Razer Blackwidow Mechanical Gaming Keyboard Review
Peter Donnell / 4 years ago
Performance
It may come of little surprise to you that this keyboard is pretty fantastic to use. Razer has not changed its formula much, if at all, over the last few years. When you buy a Razer keyboard, you get exactly that. The model I have features their own Green switches. They’re broadly similar to Cherry MX Blue, so a light and fast switch, but with an audible and tactile “click” when pressed.
Razer set their switches pretty low down in the keyboard chassis, and there’s certainly a metal mounting plate. I suspect there’s some form of noise dampening in there too as while they do “click” when pressed, I think the keyboard is actually pretty quiet as far as mechanical keyboards go.
They have a good return rate, so you can really spam the keys in MOBA games. Plus the feedback of the switches makes it easy for your brain to confirm an action was performed. Of course, let’s not forget the obvious thing here too, the RGB. The colours are lovely, and not too bright as the font is quite slim, but I like that, it’s more décor than it is disco.
I like that hitting the Fn-Shift key can show you which keys actually have an Fn-Shift function.
Of course, a lot of the features are done through the Razer Synapse software. I’m not a big fan of it, as I find it’s always been far too aggressive with updates and wanting me to log in. However, when it behaves, it can be a very powerful software suite was some amazing customisation options.
Chroma Studio allows full per-key lighting and adjustment of multiple layers on the keyboard. It’s even compatible with Philips Hue, Alexa and more, so you can sync up all kinds of smart home PC gaming/lighting madness.
There’s a decent macro engine too. You can also reprogram basically every switch on the keyboard too.
Hypershift allows you to add a secondary function to any key too.
Finally, I quite like the reactive RGB stuff too. It’ll match up the keys to what’s on-screen at the time. Pretty funky, even if my own demo here is a little lacklustre.
