Ah, I have a feeling "arrow to the knee" jokes will never go away. Kind of like "ur mom". Seriously, tell that hoe to go away already...
Anyways, on to the review of the Razer Black Widow mechanical gaming keyboard!
The Good
Mechanical keys > anything else
I gotta admit that at first I was a little afraid of the mechanical feel. Each key requires 50g of actuation force (how hard you have to push) to activate the key, and this is surprisingly much more than what most people would be used to with a silicone pad style keyboard. However, after using it to type up a short paper as well as generally chatting in a few games I can say that the increase in actuation force required goes a long way towards a better typing experience. The main reason for this is that I can safely rest my fingers on the keyboard without worrying about hitting keys by mistake. Another reason is that for some reason the extra required force to use this keyboard makes my typing much more accurate. I was curious so I did a typing test online and I went from around 79% accuracy (bad, I know) all the way up to around 95%. I only did a few rounds of testing with each keyboard but still the increase in accuracy is very evident.
The Ultimate Edition has pretty lights!!!
While this isn't really that big of a deal it does help a bit when I'm trying to find a key I don't use often. My apartment is usually pretty dark and having a keyboard that lights up is pretty nice. A couple other features that the ultimate edition has that are convenient is the usb port located on the right side along with both a headphone and microphone jack. Very nice.
To all those PC gamers who have pried the Windows keys off their previous keyboards, we salute you.
Game Mode is my favorite feature of this keyboard. Holding the function key and hitting F11 puts the keyboard into Game Mode where no matter how many times you hit that annoying Windows key it won't tab out of your game. Less tab outs means more frags. More frags means a bigger epeen. A bigger epeen means... I don't know, a marginal increase in all of our terrible self esteems? All joking aside though, this feature is great.
The Bad
CLACK CLACK CLACK CLICKITTY CLACK CLACK CLACK!!!!!!!
This keyboard, being mechanical, is LOUD. Mechanical keys make a click sound every time you hit them and I can foresee this being irritating to some people. Personally it doesn't bother me all that much, but if you have roommates or others that live with you I can see how this would drive them batty too. I guess it would be something you would get used to though. I hardly even notice it anymore myself...
Moar pinky-push-ups!
With the small increase in force required to type on this keyboard I noticed at first a bit of fatigue set in after typing for about 10 minutes or so. This might be an issue for some people but I can say that personally after only a couple days with this keyboard I am already getting used to it. Still, it's something to consider if you have any issues that could be affected by this.
Final Score 9.9/10
My only reason for not giving this a 10/10 are a few minor issues that aren't really the keyboards problem but still they annoy me. Such as the media keys don't work for iTunes unless it is the window currently selected. If I have iTunes pulled up anyways then what is the point of shortcut keys?
All in all though this keyboard is amazing. If you are looking to upgrade I would definitely recommend this to anyone regardless of being a gamer or not. Anyone who types needs to experience a mechanical keyboard. They will fall in love, I promise.
Till next time!
For Great
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