Gadgetory

Razors making some pretty bold claims about their black widow ultimate 2014 when you consider that on the surface it appears to be entirely unchanged from their last generation flagship is there really innovation left in mechanical keyboards I guess we'll find out with its factory tuning and data center DNA and Intel 730 series SSD is an amazing choice for gamers and performance enthusiasts first up is the packaging which razors reviewers guide informs me is the way to tell the new Black Widow ultimate from the old one and that it's great because of the cleaner lines and new artwork but none of that really matters to me because razor missed one small nearly insignificant detail it doesn't say 2014 edition anywhere on it I sure wish whatever product naming school razor and Apple's iPad team went to would go away razor I've told you guys this already but come on I don't care if you ran out of snake spiders and mythical creatures different products need to have different names or at least numbers that clearly indicate the revision or generation of the product to your customers anyway with that out of the way let's get into the important differences razor has done and under the hood update that turns the Black Widow ultimate into a completely different beast gone are the Cherry MX blue and brown switches we're used to finding on their clicky and stealth versions and they've been replaced by what Razer is calling Razer mechanical switches in green and orange variants respectively so your first reaction to this is probably what the devil is a Razer mechanical switch and honestly I said the same thing the answer is both simple and complicated the simple version for Razer is that they recognize that the key switch designs on the market were optimized for a great typing experience and while they happened to be superior for gaming to membrane key switches especially if you pre sorted them or bin them from the factory like razors been doing gaming isn't what they were designed for that is why they set out to create the first which is made from the ground up for gaming the complicated version is that in addition to what I just said Cherry MX switches are expensive and constantly in short supply and cherries patent on their MX keys which is very recently expired so now elements of that design can be used by other companies without any legal ramifications and RAZR can move from having their key switches made at Cherry corporations factories in Germany to less expensive manufacturers in China such as kale or even build their own facility if they wanted to now to be clear I'm not saying that razors new key switches are a Chinese cherry clone because while the design bears many similarities to Cherry MX it is different and the changes are positive ones first up the actuation point the exact position where the downward keystroke is registered by the computer is Specht point three millimeters higher this has the obvious effect of making your key presses register sooner when you press down and it also moves the actuation point itself three millimeters closer to the reset point or the position when you let go where the key is ready to be activated again both of these things are designed to improve the keyboards responsiveness which is definitely good another effect of this is applicable to razors clicky green key switch not to be confused with Cherry MX greens totally different and that is that it moves the actuation point closer to where the tactile bump is felt by the user meaning it's easier to feel when you've successfully pressed the key without needing to bottom it out or press the key all the way down to be sure this has perhaps less relevance for typists but for gamers it makes double tapping or any other quick repetitive actions easier to do by feel next up their design calls for more gold on the contacts which razer determined allows an increase in the rated durability on each key from 50 million keystrokes to 60 million keystrokes and finally they are improving quality by employing their own QA staff on the factory floor to achieve a eight four millimeter variants in pre-travel distance versus Cherry's point six millimeter variants this should improve the consistency and feeling from one keyboard to another and even across all the keys on a single keyboard not being a leet hacks or gamer like the eSports players who Razer has had testing the keyboard since last year I didn't notice the raised actuation point much but I also really didn't find anything to complain about the green Razer key switch keyboard here definitely felt different from my ducky shine 3 with cherry MX blues but it didn't feel much different and in fact if I didn't know I was using different switches I would have guessed it was just batch to batch variants between blues rather than a completely different manufacturer but I really like Cherry MX blues so if they feel like blues to us regular folks but they have added benefits for more demanding users then that's great now Cherry's pitch for their switches is unparalleled quality due to German manufacturing but if Razer solution to combat notoriously inconsistent Chinese build quality is to submit their own specifications and put their own staff on the floor for quality control then I think ultimately the question gamers need to ask themselves is this are you buying a keyboard or a key switch do you really need to know where the bread came from you know at Subway if the sandwich artisan delivers a delicious and nutritious sandwich to you do you need to know where Razer is sourcing each individual component of their keyboard or do you trust Razer to deliver you an exceptional product as long as they're overseeing the manufacturing leave your comments under the video and let me know your thoughts speaking of exceptional products I spent so much time talking about the key switches that I haven't actually given too much information about the keyboard itself it's got fully programmable keys and five additional gaming keys with support for on-the-fly macro recording individual / key backlighting with 13 levels of brightness all the way from off to a phenomenally vibrant beautiful green it's got media keys with the function key to control them on the right so it takes up less prize Gaming real estate on the left side of the keyboard ten key rollover so you're not going to have to worry about ghosting and both USB and audio pass-through ports over here on the right-hand side the build quality of the keyboard is solid as we've come to expect and the matte black finish is fantastic a huge improvement over some of their previous designs that used glossy plastic if I had to point out something I don't like about the design all I really came up with is that there's no wrist rest included but that is becoming a more common thing in general and I guess I don't like this at cymbal very much seriously razor but like what is that but anyway all things considered those are really minor complaints and if this product is an indication of the kind of more affordable mechanical keyboards that will be available for gamers with these switches which are not exclusive to Razer in any way they're saying well yeah sure whoever can use them then I think the future is very exciting speaking of exciting audio books at audible.com/anna Nover - audible.com slash Linus - browse their massive selection of over a hundred and fifty thousand titles if you're looking for excitement I saw a familiar author pop up on the bestseller list in the last couple of weeks Dick Francis from whom I've read to the hilt and longshot specializes in fast-paced and exciting crime novels that always related somehow to the world of horse racing if that sounds intriguing then you can sign up for audibles monthly audiobook service and get the first one for free if horse racing crime doesn't sound intriguing to you then you can go back to Nancy Drew mr. intriguing the word that gets overused in Nancy Drew - you know much to my dismay as a child because I'd sincerely thought that it was pronounced in trig you'd not intrigued and it's in like every single Nancy Drew book anyway which incidentally you can also find Nancy Drew books on audible.com whatever you end up listening to just make sure you use my URL audible.com slash Linus guys like and share this video if you liked it dislike it if you disliked it and leave a comment on the Linus tected forum linked in the video description if you want to discuss this product which is actually a very interesting one where you have any constructive criticism for me in my team also linked in the video description is our support link with options like buying t-shirts giving us a monthly contribution to keep making videos or giving us a kickback whenever you buy random junk on Amazon simply by using our link check it out if you enjoy our videos it helps us a whole bunch and as always guys thanks for watching and don't forget to subscribe