** This review has been revised for the release of the 2.0 drivers, which enable full key remapping and macro support. THANK YOU RAZER! **
** Please consider this a 5/5 star review. For some reason, Amazon isn't allowing me to change that aspect of my review and I would like to keep the comments on this product review rolling. Sorry for any confusion this may cause. **
My first impressions review of the Razer Naga was pretty grim. Having come from using a Logitech G7 for years prior, the Naga felt clunky at best and the complete lack of any key rebinding support for a mouse intended for MMO use left me scratching my head. In the days following that initial review, Wave of team Naga left me a comment (as seen in the comments section of this review) stating that they were intending to address the later with an upcoming driver release. A few months later, just as he had promised, version 2.0 hit... and it hit hard!
Before I get into all that, let me tackle the ergonomics. As I mentioned, at first I felt this mouse to be very clunky. Now, months later, I could not have been more wrong. When they said this mouse was designed for long gaming sessions with minimal hand fatigue, they meant it. My only real complaints in this department is about button placement. No, no, not the 12-button thumb pad... those are perfect! My beef is with the two additional index finger buttons, which for me, are at best awkwardly placed and at worst completely unusable.
But lets cut the nonsense, if you are reading this you care about one thing and one thing only... the 12 buttons on the side of this bad-boy.
I'll be straight with you, at first it is awkward as hell and comes with a bit of a learning curve. Don't expect to pick this mouse up and be some kinda of button-pressing Mozart by morning. Now months after my purchase I am still second guessing myself from time to time when reaching for the 8 and 9 key, mostly because I don't use them in very many games. As I alluded to earlier in this review, they are placed such that I don't have any issue at all reaching any one button (though 11 and 12 require a funky move that can mess with my cursor precision.)
The 2.0 driver also brought with it two additional features that came as a bit of a surprise to me... profiles and macros! The profiles are just what you would expect and though very basic in their functionality, the macros should get the job done nine times out of ten. If you are familiar with the Logitech G15 or Nostromo N52, then you know what I am talking about. If not, well, it's little more than pre-recorded keystrokes with custom delays between them. Nothing fancy, but far from useless.
Now that the issue of rebindable keys has been taken care of, I struggle to find anything at all wrong with this mouse.
If I absolutely had to give it a con, hmmm... I suppose it requires a bit more care than other mice in order to keep clean. Lots of buttons means lots of places for build up. Fortunately the fit/finish on this mouse is tight enough that cleanup is a breeze.
Happy grinding/fragging/whateveryouneed17gloriousbuttonsfordoing! Razer Naga MMOG Laser Gaming Mouse (RZ01-00280100-R3)
Edit: I've stopped playing WoW so much and have been playing other types of games recently. Now that the buttons can be remapped this mouse works well for any game. It's great for shooters because I can swap weapons without having to reach for the F-keys. I've grown to appreciate how ergonomic it is. It fits my hand perfectly. I'm fully acclimated to the button placement and can hit the right one without thinking. Razer was right that it takes 15-20 hours for it to become second nature. I have found that for my short fingers only 9 of the 12 thumb buttons are an easy reach. I try to put the less important functions on the top row.
As an avid WoW player I'm always on a quest for mice with more buttons. MOAR! Most mice are limited to 5 mappable buttons that my fingers can actually reach. Some do cram more buttons on the mouse but place them in awkward locations that are only practical for infrequently used functions. I had high hopes for the SteelSeries WoW branded mouse but it's built poorly and the thumb buttons are hard to press individually without fat fingering the next button. Another mouse I wanted to like was the Sandio 3D but it's way too large for my hand. Plus, the hat switches are good for movement but not so good for mapping to four individual functions. I've been using Logitech MX series mice that have 8-9 mappable buttons. These are comfortable and the software is very flexible in how the buttons are mapped. I've been content with them but am always looking for more.
Enter the Razer Naga. I thought this was a Photoshop joke when I first saw the picture. But they really have put a cell phone style keypad on the thumb side for a total of 17 buttons. What's amazing is they've done this while keeping the mouse a reasonable size and having all but one button within easy finger reach. The mouse feels very high quality. It's very comfortable with good tactile feel. The scroll wheel is the nicest I've ever used. It's clear that Razer puts a lot of effort into creating a functional design, not just something that looks good in the box. My only complaint about the physical aspect is that it's rather lightweight.
The thumb buttons will take getting used to and I'm still working on it. I'm not going to raid with it out of the box because I don't want people to die. But even after a short while playing around with it in battlegrounds I'm improving and I can tell that the muscle memory will build up quickly until it feels natural - just like with a keyboard or gaming pad. Thoughtfully, Razer includes rubbery stick on nubs that you can place as tactile landmarks to train yourself. Razer claims 88% of gamers are fully comfortable after 18 hours of play.
The Windows driver is simpler and less flexible than I expected. The thumb buttons map to either the number row above the keyboard or the right number pad. The 5 main buttons map to the standard windows Left/Right/Middle/Back/Forward actions. There is no custom button mapping. Razer expects you to use an in game interface to map your actions to the fixed buttons. This is fine for WoW but could be a limitation on other games.
Razer supplies a custom WoW addon that is available at [...]. It's just a branded version of Dominos - an established addon. It's good that Razer licensed something that is fully featured and well tested rather than creating something new that probably wouldn't be as good. I'm unable to use it, however, because it conflicts with Bartender4. There is no need to use the Razer addon as the mouse is just acting like 12 keyboard buttons. Since the default behavior is to just map the 12 numbers above the keyboard you could just use standard WoW action bars and keybindings with zero configuration.
If it's not clear by now, I think this is a great product. I've been waiting for a mouse like this for 5 years and Razer has delivered! - Wow - Mmo - Naga - Razer'
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