is decent in my opinion.
Using rechargeable lithium ion batteries is a must in this case.
Design
Razer typically brings stylish designs to all of their products, ranging from their mechanical keyboards to their Razer laptops. And it's no different with mice as well.
The Orochi V2 looks fantastic on any desk setup due to its well contrasted color scheme, if you go with the white version. And it looks pretty stealthy in its all black variant.
Ergonomically, this is one of the most comfortable mice that I have ever used. A part of this has to do with the lightweight nature of the entire thing, as it comes weighing in at under 60g.
Performance
The Orochi V2 is a gaming mouse at heart and that means that it is tuned for performance and for low latency.
The Orochi V2 comes with a 5G Advanced 18K DPI Optical Sensor, which can be customized with up to 5 presets.
But performance here will really come down to your connectivity method of choice. The real performance comes when using the Orochi V2 with the included 2.4Ghz USB dongle. Though this comes with a cost as it brings down the battery to almost half of the marketed 950 hours.
Bluetooth performance overall is decent, though it probably won't be winning any gaming tournaments anytime soon.
I personally find myself using the 2.4Ghz connection almost exclusively as the performance difference really is noticeable and switching over to Bluetooth just gives a less fun experience.
Though I will say that it is definitely nice to have the option of Bluetooth, as it means that the mouse can be used with tablets or other mobile devices.
I have used the Orochi V2 with a Samsung Galaxy S7 and have gotten a relatively similar level of performance.
Key switches
The Orochi V2 comes equipped with 2nd-Gen Razer Mechanical Mouse Switches which are estimated to last around 60 million key clicks.
I find the keys to be super clicky with very satisfying key travel and sound. After over a month of daily use, they feel and sound just as fresh as when I first bought the mouse.
Because the Orochi V2 is designed with portability and clean form-factor, it is limited in the total number of keys that are present. Having said that though, the few keys that it has definitely go a very long way.
The mouse features your standard scroll wheel with scroll click as well as 2 additional side buttons and a 3rd central button used to shift through the various sensitivity stages.
All of these however can be remapped using the Razer Synapse application.
Razer Hypershift
While the Orochi V2 is limited to 3 primary keys, it can also take advantage of Razer's Hypershift functionality, which allows you to shift to a secondary click profile with the click of a button. Essentially meaning that you can double the amount of functions that can be mapped.
For example, you can remap the scroll up and scroll down functions of the scroll wheel to increase and decrease the volume on your machine. And you toggle to this secondary mode by holding down the Hypershift button that you have assigned.
Every key, aside from the Hypershft key can be double mapped.
Software
While using the Razer Synapse software is an optional step, it's the only real way to get the most out of using it. This is where you will remap keys and manage different user profiles. It's where you can map a dedicated Hypershift button. And it's also where you can check the remaining battery life as well.
More importantly though, it's also where you can configure the various levels of sensitivity that you can toggle through. You can even decrease the number of sensitivity stages from 5 all the way down to 2.
There are a few power saving features built into the mouse as well, such as setting the time idle before the mouse goes into a low-powered mode as well as setting the minimum threshhold before the mouse goes into power-saving mode.
And lastly, for even more precision, you can also calibrate the mouse to a given mat surface. Currently, the application only supports Razer mousepads however, meaning you'll have to shell out a few more bucks in order to get this feature.
Pricing
The MSRP for the Orochi V2 is currently around $69.99, putting it somewhere in the middle price tier for gaming mice. However, you can usually find it on sale for much lower (as I did) on Amazon for around $49.99 on average.
For the out of the box functionality that you get with the V2, the price is well worth it in my opinion. I've used many different mice in the past, ranging from standard wired office mice to more expensive (but larger) performance mice.
The V2 lands right in the middle offering plenty of features and solid overall construction, and the performance is on the higher end of what you will find with a standard office mouse.
Cons
There isn't much to dislike about the Orochi V2 gaming mouse overall. But one thing to consider is that using the 2.4Ggz dongle for connectivity will only yield around 450 hours of usage. That's almost half of the marketed number of 950, which only applies if you are connected using Bluetooth.
And 450 hours isn't that much if you're on your machine 8+ hours per day, like I am. I'm currently finding myself having to swap out batteries around every 2-3 weeks.
If that sounds like you, then picking up a pair of rechargeable batteries is a must.
In conclusion
If you are looking for a mid-tier gaming mice, or just something with more power for your day to day coding life, then I can definitely recommend the Orochi V2.
Not only does it look fantastic and is highly portable, but it also features a very impressive battery life and overall it offers a very premium feel.
The added software features included, such as Razer Hypershift and sensitivity configurations are just icing on an already pretty solid cake.
Walter Guevara is a software engineer, startup founder and currently teaches programming for a coding bootcamp. He is currently building things that don't yet exist.