Razer Chroma Keyboard Available for Preorder

By Kevin Parrish
published

Although Razer hasn't made an official announcement, the company is now taking pre-orders for the Razer Blackwidow Chroma keyboard (which we've mentioned before). The PC gaming peripheral costs $169.99 and will ship on September 24, 2014.

Also up for pre-purchase is: the Razer Kraken 7.1 Chroma headset, costing $99.99 and shipping on September 29; the Razer Deathadder Chroma, costing $69.99 and shipping September 17; and the Razer Blackwidow Chroma Stealth that will cost $169.99 and be made available sometime in September.

So what's the big deal with Chroma? These peripherals seem to be inspired by a bag of Skittles, sporting a full 16.8 million colors. Thanks to an LED mounted under each key that supports the full spectrum, gamers can create a rainbow across the keyboard. Even more, the color scheme can sync to all three devices to create the perfect themed desktop.

As with their non-Chroma counterparts, the colors can be changed via Razer Synapse installed on the PC. In addition to the colors, these Chroma devices include special effects such as Spectrum Cycling, Breathing, Static, Reactive (keyboard only), Wave (keyboard only) and more. Blackwidow Chroma owners can even load up custom lighting templates optimized for four different game types: MMO, MOBA, RTS and FPS.

On the Razer Deathadder Chrome, the mouse wheel and logo are illuminated; the logo actually allows two colors such as yellow for the center and green for the three snakes. The logo on the Razer Kraken 7.1 Chroma seems to use just one LED, as does the microphone.

"Our new range of peripherals that feature Chroma customizable backlighting is another step towards full personal customization and to interconnect our gaming tech," said Min-Liang Tan, Razer co-founder and CEO. "Chroma represents more than just multicolor, it opens up limitless personalization options for gamers to play with and we even have a Chroma Software Developer Kit for game developers to integrate their games to provide even more customization in the future."

What will be interesting to see is what game developers will do with the SDK.

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Kevin Parrish
16 Comments Comment from the forums
  • dovah-chan
    Does it come with free DLC if I preorder?
    Reply
  • Cool looking keyboard, but I can't help but notice that Razer keyboards seem a bit overpriced compared to competing mechanical keyboards. Although I love my Deathadder mouse!
    Reply
  • SkyBill40
    I just bought the Kraken Pro 7.1 not too long ago and don't really like the green motif seeing as all my other Razer gear is blue. It would figure that something like this would come out now and it's too late for me to take the other one back.
    Reply
  • The_Trutherizer
    My perception while comparing products from various manufactures is that the materials Razer uses are really poor.

    Reply
  • SkyBill40
    My perception while comparing products from various manufactures is that the materials Razer uses are really poor.

    I suppose that depends on what you believe to be quality materials versus those that are noticeably less so. I've got an all Razer setup and can say that their materials are just as good as, if not better than, the bulk of what's out there.
    Reply
  • jasonelmore
    I've been rocking the original Blackwidow keyboard for over 4 years now. Still works great. It's built like a tank. weights something like 8 pounds. time to upgrade soon so i can see these new razer mechanical switches.
    Reply
  • The_Icon
    Both are similarly priced, I have to go with Corsair RGB K70 RGB easily. Corsair has incredible build quality and which is in an entirely different league to Razer. The only Razer peripheral I like is their Deathadder mouse.
    Reply
  • 14124860 said:
    Both are similarly priced, I have to go with Corsair RGB K70 RGB easily. Corsair has incredible build quality and which is in an entirely different league to Razer. The only Razer peripheral I like is their Deathadder mouse.

    Couldn't agree more, I really like my Deathadder. It's the best mouse I've ever owned anyways. The only Razer keyboard I own is on my secondary rig. It's a Deathstalker, which is not mechanical, but it's okay. My cheap Logitech G105 is just as good, really. The only reason I bought it was it was on sale for $55 at my local Best Buy because it was an open box, otherwise I would have 2 Logitech G105 keyboards hahaha.

    I do like the ability to switch backlight colors with this one though. I wish it said what kind of switches it uses, I'm actually looking for a good Cherry MX Brown keyboard and at the moment, they seem hard to find.
    Reply
  • The_Trutherizer
    I suppose that depends on what you believe to be quality materials versus those that are noticeably less so. I've got an all Razer setup and can say that their materials are just as good as, if not better than, the bulk of what's out there.

    Yes it is just a subjective observation and not universal across all their products. Its just something I've noticed from time to time. For example I have a wireless razer headset which is pretty solid in the materials department, but does not have the kind of audio one would expect from a headset at that price. Then while trying out keyboards I found that the razer offering had great mechanical keys at all the right sizes, but the chassis was so cheap that you could bend the whole thing if you wished - Paper thin plastic of the type more commonly found in disposable containers. However priced at a premium I can only suppose for the brand name.

    My razer naga mouse practicaly fell apart, got dirty very easily and in general turned out to be not quite as ergonomic as touted.

    Let's just say that I will not easily buy razer again.
    Reply
  • c123456
    I've been rocking the original Blackwidow keyboard for over 4 years now. Still works great. It's built like a tank. weights something like 8 pounds. time to upgrade soon so i can see these new razer mechanical switches.

    Stop drinking the cool-aid. Cherry's patent expired on their mechanical switches. Razer's switches are clones that they outsourced to a factory in china to make cheaper knock-offs. They're branding them as new and better, but all it does is increase profit margins on a product that already has a really good profit margin.

    For the same price, CM QuickFire is probably a better deal. Beyond that, you get into brands such as Filco or Ducky.

    What happened here is in direct contrast to what CoolerMaster did with their CM NovaTouch. CoolerMaster built a switch to compete against an already existing switch (Topre) with a focus on performance and reliability. This is sort of reaffirmed by the fact that Topre switches are still under patent. Razer's motivation was to lower costs.
    Reply