Hey, how's it going, Dave2D here.
So, Razer has some new flagship keyboards,
the Razor Huntsman and the Huntsman Elite, and these aren't designed to replace their super popular Black Widow keyboard.
These are kind of like a secondary flagship device, but I think these are going to be the future of their keyboards.
So, what makes these things special is their switch. They're using these Razor optomechanical switches which are optical switches,
so the traditional mechanical switch uses metal contacts to actuate the switch.
But these use an infrared light beam that's detected when you press the switch down.
So, when the switch is up, that red beam gets blocked, press it down,
the red beam goes through and the sensor picks it up and that's an actuation.
So these guys aren't the first people to come up with an optical light switch.
It's been done before by other companies,
but Razer is one of the first big players in the gaming industry to do it and I wouldn't be surprised if Logitech and
Corsair or any of the other bigger companies if they do it relatively soon as well.
So what makes an optimal mechanical switch special? For one these switches have fewer moving parts,
so they just have a longer lifespan,
these are actually rated for a hundred million keystrokes.
Your standard mechanical switch like something from Cherry is rated for like 20 to maybe 50 million keystrokes.
These are a hundred million, significantly longer lasting,
significantly more durable. Now, whether or not you're actually gonna break your keyboard because you pressed it 100 million times is a different story,
but just by the nature of how the switch works, these are more longer-lasting.
Secondly, optomechanical switches don't have something called events. So on a regular mechanical switch,
manufacturers have to implement an input delay.
So, this is a purposeful delay around five
milliseconds and they do this to prevent something called chatter.
Optical mechanical switches don't have chatter so they don't have to implement this delay
So that input is just received by the computer a little bit faster
I feel like Razer built this entire keyboard around speed
So in addition to that optical sensor that's reading a little bit faster
They have a lower
Actuation force and a shorter travel on each keystroke and they've ended up with this gaming keyboard that feels really fast
I'm not sure if it's the actuation force or the shortened travel or if it's the optical sensor
It's I think all of them are working together, but it actually feels significantly and noticeably faster than a regular mechanical switch
It feels crisp and sharp. It's just a faster and snappier experience if I'm being honest, though
I noticed that most when I'm typing when I'm gaming my inputs feel a little bit cleaner
But when I'm typing my fingers feel like they're doing stuff faster and with less effort than normal
All right, in terms of how these feel these are clicky switches
So they have that very distinct tactile bump as you press it down
it's not as pronounced as like a cherry blue or the
Razer greens like it's not as sharp of a bump as those but it is distinctly a tactile bump as you press it down
In terms of how they sound it's a very audible click but not as loud as a cherry blue or a razor green
The switches themselves have purple stems and the shape looks a little different from your standard mechanical switch
But it uses a regular key cap and there's actually stabilizers on each key
So that metal clip that runs around the edge
Normally you only see that on bigger keys like the spacebar or the shift key, but these have stabilizers on each key
Okay
So other features that you get on the regular huntsmen you have onboard memory so you can actually configure your device and store that
Configuration on the device itself as well as the cloud you get
Programmable macro keys you get individual lighting which you can customize pretty heavily you get 10 key rollover and it's an aluminum top panel
It's pretty good
But on the premium version the huntsmen elite you get all of that stuff
But you also get media keys up here as well as a jogged out
So the jog dial controls volume by default
But you can customize it to scroll or zoom or switch apps like it's got a lot of functionality
There's also a pogo pins up front on this device and these allow you to connect the magnetic wrist rest
It's not a super comfortable wrist rest to me, but I'm not a wrist rest user if you're into them
Then you might like this but it also gives you on the huntsmen elite under glow lighting
So the whole device lights up underneath and on the sides and you can control that as well quite
extensively through software and because these are connected through pogo pins Razer could develop other modules like I don't like a trackpad or a
Wireless charging thing for your phone, whatever they want
They could develop different modules in the future instead of this wrist rest
So I've been using this keyboard for a little bit over a week and I liked a lot about it
It feels fast and there is a noticeable difference in speed compared to my regular
Mechanical but there's a few things I don't like about it. Number one. I wish those used to be passed through
I also don't like that
It only comes in a full keyboard version, I wish there was a 10 keyless version also I wish it came in a different color
But my biggest complaint is that if your interest in this keyboard; if you're interested in this optomechanical switch technology
You have to use this type of tactile switch. There isn't a linear version of this
There isn't a variant in terms of the tactility
It's this one and only switch and if you don't like the way that it feels then you won't be able to adopt this whole
optomechanical technology for now, but overall great keyboard
I think most people will like. Now the million-dollar question though is whether or not this keyboard or whether or not this
Technology is they're actually gonna make you a better gamer and my take on it is this: For
99.999% of the time it won't, I mean if you're a good gamer, you're a good gamer a keyboard won't affect your gameplay
But there is that
time like you've, you've probably
Experienced this when you're in a game and you want to use an ability or an alter or whatever it is
You press a button. It should have gone off and it didn't whether it's lag or whatever it is. But on a keyboard that's
Recording your inputs a little bit faster. There is the chance that it goes off. You don't die
You don't wipe you save your team. You're a hero and in that
0.001 chance that that happens this would make you a better gamer
But I think for most people it's just a really fast nice keyboard. Okay. Hope you guys enjoyed this video now
I just realized when I made this video because
Of this product. The Razer product line is now an excellent dodgeball team
Allow me the pleasure of introducing you to
Blade, Laser, Blaser,