Microsoft Habu Laser Gaming Mouse (Black)

by Microsoft

Product Details

• Item Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B000H16G3W
• Item model number: 9VV-00001
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (64 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
  • #57 in Electronics > Computers & Add-Ons > Game Hardware > PC Game Hardware > Gaming Mice
• Date first available at Amazon.com: September 1, 2006

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

What happens when Microsoft Hardware joins forces with gaming peripherals innovator Razer? They give birth to an incredible advancement in gaming control: The Microsoft Habu Laser Gaming Mouse. This mouse is jam-packed with features that will give gamers a performance edge.

Habu blends high performance with a snappy design.

Every hand is different, as is every gamers' button preference. The Habu is built for just about anyone with interchangeable side button panels that provide gamers with two options for different hand sizes or comfort preferences. The mouse delivers super-fast response time with a huge 2,000 DPI laser engine that is powered by Razer Precision, and a 16-bit data path with enhanced bandwidth to support high resolution tracking performance. With the Habu, your control will be snappier and more precise, so you'll have a leg-up on the competition when playing online first-person shooters and other fast-paced games. This mouse is also designed with on-the-fly DPI that lets players adjust DPI for control sensitivity. Set the mouse from 400, 800, 1600, to 2000 DPI with toggle buttons and take your customization to another level.

Always-On mode was pioneered by Razer, and this advanced technology is built into the Habu. This mode gives gamers virtually no latency. And with high-speed motion detection, this mouse lets gamers get their speed-on with movement of up to 45 inches per second and 20G acceleration. The Habu features seven programmable buttons with Hyperesponse that allows gamers to program their button functions and caters to their favorite button layout from game-to-game.

A mouse this advanced wouldn't be complete without a snappy design. The custom-looking Habu features GlowPipe side rails and large, ultra-slick Teflon buttons that provide smooth and quiet gliding. The mouse also features an ergonomic design that is built for right-handed comfort with a slip-resistant grip, and rubber-coated buttons for improved comfort during those long hours of arduous gaming. Lastly, the mouse features a thin, flexible wire that provides gamers with the speed of a wired mouse, but the feel of a wireless device.

Product Description

Microsoft Hardware has joined forces with gaming innovator Razer to bring you the ultimate high-performance wired mouse. Combining the best of both worlds, Habu unites legendary Microsoft comfort with the latest in Razer Precision. PC gaming will never be the same.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars great mouse, software needs work, January 1, 2007

By 

Adam B. Gunn "adam" (Marin County, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Microsoft Habu Laser Gaming Mouse (Black) (Personal Computers)

First thing, the drivers are poorly implemented. I followed the directions on the razer site and once I got everything done and I thought I was in the clear, I rebooted and I could never get the mouse to be seen by the drivers. again.. so I started searching for fixes and read this is an issue with these mice.. great! I returned my last razer mouse because the drivers were buggy.. sort of the same issue also, wouldn't detect the mouse sometimes.. anyways, I see not much has changed. But I was determined to get this working because I fell in love with the feel of it.. So, I did get it all working finally, but this what I had to do:

--> uninstalled all Habu software..(which is just the driver pack)

--> installed the 2.01 drivers from Razers site from a clean slate.

--> said YES to the windows warning about non WHQL drivers

--> then said NO to the reboot now option and went into the firmware folder (part of the driver pack) and installed the new firmware!! (with /no/ reboot).

--> after the firmware is successfully installed, it tells you to unplug and re-plug the Habu.. do that, /then/ reboot.

NOTE: It's very important to not reboot before attempting the firmware update because the OS and the drivers see the mouse ONLY after the driver install but after a reboot with the old firmware the mouse was never detectable by the drivers again.. it was very frustrating! anyways.. it seems any of the Habu/Razer drivers will only detect a mouse after a reboot with 2.01 firmware installed. My mouse had 1.0 firmware..

I as I said, and the more I use it the more I love the feel of the Habu.. so much like the old IME 3.0 which I still adore.. the only mouse which really just felt like a key in a lock with my hand. The buttons click is awesome and the wheel is PERFECT (resistance for up/down and depress center). The side (thumb) buttons come with an alternate panel which has the two buttons more out of the way.. I have yet to try it but that's a nice extra.. the mouse tracking is spot on! very precise and very smooth.. me likey!

giving it 4 stars because the mouse is awesome now that I have the drivers working, but wow that was frustrating.. it's a mouse for crying out loud.. it should be a no brainer install. whew.

I hope this helps some people who are thinking about this mouse!

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Best gaming mouse, period., February 21, 2007

By 

Michael K. Pessolano (Philadelphia, PA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Microsoft Habu Laser Gaming Mouse (Black) (Personal Computers)

I am editing this review because the mouse really is that good, I bought another one, and I'm still extremely impressed.
Best mousing experience I've had.
I want to change my review to 5 stars...but Amazon won't let me.


I know some of the reviews here don't seem that great.

But let me tell you, the Habu is the best mouse you can possibly buy today.

The latest revisions have fixed all the software problems, and all the hardware problems.
You just have to upgrade the firmware, and use the drivers off of the internet.

7 buttons, all work wonderfully, and all are FULLY PROGRAMMABLE unlike Sidewinders. You can assign macros and media functions, unlike G5/G9's.

And since there's two buttons under the scroll wheel, you don't have to sacrifice any of your main 5 buttons (again, sidewinders, Intellimice, DeathAdder)

It's got a 2nd gen laser sensor, so it tracks better than the Copperhead and original G5 (the G5 2007 uses the same laser as the Habu)

You can't go wrong with this mouse.
Anyone who gets it will thank me for this review.

It's shape and comfort are of the same exact shape and comfort in the following mice.

Intellimouse Explorer 3.0 (virtually the same shape)
DeathAdder (almost the same shape)
G5/G9/Sidewinder/MX518 (mostly the same shape)

Habu also looks the best out of all these mice, except possibly the Intellimouse Explorer 3.0

You can't go wrong with a Habu, so if someone's telling you that they're awesome.
It's because they are awesome.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Top of the line mouse! (detailed description and update guide), October 12, 2007

By 

L. Chapman (Alberta, Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Microsoft Habu Laser Gaming Mouse (Black) (Personal Computers)

I rarely comment on any products, but given the poor rating that this product has had because of poor driver & firmware execution upon its initial release, I decided to add a review.

I'll start out by saying that I am a civil engineer, and I do a great deal of drafting and design at work. I am extremely picky about the mouse I use for drafting purposes, and recently (after a monitor upgrade) I went looking for a new mouse, due to the fact that at the high monitor resolution, I couldn't adjust my old optical mouse's pointer speed up fast enough to be useful for drafting.

I went to a local electronics store, and picked up a wireless mouse & keyboard package from Microsoft, thinking that it would be a great thing to be wireless - what a mistake I made! I saw now that nearly every mouse manufacturer out there (I assume to keep up with their competitors) has a new side-scrolling/panning mouse wheel (that I can only assume is useless to 99.9% of the users out there) - I didn't think much of it when I purchased the package, but upon using the mouse, I realized that they made the downward click pressure of the mouse wheel much greater, to prevent accidental clicks when you use the side-scrolling feature, and it made the pan feature in AutoCAD difficult to use, and very hit and miss, as often the wheel would click into the side-pan mode instead of a down-click (useless in AutoCAD). This is absolutely horrible for AutoCAD, due to the fact that the downward center mouse click enables panning. There was also a terrible lag between clicking the pan function, and it actually enabling pan in AutoCAD - I'm sure due to the fact that they try to maximize battery life in wireless mice, so the response isn't instant as with wired mice. After 2 days of use, I promptly returned the setup.

I started looking (and looking, and looking!) for a wired mouse to buy, but had a difficult time finding any good-quality wired mice without the side-scroll/pan feature. Finally, searching on an online retailer's website, I finally stumbled on Razer products, as well as the Microsoft Habu mouse (made by Razer). I passed it by previously in the store, because the packaging looked so ridiculous, and it was marketed as a gaming mouse. I figured it would be overloaded with buttons and side-scroll/pan features, being a gaming mouse. I was very wrong - I looked at the features, and noticed Razer products are absolutely no-nonsense mice - apparently they realized that 10 extra customizable buttons and side-scrolling/panning on mice are not only useless, but difficult to use and undesirable. I went to the store, clicked the display model a bit, and realized that I finally found exactly what I wanted.

I read extensively about the driver/firmware problems, and I tracked down a no-fail guide to updating the firmware and software on the Habu mouse before even attempting to connect it. I downloaded the latest software from the Razer website, and installed it without any problem using the no-fail guide (see below). I started using it, and all I can say is "Wow!" All of the functionality of my old mouse, excellent wheel click pressure, instant response, excellent tracking, fully customizable sensitivity in both x and y-directions, fully customizable buttons, and sensitivity settings so high that you can make the mouse useless! (For those of you who have no idea what they mean when they talk about mouse resolution (I previously didn't understand it either, before purchasing the product) is that basically you can set this mouse to 1 of 3 different resolution settings, which sets the overall sensitivity of the mouse. You can, however, still adjust the sensitivity of the mouse at any of these 3 resolution settings, to make the mouse less sensitive, if you find the speed too fast.) The "polling rate" also has three setting, which, as far as I can tell from mouse use and reading about polling rate on the internet, adjusts the number of readings the mouse submits to the computer about position, to make the mouse pointer more accurate and smooth. (To tell you the truth, I don't see much of a perceptible change when adjusting the polling rate from the smallest setting to the highest.)

The only negative on this mouse is that there are internal lights with this mouse, which I found not only tacky but distracting. You can turn them off with the Razer configurator, but the lights always turn back on after a cold start, a reboot, or return from standby. You have to reset the lights in the configurator (even though the configurator reports the lights as set to "off") every time. This was obviously a firmware or software problem, and no worries - I contacted Microsoft tech support, and they are aware of the issue. Their development team is going to fix this problem in the next driver/firmware release.

I find it horrible that the truly excellent hardware was plagued by initial software/firmware problems, doing a great deal of damage to user opinion's of the product. I wish Microsoft had more thoroughly tested the software before releasing the product, but I suppose there is always pressure to deliver products to store shelves before they have undergone thorough testing. Rest assured, after applying the latest driver and firmware update, you will have an excellent mouse in your hand!

Here is a summary of the online instructions for updating the software (note: this guide assumes you already have the Habu mouse installed on your system with an old version of the software - adjust the guide accordingly if you just purchased the mouse and are doing a fresh install of the latest software from the Razer website).

Installation Instructions:
- make sure the Habu mouse is plugged in
- uninstall all Habu software (which is just the driver pack), and reboot your computer
- install the latest drivers from update package downloaded from Razer's website, from a clean slate
- (if you get this message) say "YES" to the windows warning about non-WHQL drivers
- VERY IMPORTANT! - say "NO" to the "reboot now" option, and navigate to the firmware folder (which is part of the driver package), and install the new firmware
- after the installation program reports that the firmware was successfully installed, unplug and re-plug the Habu
- reboot your computer

NOTE: It's very important NOT to reboot before attempting the firmware update because the operating system and the drivers see the mouse ONLY after the driver installation. After a reboot with the old firmware, the mouse was never detectable by the drivers again. It seems that the Habu drivers will only detect a mouse after a reboot with (at least) version 2.01 firmware installed.

******11 Month Update******

After about 9 months of use, the mouse developed a click problem with the left mouse button - it often registers twice when clicked, which gets very annoying. And, as I mentioned above, I already used my free 90 day consultation (about the problem with the mouse lights turning back on after reboot - incidentally, they haven't yet fixed the problem with a promised firmware update, 11 months after Microsoft said that they were aware of this issue) - as a result, to send the mouse in under the three year warranty, I would have to pay $45 up front for them to give me the ok and send me their return shipping information. I have to hand it to Microsoft - they sure have figured out a great way to avoid warranty costs. I have recently purchased a Logitech MX518 (no more Microsoft / Razer mice for me!), so hopefully it will last better than the Habu.