Razer Marauder Starcraft II Gaming Keyboard Unboxing & First Look Linus Tech Tips
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2011-05-08
·
1,894 words · ~9 min read
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now it used to be that there was only one game in town for blizzard licensed
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gaming peripherals but I've already unboxed one of razer's Blizzard licensed
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peripherals and here is another one this is the Razer Marauder this is a
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Starcraft 2 gaming keyboard and we're going to be having a quick look at it
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today first let's see what Razer has to say for themselves on the box here so
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first of all 1,000 HZ Ultra pulling so that means that the responsiveness of
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this keyboard should be about as good as it gets APM lighting system so we'll have
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to get into what exactly that is a little bit later on the Fly macro
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recording this is a feature that I love seeing on keyboards because it makes
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recording macros a little bit less tedious if you don't have to bring up a
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big gold software program in order to do it laser edged Keys ooh cool very nice
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and a braided fiber cable which we're pretty used to seeing on any quality
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razor product here we go fully backlit Keys interesting 7t lightweight non
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tangle cord okay we've covered that APM lighting system we've covered this too
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optimize key travel and spacing this is a little bit different so what Razer is
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basically saying is that the key travel which is the distance between being not
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depressed and being depressed not to say sad but rather pressed down is optimized
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for presumably RTS gaming integrated
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number pad okay that is a keyboard
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feature I suppose on the Fly macro recording APM lighting system and
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elevated keys with optimized travel distance and spacing so it's a little bit redundant I guess what they mean to
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say is it is a keyboard okay actions per minute
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lighting oh actions per minute lighting system that's you know I figured that
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might be what they mean by APM but I uh I wasn't really sure how you could have
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a lighting system that's actions per minute so we're going to have to find
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out exactly what that
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means so it looks like they're actually
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um isn't a seal on that side I'm not
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sure how to get this box open ah here we go so there's a seal on this side so it
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looks like you can actually only open this box one way so I'm going to take
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points off of The Marauder keyboard because as an unboxer I like to have the
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freedom to choose how I'm going to unbox my product no I'm just kidding I'm not
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going to take any marks off the product because uh because the Box can only be
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open from one side that actually doesn't bother me very much all right so here's
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the marauder keyboard so the Box actually makes it look like if you see
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here it's uh more of a black keyboard but you can see quite clearly
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that it's more of a silver keyboard so if you were expecting a black keyboard
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then uh you better sort of adjust your expectations because this is the color
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scheme that we actually have going on here so this says armored
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assault and uh apparently armored assault means lifting up a
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tab and pulling out the lining of the
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Box okay here we go with the included bits I mean Razor's great at
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presentation so let's see what they have to say for themselves first we have the
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quick start guide which shows us that it is a good idea to plug it into a USB
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port and furthermore that it is a good idea to register your product so not a
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whole lot going on in there next we have some razor stickers as I recall these
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are UV sensitive only one way to find out for sure though guys come on let's
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go find out if they're UV sensitive
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so I'm in my computer room now hold on a second just going to turn off the
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light and oh they are not UV sensitive bummer
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okay never mind then I think they I think it's possible they used to be but
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at any rate these ones are not so there that goes off with the quick start guide
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next we have the main manual which is in
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French Master guide there we go okay so programming macro
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using your Marauder the only reason I have this open right now is to find out
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what APM lighting is so you can customize the look of the marauder by
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adjusting from over 16 million colors so
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you can adjust the main the side strips and the underglow lighting colors click
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any of the three color boxes so you can choose the color to assign to that lighting area Okay APM and alerts tab so
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actions per minute selection on the tab plank at the bottom of the drivers allows you to customize the lighting
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Behavior based on the number of actions per minutes used in Starcraft 2 sweet so
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the more apms you have while you're gaming with this keyboard the more
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different your lighting scheme will be so let's have some pretty a pretty close
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look at the keyboard itself as far as keyboards go it's a fairly standard
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layout it has letters and it has numbers
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and it has some uh media keys that are
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accessed via a function key hey this is smart okay I'm actually wait hold on is
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this the way I prefer it yes I believe this is the way I prefer it I prefer the Windows key over here I know I'm one of
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those horrible awful people who doesn't bump the Windows key when they're trying
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to game with WD but I prefer the function key over here for these items
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because think about it this way if you're going to press function and this
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for example to uh mute your volume are
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you going to go like this or would this
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be more natural oh what a concept right oh you know what we should actually do
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here let's plug this thing in so it actually
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has two goldplated USB plugs and I'm guessing it is just for extra power so
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what I'm going to do is I'm going to plug these into my MSI GX 660r gaming notebook and see what
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happens ooh it lights up look at that okay I don't have the drivers installed
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so I'm not going to be able to do any additional um testing on the different
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lighting configurations but that is what it looks like once it's lit up it's got
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a pretty even overall back backlight the one key that I'd say doesn't get as much
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love as the others is probably the Escape key but uh looks pretty darn good
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even in the bright lights that I have shining down at me right now so not bad
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at all I'll turn those lights off and I'll give you guys a better look at it in a moment so let's flip it over and
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see what we have to see down here so first we've got a couple of uh lighting
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strips at the bottom of the keyboard we have two of those little r risers if you
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want to Incline the keyboard that's more comfortable for you we have R pads on
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the bottom of the keyboard to keep it from slipping big ones at the front
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small ones at the back so even if you are using those tabs it shouldn't slip
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around and then okay I'll finally get in close and have a look at what all keys
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you guys are going to find here so function keys we've got mute volume up
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volume down we've got play stop forward
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back and then we have uh-oh H this appears to be
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brightness oh on and off okay and
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this oh okay is for gaming mode versus
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not gaming mode which probably turns off the Windows key um that would be my
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guess okay here we have oh this is interesting so we've taken the insert
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homepage up delete end and page down and we've put them all in the number pad
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which I actually can't decide if it bothers me
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or not I'm going to go ahead and say no for now because we can always go into
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number mode and then we still have insert home and page up now what I
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probably would have done was I probably would have gone like uh
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delete home or delete page up and page
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down or something to find like sort of three useful keys and and leave them
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here even in number pad mode but I mean it's uh it's a bit of a it's never easy
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when you're trying to decide how to sort of butcher a keyboard layout to condense
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it so you know they chopped it up and they did the best they could here are
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the arrow keys if you're not in number mode so yeah I you know it's not bad it
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makes it more compact I mean it's a lot shorter than uh than a typical keyboard
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I mean here's a standard layout keyboard This is a steel Series 7g so you can see
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that it is a good like how much WoW shorter is this it's like a good 2 and
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1/2 3 in shorter than a 7g keyboard so here's our lit little
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Starcraft 2 thing overall feel of the keys honestly isn't exceptional I mean
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I'm not going to lie to you guys it's a it's a gaming keyboard it's not a
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mechanical keyboard like their black widow Series so you're not going to get
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that great tactile feedback however um I
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can't really comment on how well optimized it is for RTS gaming but I can
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tell you guys that they feel like very adequate key switches especially
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considering the fact they are not mechanical key switches so what I'm
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going to do is I'm going to turn off these lights and give you guys a look at
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what the keyboard looks like there's my Star Wars
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shirt I'm so cool when the lights are
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dimmed ooh yeah you can see it's much more
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noticeable that the Escape key doesn't get much lighting cuz you can see the
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laser etched Keys um allow the back light to show through okay remember
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these are not blue colored these are actually just lit up by the blue light
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behind them seeing all of the etchings on the keys so it looks pretty sweet in
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the dark guys don't forget to subscribe
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to Linus Tech tips for more unboxings reviews and other computer videos and
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thank you for watching my unboxing of the Starcraft 2 razor Marauder keyboard