It's not unusual to see mouse manufacturers slacking when it comes to smaller and more budget-priced mice. For whatever reason, small mice have often been deemed "less important." Thankfully, this is not the case when it comes to the Razer Viper Mini. Although the sensor isn't quite as good as on the bigger Vipers, it performed very well in my testing, with no tangible flaws to speak of. Thanks to optical switches, click latency is very low, and because of an improved button design, button quality is high across the board. Handling proves to be excellent as well: the stock mouse feet provide effortless glide, the very low weight (58 g) makes it easy to throw the mouse around, and the cable is fairly flexible as well, although not quite on par with Cooler Master's MM711 cable or Endgame Gear's XM1 White cable. The shape is notable too, as the Viper Mini fills the hand surprisingly well despite being such a small mouse. The RGB lighting isn't spectacular, but still rather nice to look at, with a decent number of lighting effects to choose from.

There are some issues, however. Although Razer Synapse is entirely optional and provides a decent range of customization options, it cannot be denied that it's fairly resource-heavy. Those worried about system resources being taxed may want to consider uninstalling Synapse after setting everything up to their liking and saving it to on-board memory. Additionally, my sample at least was plagued by rather significant lens movement. This is entirely subject to sample variance though, and I don't feel confident in making any calls yet. I did ask around a bit, but results weren't conclusive, and Razer isn't aware of any reports. A second sample didn't show any issues in this regard, either. With that in mind I've decided to give the Viper Mini an Editor's Choice along with the Budget reward, and I'd encourage readers to let me know in case their unit has the same issue.

The Razer Viper Mini is very competitively priced. When looking at alternatives within the same price bracket, there aren't many with similar dimensions. The similarly performing SteelSeries Rival 3 is priced even lower ($30), but more medium-sized. The same goes for the Cooler Master MM711, which is priced $10 higher, but definitely bigger and bulkier overall. Lastly, the ASUS ROG Strix Impact II is bigger too, and priced at $50.