I didn't bother doing much photography for this since Razer didn't both putting much effort into designing this.
Razer Lycosa:
Top to bottom:
IBM Model M (1988)
Razer Lycosa
Noppoo Choc Mini
I got this... thing... at a thrift store for $7.54. I feel I was ripped off.
I have these good things to say about the Lycosa: it looks nice. It is a functional input device.
Bad things... I've felt some flimsy keyboards in my day. OEM HP rubber dome boards. Crappy Logitechs. Crappy Dells. A Chicony KB-5181. But this thing... It weighs maybe a pound? At most? Yet it has a footprint about equivalent to that of a Model M (it's about an inch shorter, but an inch wider). It flexes and creaks very easily under minor pressure, even when typing hard.
Speaking of typing,
good god is the feel terrible. Mush doesn't describe it. The entire area around the WASD cluster (this was obviously a gamer's keyboard) feels like... I don't know, like I'm typing on half-dried mud or something? Half-dried squidgy mud. The lesser-used keys feel... merely mushy. Bad, but not as bad as the left side of the keyboard.
Also the goddamned media touchscreen thingy doesn't work. At all. Even with drivers. Maybe it's defective? I hear a lot of stories about this part being defective, I'm guessing it wasn't well designed, or well built. Also the rubber coating on the keys has worn off in many places, so it looks ridiculous when backlit. And what rubber remains attracts dust and hair like mad. It's fugly.
"Oh but Phaedrus, it's used! From a thrift store! You have no idea how much use it's seen!" So what? I have keyboards over two decades old that retain better feel than this Lycosa (which was released in 2007, which is the oldest it could be). Heck, you know how I mentioned that "KB-5181" keyboard a while back? That's one of the flimsiest mechanical keyboards ever made with one of the most delicate switches ever made. It was used in a service station garage for 17 years, heavily used for inputting data for diagnostic software and such. It was exposed to outside air and humidity for years, and when I opened it had dead ants in it. It still retained better feel after all those years than this Lycosa has in just a couple. Significantly better. In fact it was one of the better feeling keyboards I've owned (sold it a while back for $50, more resale value than this Lycosa has). I've used
rubber dome boards from the turn of the century that kept better feel than this Lycosa.
In short, it's a massive pile of crap. If it were sold for like $30? Sure, that's fine. $70-$80? Hell no. If you buy this keyboard for retail price, you're either a tool or a fool. No two ways about it. It sucks.
