Razer Basilisk X Hyperspeed: Specs, Features, Pros & Cons

Razer still sells this mouse and has largely stopped documenting it. There is no full specification table on Razer's site any more, which is why several fields on this page are empty: polling rate, switch lifespan and a with-battery weight are not published, and filling them from elsewhere would mean passing off somebody else's measurements as the manufacturer's.

What survives is an unfashionable idea done well. The Basilisk X HyperSpeed runs on a single AA cell rather than a built-in battery, so there is no charging routine and no cable to hunt for. You swap the cell occasionally and otherwise forget about it. It connects either through Razer's own wireless dongle or over Bluetooth, which makes it as happy on a gaming PC as on a work laptop.

The shape is the other reason it has lasted. It is a right-handed ergonomic design with a handful of programmable buttons and a tactile wheel, and its sensor, though a generation or two behind Razer's current models, is well beyond what anyone can perceive in play.

The savings are equally plain. There is no lighting, no meaningful wired mode and none of the lightweight construction that competitive mice now chase, and the cell adds weight that the published figure leaves out. Anyone comparing it with a modern rechargeable mouse should keep that in mind.

Its closest rivals today are budget wireless mice with built-in batteries, which charge over USB-C and usually weigh less. The Basilisk X's case against them rests almost entirely on never having to plug it in, and for a desk that is rarely tidied, that case is stronger than it sounds.