The Razer Blackwidow Chroma V2 is a great piece of design, with many features you’d expect for your hard earned cash.
The Razer green mechanical keys feel excellent; definitely the “tactile and clicky” keys that Razer describe. They took no bedding in at all, immediately feeling very useable and natural, though if you prefer a quieter experience, we would recommend the brand new yellow keys, sporting the same price tag; however, they lack the tactile feedback of the green keys, with the orange finding themselves somewhere in the middle, with a less-tactile feel than the green but also less noisy.
Key placement and sizing is spot on, making typing and playing games a dream. The all-new font used on the keys is a nice change from other keyboards, which works brilliantly with the RGB backlighting; not allowing too much light to escape, reducing glare. The Fn keys are placed along the keys at the top of the keyboard, with F1-F3 being the volume functions, F5 – F7 being media functions, F9 controls the on-the-fly macro recording, F10 toggles the Gaming mode, F11 and F12 control RGB brightness and pause break doubles up as a sleep function.
Razer’s ability to allow developers access to the RGB lighting on the keyboard is a truly magnificent idea, giving real purpose and value to RGB lighting, other than looking pretty and matching your chosen colour scheme. Testing in Tomb Raider was fantastic, only illuminating the keys actually required at that time, reducing distraction and minimising glare.
The keyboard is enclosed, meaning no light bleed from the outer edges of the keys, which can be particularly annoying if you own a reflective screen; this serves a second purpose of helping to highlight only the important areas, the keys, without the rest of the keyboard being bathed in unwanted lighting. This may not be to all tastes but we felt this was a better approach. The bed on which the keys lay on is a glossy white, which reflects all colours effectively. One small issue, especially for those who don’t instinctively know their country’s keyboard layout, is that the RGB backlighting doesn’t illuminate a key’s 2nd function, the @ symbol below the ‘ symbol, for instance, or the & as part of the 7 key.
The inclusion of a wrist rest with this keyboard is a great choice from Razer, keeping your arm and hand in as straight a line as possible, reducing the possibility of injury or discomfort. The soft leather-like material and cushioning underneath has clearly been tried and tested to a huge degree, resulting in pure comfort. One negative of using the wrist rest is that it blocks the illuminated Razer logo along the bottom edge of the keyboard, which plays along with all of your RGB colour schemes, though, Razer have embossed the wrist rest with their signature logo.
The Razer green mechanical keys feel excellent; definitely the “tactile and clicky” keys that Razer describe. They took no bedding in at all, immediately feeling very useable and natural, though if you prefer a quieter experience, we would recommend the brand new yellow keys, sporting the same price tag; however, they lack the tactile feedback of the green keys, with the orange finding themselves somewhere in the middle, with a less-tactile feel than the green but also less noisy.
Key placement and sizing is spot on, making typing and playing games a dream. The all-new font used on the keys is a nice change from other keyboards, which works brilliantly with the RGB backlighting; not allowing too much light to escape, reducing glare. The Fn keys are placed along the keys at the top of the keyboard, with F1-F3 being the volume functions, F5 – F7 being media functions, F9 controls the on-the-fly macro recording, F10 toggles the Gaming mode, F11 and F12 control RGB brightness and pause break doubles up as a sleep function.
Razer’s ability to allow developers access to the RGB lighting on the keyboard is a truly magnificent idea, giving real purpose and value to RGB lighting, other than looking pretty and matching your chosen colour scheme. Testing in Tomb Raider was fantastic, only illuminating the keys actually required at that time, reducing distraction and minimising glare.
The keyboard is enclosed, meaning no light bleed from the outer edges of the keys, which can be particularly annoying if you own a reflective screen; this serves a second purpose of helping to highlight only the important areas, the keys, without the rest of the keyboard being bathed in unwanted lighting. This may not be to all tastes but we felt this was a better approach. The bed on which the keys lay on is a glossy white, which reflects all colours effectively. One small issue, especially for those who don’t instinctively know their country’s keyboard layout, is that the RGB backlighting doesn’t illuminate a key’s 2nd function, the @ symbol below the ‘ symbol, for instance, or the & as part of the 7 key.
The inclusion of a wrist rest with this keyboard is a great choice from Razer, keeping your arm and hand in as straight a line as possible, reducing the possibility of injury or discomfort. The soft leather-like material and cushioning underneath has clearly been tried and tested to a huge degree, resulting in pure comfort. One negative of using the wrist rest is that it blocks the illuminated Razer logo along the bottom edge of the keyboard, which plays along with all of your RGB colour schemes, though, Razer have embossed the wrist rest with their signature logo.
