If you’re into keyboard switches, you’ll appreciate news that the latest version of Razer’s BlackWidow gaming keyboard adds a third option—the silent, low-travel Razer Yellow switch. Me, I’m just excited about the magnetic wrist rest.
Riding on the success of the dual mechanical/membrane Razer Ornata, the new BlackWidow V2 is sporting a padded wrist rest that attaches magnetically to the front of the unit, which has quickly become one of my favorite things. Sporting angled edges, the comfy home for your wrists and part of your palms really ties the keyboard together.
I do not have a picture of the Yellow switches, but the official announcement promises that they’ll be an option for the V2. They even explain why one might want them.
The Razer BlackWidow V2 continues the legacy of offering the best tactile switches with the Green and Orange variants, and adds an alternative – the Razer Yellow switch. Its linear and silent design and reduced travel distance allows keys to be pressed faster than ever before. The new switch’s feel and properties are meant for FPS and MOBA players who press certain keys thousands of times over the course of a match session.
The new version of the BlackWidow does not feature that dumb stylized font they used to use, where the R was an L rotated 180 degrees. It does feature Razer Chroma, so you can make all of the keys glow Yellow, Red or Green to match your switches, or any of the other 16.8 million color options.
Best of all, the Razer BlackWidow V2 costs the same $169.99 as the previous model. That means the wrist rest is free.
Here are the features of the BlackWidow V2 in convenient bullet list format. Read that while I go back and make sure I didn’t type BlackWindow over and over again by mistake.
- Razer Mechanical Switches with 50 g actuation force (Green)
- Razer Mechanical Switches with 45 g actuation force (Orange / Yellow)
- 80 million keystroke life span
- Razer Chroma customizable backlighting with 16.8 million color options
- Ergonomic magnetic wrist rest
- Razer Synapse enabled
- 10 key roll-over anti-ghosting
- Fully programmable keys with on-the- fly macro recording
- Gaming mode option
- USB pass-through
- 3.5 mm 4-pole audio pass through jack
- 1000 Hz Ultrapolling
- Braided fiber cable