With the new Razer Basilisk Essential the hardware maker known for Chroma lighting and quality black and green peripherals brings the popular mouse into the realm of the affordable and budget. With a lower price-point and a number of changes to the original the Basilisk Essential still manages to impress. And thankfully, the clutch/interchangeable thumb button returns.

Underneath the hood is where we see the biggest changes made to get the overall cost down. Gone is the high-end Razer 5G Optical Sensor, replaced with the hardware maker’s tried and true regular one. This in turn means an overall DPI drop from 16,000 down to 6,400 – which although sounds drastic is still well within the range of what one might consider a high-performance gaming mouse. Outside of that, and having one less button overall, the Basilisk Essential still feels very similar to its counterpart. The standard Optical Sensor in our testing performed exceptionally well, and with the updated Razer synapse software suite being far more intuitive than it used to be, programming each button and setting up the various DPI profiles gives it more of a premium feel.

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