Buttons, Scroll Wheel

Buttons on DeathAdders are mostly fantastic in terms of click-feel, and the Essential is no exception. The main ones are light and tactile; very much spammable, they feel great to depress. They don't have much unnecessary travel either. The main switches are standard Omron D2FC-F-7N models rated for only 10 million clicks, which is quite a letdown because many companies offer mice with switches rated for over 30 million actuations on much cheaper mice. Hopefully, these won't break soon, though the tendency isn't too promising.


Scrolling is not bad, but not too great either. The steps aren't very well defined since the encoder (which is a 14 mm tall red core Kailh model) doesn't provide a lot of tactility. On the other hand, the steps are light, so it's ideal for browsing and instance bunny-hopping in games like CS:GO.


The middle mouse button requires slightly more force to actuate than the main buttons, but is still not very tiring to use excessively. It uses some sort of elevated square switch I didn't see any branding on.


Lastly, we get two side buttons that are light and tactile and have a little bit of unnecessary pre and post travel. These use standard, bent Kailh switches with a white plunger.

I also made a video in order to demonstrate how the buttons sound:

Mouse Feet

Mouse feet on this mouse are simply great. They offer a glide with relatively low friction compared to the competition and are very smooth. Unfortunately, there are no replacement skates in the box, so if the initial set wears out, you have to go for aftermarket replacements.

Cable

Cable-wise, the Essential is the same as the Elite model; both feature a braided, but very flexible and light cable. This is great news since it doesn't generate much drag or resistance, though it still does not feel the same as having a wireless mouse. As always, I'd still suggest affixing it with a cable bungee of some sort. The cord is 1.8 m (5.9 feet) long.

Disassembling

Disassembling this rodent isn't very hard, and you can do it without entirely destroying the mouse feet as there are two screws beneath the upper ones. I easily poked a hole through the skates with a pointy, sharp screwdriver, pushing the hole's edges inward, and the screws don't affect the gliding properties of the feet. There is one more screw beneath the informational sticker you can simply poke a hole through as well. The screws are standard Philips-head ones; no Torx screws here, thankfully. There are two internal wires. Make sure not to tear these while popping the two shell parts apart or you might lose the lighting functions on the Razer logo.