Razer BlackWidow Chroma (Origin PC Edition) And BlackWidow Ultimate 2016 Review
We review the full-featured Razer BlackWidow Chroma (Origin PC Edition) and the slightly less full-featured Razer BlackWidow Ultimate.
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Tests And Performance
Key Rollover
Although NKEY rollover is a feature you'll find on some keyboards, Razer stuck with 10-key rollover for the BlackWidow Chroma, which should be more than sufficient. In fact, using the AquaKey test, we found that we could depress as many as 14 keys, plus four modifier keys (Shift, Ctrl, Windows, Alt), simultaneously.
Audio
The Razer Green switch, like Blue switches, is noisy. It's "clicky" of course, but there's also the sound of the key striking at the bottom of the travel and a loud "ping" reverberation from that. If you press just past the actuation point and jiggle a key without completing the full travel, you'll get that telltale Blue switch jiggling sound, like something's loose.
In sum, the action of a Green switch, like a Blue switch, is complex. In the case of the BlackWidow Chroma, the whole thing is slightly muted by dint of the fact that the top panel traps some of the sound.
Performance
I must note that I experienced the infamous dead key issue when using the BlackWidow Chroma. The "r" key went dead on me at one point, and another time, one of the keys was stuck on (not physically, mind you), repeating its input incessantly. I believe that these issues came about when I was wantonly playing with the on-keyboard macro recording feature. They did not reappear after I stopped toying with that feature and actually performed specific macro recording.
I was unable to repeat the errors once they went away, so I do not have a clear solution for users that experience the same. I would suggest unplugging the keyboard, ensuring that Synapse is updated, and restarting the PC.
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nycalex what a bunch of cheap chinese plastic garbage.Reply
$169 for a 9 year old spaceship keyboard? rubbish.
LOOK MA! my keyboard looks like a spaceship and lights up in colors, i'm the coolest kid on the block!
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Lutfij -
ZippyPeanut Replywhat a bunch of cheap chinese plastic garbage.
$169 for a 9 year old spaceship keyboard? rubbish.
LOOK MA! my keyboard looks like a spaceship and lights up in colors, i'm the coolest kid on the block!what a bunch of cheap chinese plastic garbage.
$169 for a 9 year old spaceship keyboard? what a hump of sh1t.
LOOK MA! my keyboard looks like a spaceship and lights up in colors, i'm the coolest kid on the block!
Wait! nycalex is right: it's "cheap chinese plastic garbage"! We should all trust this guy, right? And not the professional reviewers at Tom's, PCWorld, TechRadar, PCPerspective, Maximum PC, overclock.net, AnandTech, the customers' reviews on NewEgg, and PC enthusiasts everywhere who praise Razer's keyboards for their excellence.
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i7 3770K OC @ 4.2Ghz / ASRock Extreme 4 Z77 / evga FTW 670 2X-SLI / Creative SB Audigy SE PCI Sound Card / 32 GB Corsair Vengeance 1600 / 500GB Samsung EVO 850 (boot) / 128 GB OCZ Vertex 4 / 2 TB WD Caviar Black / 2 TB Seagate Barracuda / Asetek 510LC Liquid Cooling System / LG 14X Blu-ray R/W / Corsair 1000w PSU / AzzA Genesis 9000 full tower / Windows 7 Professional 64 / 144hz 1ms 24-inch Asus monitor / Logitech Z906 Surround Sound / Razer Ultimate Stealth keyboard /Deathadder Chroma mouse
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Lutfij I've had a Razer Marauder Keyboard and that failed after 3 years of use. I can't say I wasn't disappointed but like almost everything electronics and pretty much anything in this world, some things don't last forever. Nice write up and a comprehensive write up on that! I just wished they didn't flood the market with their own reverse engineered switches. That just adds more confusion to the consumers who are eager to jump onboard the mechanical keyboard wagon.Reply -
nycalex Reply17658438 said:what a bunch of cheap chinese plastic garbage.
$169 for a 9 year old spaceship keyboard? rubbish.
LOOK MA! my keyboard looks like a spaceship and lights up in colors, i'm the coolest kid on the block!what a bunch of cheap chinese plastic garbage.
$169 for a 9 year old spaceship keyboard? what a hump of sh1t.
LOOK MA! my keyboard looks like a spaceship and lights up in colors, i'm the coolest kid on the block!
Wait! nycalex is right: it's "cheap chinese plastic garbage"! We should all trust this guy, right? And not the professional reviewers at Tom's, PCWorld, TechRadar, PCPerspective, Maximum PC, overclock.net, AnandTech, the customers' reviews on NewEgg, and PC enthusiasts everywhere who praise Razer's keyboards for their excellence.
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i7 3770K OC @ 4.2Ghz / ASRock Extreme 4 Z77 / evga FTW 670 2X-SLI / Creative SB Audigy SE PCI Sound Card / 32 GB Corsair Vengeance 1600 / 500GB Samsung EVO 850 (boot) / 128 GB OCZ Vertex 4 / 2 TB WD Caviar Black / 2 TB Seagate Barracuda / Asetek 510LC Liquid Cooling System / LG 14X Blu-ray R/W / Corsair 1000w PSU / AzzA Genesis 9000 full tower / Windows 7 Professional 64 / 144hz 1ms 24-inch Asus monitor / Logitech Z906 Surround Sound / Razer Ultimate Stealth keyboard /Deathadder Chroma mouse
says the guy that needs to post his system specs as a signature on his posts. Do you need a self-esteem boost?
Btw, it's called an opinion. I thought forums was all about reading eachother's opinions.
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nitrium "However, the noisy Green switches won't appeal to some users,"Reply
Razer of course does also offer the "Stealth" version of this keyboard that uses Razer's version of Cherry browns (not sure if there is a 2016 version yet, but you can be sure it's coming). -
Jay_29 Having owned 4 Razer Keyboards, these ARE cheap plastic garbage. Filco, Topre, Corsair, Logitech, Steelseries all make much superior keyboards as far as quality is concerned.Reply -
ingtar33 Replywhat a bunch of cheap chinese plastic garbage.
$169 for a 9 year old spaceship keyboard? rubbish.
LOOK MA! my keyboard looks like a spaceship and lights up in colors, i'm the coolest kid on the block!what a bunch of cheap chinese plastic garbage.
$169 for a 9 year old spaceship keyboard? what a hump of sh1t.
LOOK MA! my keyboard looks like a spaceship and lights up in colors, i'm the coolest kid on the block!
Wait! nycalex is right: it's "cheap chinese plastic garbage"! We should all trust this guy, right? And not the professional reviewers at Tom's, PCWorld, TechRadar, PCPerspective, Maximum PC, overclock.net, AnandTech, the customers' reviews on NewEgg, and PC enthusiasts everywhere who praise Razer's keyboards for their excellence.
The problem with reviews is rarely can a reviewer play with a product long term. This results in things like Tesla cars winning car of the year rewards when by all counts they're one of the least reliable vehicles on the road. Razer keyboards generally look nice, but tend to be overpriced and unreliable. Will everyone get a keyboard that fails in a year? of course not, if that was the case Razon wouldn't sell anything. But their keyboards/mice do tend to break down in a very short period of time. Even this reviewer had a "dead key" issue, which as anyone who seriously games will tell you is a deal breaker. Frankly I'm not a serious gamer, but I would return or replace any keyboard which had a key suddenly stop responding, and I assume this happened in the first few hours the reviewer was playing with that keyboard
If that's not a red flag then you've either got more $$ then you deserve to have or you simply don't care how you waste your money. All i know is i wouldn't spend a dime on a keyboard that stops functioning properly in a product review. -
Top Cooler I bought a Razer 3 years ago. After one week I bought a competitor and eagerly gave it away. The font is so cool that it's absolutely unusable. R is 2 lines? They put the numbers and symbols side by side instead of up and down. It was loud and felt cheap. Yeah, not a fan. Since then I've tried 3 competitors with various results. They all have one similarity: much better than Razer.Reply -
scolaner ReplyEven this reviewer had a "dead key" issue, which as anyone who seriously games will tell you is a deal breaker. Frankly I'm not a serious gamer, but I would return or replace any keyboard which had a key suddenly stop responding, and I assume this happened in the first few hours the reviewer was playing with that keyboard
It didn't. It happened when I was fiddling with the on-keyboard macros. (Emphasize "playing.") But it DID happen.
Also, we spend as much time with each keyboard as possible. Bare minimum of a week, work and play (and we tend to work a lot of hours!), but often more, depending on X and Y and Z. (HWT: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/how-we-test-mechanical-keyboards,4400.html).
This one, I ended up using for quite a while, as it happened.