Top critical review
3.0 out of 5 starsDecent, missing some key features.
Reviewed in the United States on September 25, 2016
I've owned this keyboard for a few weeks, after owning several mechanical/gaming keyboards over the years. I bought this to replace my Corsair K70RGB, in hopes to improve on the Cherry MX Brown switches I had on that board, and get a shorter keyboard (I got the tenkeyless "Tournament" Chroma version with clicky keys). I mainly use this keyboard to play CS:GO, which requires some amount of precise keying. Skip to the "Overview" if you don't care about detailed specifics.
Keyfeel (Great!, 5/5): The keys give a solid amount of feedback without being jarring or distracting. You can feel when the key registers very precisely, whether pressing the keys very slowly or very rapidly. The feedback is better than the Brown switches, and the keys make a very noticeable "click" at the actuation point. The click is significantly louder than I was expecting, so this keyboard is not a good choice for quiet environments. If you avoid bottoming the keys out, you will still notice quite a bit of noise coming from the board.
Backlighting (OK, 3/5): The backlighting is a bit more vibrant than the K70RGB, anad the colors transition quite smoothly. I'm fairly pleased with the overall look of the backlighting, but only the top half of the key label actually lights up. The secondary key action is printed on the key, and will not light up. For example: on the "1" key, the exclamation point ("!") is directly below the number one, and does not light up at all. This means it's virtually impossible to identify what the "SHIFT" action of each key is without being a great touch typist, or straining to identify the printed symbol on the key through the backlighting (very hard to see). This is pretty detrimental to the overall experience with the board.
Size (Good, 4/5): The main reason why I purchased this board, is that it's the most complete keyboard that offers a tenkeyless model. This means I can position it with the WASD keys a bit closer to my body than with a full keyboard, or extend the amount of desk space dedicated to my mousepad. I wind up with far more options for comfort, which is a huge win for me. The F keys are also full size and use the same switches as the rest of the board, which can be a big benefit to certain players/power users who are frequently going after their F keys. Unfortunately, the reduction in horizontal size doesn't come with much of a price break at all. They managed to keep the front-to-back size of the keyboard relatively low with no add-ons above the F keys, but that comes with its own set of drawbacks.
Extra key features (Bad, 1/5): This board offers standard media key functions, volume controls, and a windows key lock (gaming mode) toggle, but all of the keys require the "fn" key to be pressed along with one of the F keys. This is particularly annoying when you want to change your music or volume quickly mid-game, and need to waste a lot of effort holding the function key (right side of the space bar) and finding the media key you want. To make matters worse, due to the half-key backlighting issue, you can't see which F key has the media function you want. I wind up stopping play for a few seconds, finding the fn key, then squinting at my board for a few more seconds in order to find the media keys. This is suuper annoying. The caps lock/num lock/scroll lock/windows key lock lights are all under the "del/home/end/etc" block of keys, and their labels are also impossible to read in low-light conditions. Good luck figuring out if your windows key lock is on in low-light conditions until you've been using the board for a few months, and even if you figure that out quickly, good luck figuring out how to toggle it in less than a second.
Build quality (Great, 5/5): Between the all metal body, braided cable, solid keys, and channels under the board to run your cable either to the left or front of your board, lots of good options all around. For what it is, I have no complaints here until I find out certain keys are starting to crap out on me.
Extras (Not good, 2/5): This board has plastic flip feet and no wrist rest. Previous tournament editions used to come with a carrying case, etc, and this has no addons whatsoever. It looks like they spent a crapload on the packaging for the board, but cheaped out on even a simple plastic wrist rest. Because of this, I've found myself using a sock or something to prop up my wrist while playing to avoid wrist pain from long sessions. Just sloppy execution here from Razer, particularly for an expensive board.
Overall (Okay, 3/5): The great build quality and key response are not good enough to overcome the glaring problems with this board for a 4-5 star review. Fix the backlighting issue in some way (even a faint light on those keys would help!) and offer a s*** wrist rest and I'd be far happier with this board. Still, this might be one of the best compact boards on the market for gaming. I hope razer keeps trying and keeps offering tenkeyless or even 60% boards for gamers, since there's a glaring hole in the market for those right now. Improve your media keys, backlighting, and offer a wrist rest PLEASE and this becomes a board that I'd gladly pay over $150 for.
