Review: Razer Pro Click V2 Vertical

Switching to a vertical mouse is a hard sell. Having to change how you use a mouse completely can be an intimidating task, especially with how unnatural the new hand position feels at first—you’re going entirely against the muscle memory you’ve spent years building up.

One of the largest challenges to the switch is the initial loss of pointer accuracy. If you’re in an office setting, you may find yourself wandering around a bit or struggling to move your new mouse as quickly as you did before. But in a slow-paced setting like that, all you struggle with is a few mis-clicks or slightly slower navigation. If you try to make this transition with gaming, it’s far more jarring, and the consequences are much more immediately noticeable.

But even if it’s difficult to adapt to, could vertical mice be the future of gaming? Razer’s new Pro Click V2 Vertical Edition is a hybrid productivity and gaming vertical mouse. Vertical mice typically cater to office workers, but the focus on gaming performance makes the $120 Pro Click V2 one of a kind.

Desk Presence

Photograph: Henri Robbins

The Pro Click V2 Vertical looks, more than anything else, like a modern gaming mouse. It has the textured exterior, metallic highlights, and slightly organic, H.R. Giger-esque curvature typical of Razer’s design language. But everything has been shifted around. The curved, cutting thumb rest sits on top of the mouse instead of on the side. A flare juts out from the right side as a place to rest the underside of your hand. The gunmetal highlight sits at the peak of the mouse rather than between the two buttons. Even the USB port is vertical, a humorous attention to detail.

It's intentionally designed as a gaming mouse that just happens to be vertical. Aesthetically, the only downside is the minimal RGB lighting. With only one section of lighting that runs along the bottom of the mouse, RGB lighting fans might feel disappointed. Still, it's bright, reactive, and has great color accuracy. It's more than enough for me, especially with how customizable it is with Razer’s Chroma software.

The Pro Click V2 Vertical has the same specs as the standard Pro Click V2, with a 1,000-Hz polling rate, a 2.4-GHz dongle that can be stored on the underside, Bluetooth multi-device connectivity, and a reprogrammable button on top. The only features lost are the mouse wheel’s horizontal scrolling and toggleable non-ratcheted rotation.

Photograph: Henri Robbins

This mouse includes two major productivity features: app-specific profiles and multi-device connectivity, and both work effortlessly. Razer Synapse immediately detected different software and changed the active profile in response, and pressing the button on the underside of the mouse swapped between paired devices instantaneously.

Beyond that, Razer Synapse is as impressive as always. I consistently find the software to be one of the best and most intuitive on the market, and that's the case here. All of the menus are simple and efficient, the settings can be changed in real time, and the adjustments all have tooltips and explanations to tell you exactly what you’re changing.

Annoyingly, Razer Synapse has advertisements on the homepage, something I’ve complained about when reviewing SteelSeries products in the past. However, unlike Steelseries GG, these “recommendations” can be permanently disabled in the app’s settings.

Performance and Practice

Photograph: Henri Robbins

The overall hand position of the Pro Click V2 Vertical is natural, but incredibly upright. While some vertical mice, like those from Logitech or Hansker, find a middle ground between a standard and truly “vertical” hand position, Razer opted for a nearly perpendicular shape. While this is technically an ideal ergonomic shape, it will be harder to adapt if you’re moving directly from a standard mouse, and might not be as comfortable during the adjustment period.

It felt unnatural for the first week or so, and required practice to use comfortably and confidently. Once I had acclimated, my speed and accuracy were nearly at the same level as a standard mouse, although consistent use still felt clunky and unfamiliar compared to the horizontal mice I’d been using for most of my life.

The sensor in the Pro Click V2 Vertical is a Razer optical sensor capable of 30,000 dots per inch and 550 inches per second, with a polling rate of up to 1,000 Hz. While these specs certainly aren’t at the same level as the 8,000-Hz, 35,000-DPI mice at the top of Razer’s product line, they’re still impressive for a vertical mouse, much less any gaming mouse, and are more than enough for the average person.

Photograph: Henri Robbins

It's not without flaws. Like most vertical mice, the Pro Click V2 Vertical is difficult to lift during gaming, although it can be done with proper technique and practice. The two thumb buttons are also far away from each other, and the natural resting spot of your thumb. I found it less than convenient to press the buttons with my thumb and instead used the keys on my keyboard most of the time. If they had each been just a bit closer they would have been much more usable.

This mouse is also large. While this makes the mouse easier to grip and use for most hand sizes, it also means the mouse is fairly heavy at almost 150 grams total. With ultra-smooth polytetrafluoroethylene feet and a consistent weight distribution, the mass of this mouse isn’t too noticeable, but it’s significant if you’re accustomed to a sub-60-gram ultralight mouse like the Razer Viper or Deathadder, Steelseries Aerox, or Logitech G Pro X Superlight.

With a mouse like this, the grip and positioning angle that feels best will vary from user to user. I feel Razer missed out on a great opportunity to incorporate its Mouse Rotation Calibration feature, which is being introduced on its flagship esports mice. Since gaming-focused vertical mice are very much a new territory with little development, incorporating features like this, which optimize the mouse for individual users’ needs, could be incredibly beneficial.

Rock-Solid

Photograph: Henri Robbins

Like everything I’ve tested from Razer, this mouse is rock-solid. The build quality is impressive, and everything fits together without any issue. The smooth plastic used on the outside has a consistent matte finish, while the rubberized grip on the inside has just enough friction for your fingers to hold onto it without feeling scratchy or uncomfortable. The weight of this mouse is spread out consistently, without any heavy spots or sensations of misplaced weight “dragging down” the mouse during movement.

The adhesive mouse feet that block access to the underside screws are frustrating but expected. More than that, I am frustrated by this mouse’s general internal assembly: It uses multiple plastic clips that are stiff and hard to release, to the point that I didn’t feel comfortable separating the two halves of this mouse to fully disassemble it. The repairability of this mouse is not ideal.

It comes with an AI Prompt Master feature to summon ChatGPT (or your AI assistant of choice) by holding down the top button. It works as intended, but you can reprogram it to do anything else. I’m glad Razer made it reprogrammable instead of forcing users to have a dedicated button function for a feature that could likely become outdated or lose support in the future. If you like your AI assistants, it will serve you well.

Despite some minor issues with shape and form, this mouse is impressive across the board. For one of the first gaming-focused vertical mice, it does a great job of translating the performance and styling of a gaming mouse into the design of a vertical mouse. While it isn’t quite as light or nimble as a standard horizontal mouse, the Pro Click V2 Vertical still performs well compared to any other vertical mouse on the market, and is a great option for any gamers worried about ergonomics, especially those looking for a single-mouse solution that can transition seamlessly between office work and games.