Razer Chroma RGB Line - Blackwidow Ultimate, DeathAdder, and Kraken
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2015-05-07
·
1,567 words · ~7 min read
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hey guys welcome to my Razer chroma series video make sure you hit that
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subscribe button for Daily Tech videos I'm going to move that reminder to the
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beginning of my video see if that makes a difference anyway don't worry too much about that now RGB custom color headsets
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and mice aren't exactly new and neither are the Razer Death ater Mouse Kraken
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7.1 headset or black widow ultimate 2014
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but this is the first time we've seen those two things
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together
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Cooler Master nepton Series CPU coolers are available in a variety of radiator
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sizes to perfectly suit your next build click now to learn more let's start with
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the simplest of the three the Kraken 7.1 chroma which is basically just a
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straight carbon copy of the Kraken 7.1 but I'll give you guys a brief rundown
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on it anyway it's got 40mm neodium drivers a headband with size adjustments
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and folding the ear cupt swivel for a good fit against your head and it
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connects to your PC with a braided USB cable the software includes surround
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calibration some dials that you can use to tune the integrated sound card I'd
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recommend turning down Bas boost by the way more on that in a minute a mixer in
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case the one in Windows wasn't enough for some reason an EQ which is actually
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nice to have included and finally lighting controls of course you can
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choose between any solid color breathing in any color and cycling through the
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entire 16.8 million color spectrum and I guess this seems like a good opportunity
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to point out how responsive and bug-free the software is but also how limited
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these options are two-color breathing and breathing rates as well as color
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cycle speed adjustments would be welcome additions to this product if I thought
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it made any sense to buy it anyway um unless you must have RGB Lighting on
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your headset I don't really recommend the Kraken 7.1 at $100 even with base
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boost off lows are very overpowered to
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my ears and the microphone is well well
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I'll uh I forgot to press record over here so I'm going to do that now and I
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will let you evaluate that for yourself
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now while I'm sure Min Lang is in the process of writing an angry tweet to me
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um I guess this might help to stay his hand because with the death ouer chroma
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it's a very different story this seems to have gotten some very tangible
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improvements over the death ouer 2013 ergonomics are still a strong point the
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rubber side grips still feel great but now the braided cord is one of the best
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I've ever encountered with almost no Kink left after back bending the right
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and left click are significantly heavier
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so I don't accidentally press them constantly and the sensor has been I
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don't know what word you'd want to use for this type of interpolation Tom fery
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so let's just say overclocked to 10,000 DPI or CPI if you prefer from 6,400 in
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the original death outer 2013 so next time you're gaming at the local IMAX you
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can crank that the lighting is better implemented then with the Kraken but
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still kind of incomplete feeling the razor logo on the back supports the same
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modes as the Krakens so solid breathing and cycling but the scroll wheel doesn't
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support breathing for some reason so that's the bad news the good news though
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is that unlike the headset the mouse supports different lighting schemes when
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your mouse profiles auto switch as you launch various programs great inclusion
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and I really like how smooth the color transitions are very neat which leads us
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finally to the Black Widow ultimate chroma this is my second Black Widow
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ultimate 2014 and if you didn't show me the lighting tab in the software well I
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probably would never know the difference you can get my full thoughts in a review
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here but in a nutshell it's still got a matte black finish with subtle frosted
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lock key lighting and a shiny razor logo at the bottom it's still got five extra
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macro keys on an otherwise standard layout where every key is fully
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programmable and however you may feel about this it still uses razer's own
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brand branded mechanical key switches manufactured by Kyla and China due to
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the constrained supply of Cherry MX switches back to that lighting tab in
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the software again though the keyboard obviously got the most attention from
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razer's devs in addition to Auto profile switching and the modes that the other
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devices support the keyboard gets a sweet wave pattern that can run either
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left to right or right to left but regrettably doesn't support custom
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colors or speed alterations it gets a reactive mode that Fades incredibly
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smoothly and looks really nice and a custom mode that you can use to either
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apply profiles for a variety of genres or even specific games or build your own
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according to your preference I went with a combination of hot pink and purple
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that I think looks absolutely fabulous so it's conclusion time and I'm
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finally going to address the elephant in the room razer's chroma products are not
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the only RGB gaming products to be released in the last month or so so who
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has the best RGB product lineup razor or Corsair we'll start with the headset the
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revised h1500 from Corsair sounds much
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more balanced than the Kraken and is more comfortable for me but
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unfortunately not only lacks RGB lighting uh but has a horrendous yellow
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accent to go along with the new stamp logo and so there you go frankly I
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wouldn't use either of them so we'll call the headset a draw I guess on to
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mice Corsair would have had a shot at this if they' done an M45 RGB instead of
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an M65 RGB because I really like the shape of their mice and the M45 uses is
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an excellent sensor along with a firmware that doesn't it too hard a
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combination that's surprisingly difficult to find but even though
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Corsair has more lighting zones due to the M65 use of a laser sensor with
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inherent acceleration I have got to give the nod to the Razer death add chroma
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which leads us to keyboards and general thoughts I guess both razors and
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Corsair's implementations feel a bit rushed to me but in different ways Razer
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hides it a lot better than Corsair because the synapse 2.0 interface even
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though the functionality hasn't been changed since the old keyboard and the lighting modes are very limited is super
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easy to use and this allows Razer to gracefully Without End user confusion
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add more features as time goes on whereas Corsair built in shedloads of
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functionality on day one lots of extra lighting modes and some really cool
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programmability that makes their RGB line a serious improvement over their
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original Kline but overlooked some
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Basics like default profiles for lighting modes and then they went and
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shipped the keyboard with 140 page manual that you will legitimately have
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to read in order to do anything with it not a great end user experience but
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software will improve for both so let's focus on the hardware trade-offs for now
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razer's backlight is noticeably brighter but Corsair's is theoretically less
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prone to LED failure due to electrostatic discharge Razer has passed
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throughs for USB and audio however poorly positioned they might be while
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Corsair includes dedicated media Keys r Razer includes macro keys on their $1
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169.99 model while Corsair provides them only on the $20 stepup k95 model and in
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terms of looks beauty is in the eye of the beholder but I think razer's matte
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black and Corsair's brush metal both look awesome so if we say that those
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tradeoffs all cancel each other out the decision for me and for you probably is
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going to come down to the usage experience rather than the fancy lights
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Corsair includes a wrist rest in the Box which personally I find to be very
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important but you might not care and they use Cherry MX switches whereas
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Razer uses their Razer switches so
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ultimately that's the decision-making factor for me guys thank you for
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watching like this video if you liked it dislike it if you disliked it leave a comment if your feelings are more
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complicated than this also let me know do you even care about RGB lighting like
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does anyone actually care about this love to hear from you guys check out the
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link in the video description to support us if you want to give us a monthly contribution by a cool t-shirt like this
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small Kickback whenever you buy keyboards and mice and headsets that
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helps us out a lot thanks again for watching and as always don't forget to
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