Razer Blackwidow Ultimate 2014 review (Razer Green)

[chyros]

Bit of a rant this week, but an interesting keyboard nonetheless! Hope you enjoy the video .

[Leslieann]

Ranting Chryos is the best Chryos!

While better, the spacing between space and the key to the left of it (in this case Win/command) is less than the spacing between other keys (particularly letter keys), you can really see this at 5:50. The entire bottom row spacing is all over the place, and despite how bad it is, it was even worse on earlier models, which actually rubbed and caused the keys to stick.

These keyboards never should have made it to market, first or second gen, it's clear they didn't do any real world testing because it took me less than 10 minutes to figure out the keys had a problem on mine. Everything about it looks slick and polished (ignoring style) but as soon as you go to use something, anything, it all comes crashing down like a house of cards. It's exactly what I would expect from an American designed part given to China where the bean counters were given free reign and even encouraged to cut any corner they can. Frankly, from what I've seen on their notebooks and other products, I'd say little has changed.


While horrid, historically this keyboard is important, it not only helped usher in the current era of cheap Chinese keyboards and MX clone switches but it also kick started the return of mechanical keyboards. Yes, others existed when these came out but you could find these on shelves at major chain stores. Without these you probably wouldn't have Box switches and other brands like Corsair making mechanical keyboards.

[tp4tissue]

I would say the steel series mx black board was m0ar pivotal than the razer..  razer came after steel series board, not sure, so long ago.

[Belfong]

Razer Blackwidow was my first modern mechanical keyboard and got me into this scene. Mine was MX Blue. Seeing it always give me a warm, fuzzy feeling. Thanks for the review.

[Leslieann]

I would say the steel series mx black board was m0ar pivotal than the razer..  razer came after steel series board, not sure, so long ago.

As per a quick Google search:
Black widow was on store shelves mid to late 2010
Corsair announced they were entering the market mid 2011.

[Blue_Moon]

steelseries isn't corsair. we have steelseries boards all over my workplace with black switches. a google search for "when did steelseries release first mechanical keyboard" gives a box stating, "In 2004 we released the worlds first mechanical keyboard targeted at gaming; The SteelKeys 6G. It was a great product, “built like a tank” was the slogan even back then, and it was truly amazing for its time. It featured linear black MX switches which has since become a firm ingredient in all our mechanical keyboards."

[Leslieann]

steelseries isn't corsair. we have steelseries boards all over my workplace with black switches. a google search for "when did steelseries release first mechanical keyboard" gives a box stating, "In 2004 we released the worlds first mechanical keyboard targeted at gaming; The SteelKeys 6G. It was a great product, “built like a tank” was the slogan even back then, and it was truly amazing for its time. It featured linear black MX switches which has since become a firm ingredient in all our mechanical keyboards."

Das was around before as well, Razer still beat them to Best Buy shelves.

Not sure where where I got Corsair and Steelseries merged, was there a collaboration at some point or something?

[tp4tissue]

Steelseries was way ahead of everyone else in the beginning.. They even had those custom painted Microsoft WMOs..

But their marketing department is Too 菜.. Eventually they got buried, and now they've become mostly irrelevant..