During the Games Convention 2006 in Leipzig, Razer announced a development partnership with the world's largest software developer: Microsoft. Community responses varied from referred to it as "joining the evil empire" to "mutual benefit for all". Microsoft has quite a bad reputation in terms of market behaviour but undoubtedly a respectable history of building quality hardware: When Microsoft released the Intelli Explorer 3.0, the shape was a milestone for gaming mouses.  Its production stopped years ago, but  people still pay a small fortune on ebay to get one. The Habu uses the Intelli shape and incorporates Razer technology based on the Copperhead sensor. Beside this, Microsoft also released a new Intelli model called the IntelliMouse Explorer 3.0 featuring MS technology. See the pics below to get an impression of the IME 3.0 and the original IntelliMouse. 

Packaging and design

The Habu comes in a shiny half-translucent red box. Packaging includes the Habu itself, a driver CD manual, quick reference and the extra button set. A sticker advises you to download the newest drivers from Razer's homepage. At the time this review was written, this was firmware 2.01. As for the manual, there are two contrary advices concerning the installation procedure. Install drivers first and then plug in mouse or vice versa. The right way to do it, is to plug in the mouse first, followed by the driver installation.

The Habu really looks like a crossbreed of CP and Intelli design. Black shell, rubberised buttons and blue lights including mousewheel illumination and the glowlight feature of the CP. This is actually the first non-ambidextrous Razer (even it's officially a MS) mouse. As mentioned before, the shape pretty much resembles the classic IE design with some minor changes in terms of button size, wheel position and illumination.