Razer Black Widow Ultimate Mechanical Gaming Keyboard Unboxing & First Look Linus Tech Tips
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2011-05-08
·
1,585 words · ~7 min read
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today we have a product that it seems like everyone and their dog is excited
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about this is a mechanical keyboard from Razer this is the Black Widow ultimate
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and uh it is a self-described mechanical
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gaming keyboard for gamers by Gamers it has a mechanical key architecture for
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Superior tactility and faster response
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okay it this has fully programmable keys with on the-fly macro recording five
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additional gaming keys with individually back key so you can see the whole
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keyboard is actually back lit and let's
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move around to the side see what it has to say for itself 35 Megs of free hard
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disk space PC with USB ports okay so these are pretty pretty tame system
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requirements uh we'll move along to oh I want to show you guys this so this is
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razer's classification of this particular keyboard This is in their
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Elite Series uh so it's one step up from
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expert two steps up from essential so it is definitely not essential to have a
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keyboard like this but is certainly Elite all right so individually backlick
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Keys 10 customizable software profiles with on the-fly Switching easy access
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media Keys which will show you in a minute earphone out and microphone in
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Jacks built into the keyboard fully programmable Keys 5 plus additional
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gaming Keys mechanical key okay so these are gaming optimized key Matrix for
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minimized ghosting H okay you know what
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if someone can leave a comment on the video and tell me exactly what they mean like that by that that would be
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fantastic okay English so one 1,00 Hertz
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Ultra pulling so 1 millisecond response time 50 G's 50 grams of actuation force
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required for the keys so if you're into mechanical keyboards you probably have
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some context for that um more repeats of stuff we've seen already and uh here we
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go tactile tap feedback when actuated
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optimize actuation force of 50 g rapid
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key Snapback after keystroke execution
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and a lifespan of up to 50 million keystrokes so there is the benefit of a
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mechanical keyboard in a nutshell so
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let's break the seal on this guy and have a look at what all the fuss is
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about all
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right Razer is pretty much the packaging
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experts I mean look at this they even got green on the inside of the
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box and I always enjoy open opening up
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their boxes because they've always kind of they always throw something new at me
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so the first thing we see here this is quite obvious is we should take this out
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okay all right okay I guess that gives us access to something okay let's take
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the take the keyboard out okay well it's
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not their best work I've seen better I think their finest was the the Mamba the
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Mamba had just a phenomenal
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package but the presentation is still quite slick you know you've got your
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overall uh completely black interior on
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the packaging which always makes everything look higher
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performance cuz everyone knows if it's you know you paint it black it goes
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faster and all that good stuff okay so
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ahead and put that away all right here we go so here's the package for gamers
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by Gamers razerzone.com here we go black widow ultimate welcome
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to the cult of Razor here is a certificate of authentic
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next you have a quick start guide which probably involves instructions like plug
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the USB port into the computer uh or plug the USB cable into the port okay
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here's a master guide uh probably a number of languages in here yes there
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are okay we have a couple of razor stickers and I believe these are UV
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reactive last time I checked which is pretty cool as well as a razor product
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catalog if you like this one then you can check out some of their other stuff
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all right so that's it for included accessories does not come with one of
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these fortunately what a brat okay now
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let's check out the keyboard itself which I have been quite anxious to have
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a look at so first let's see the
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included cables going to pull this
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plastic sleeve off if I can I can do
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that do not cut tape like that at home
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quite hazardous okay here we go so the included cables
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are two USB so that's probably going to be one for the built-in Hub ah yes there
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we go so there's port and then that one's labeled uh razor and then we have
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a microphone Jack as well as a headphone jack so that's for the pass throughs
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that are coming up through the keyboard which I will have to find at some point
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okay and it's not a hub it's just a single port but we'll get to that later
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so here are your programmable Keys five of them over here all right here are all
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of your back lit keys so you can clearly see the part that is back lit because
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it's a slightly different color from anything that's drawn directly on the key so for example uh this character is
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not back lit whereas this one is up here
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same thing F7 is back lit but this media key thing is not here's all of your
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media controls uh built into the F Keys up here now this is an interesting
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choice you know what here conveniently I have a steel series 7g which we can use
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as a side to side comparison with the black widow since that was kind of the
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uh the reigning mechanical gaming keyboard okay so the razor keyboard adds
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a few things over the 7g so you got the
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backlit Keys which is huge P I personally think that's enormous you've
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got the programmable gaming Keys which I also think is a huge advantage and then
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let's have a look at what is different between these two so first of all I like
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the layout of the Razer keyboard better because of one simple thing and that's
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this fullsize backspace key they haven't done anything Goofy with the layout of
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the keyboard you've got a fulls size shift you've got a fulls sizee shift
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you've got a fulls size backspace key and a uh and a long and a wide enter so
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that I like right off the bat here's one that I think is kind of a funny decision
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though cuz you look both steel series and razor have included one uh function
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key instead of a Windows key so steel series puts theirs here and the fun keys
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for accessing the media controls and whatnot whereas Razer has decided to
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leave the Windows key here right next to all of your gaming Keys strange decision
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and put their function key here so that's the one thing that I
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would probably question about the layout although when I'm typing and really
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mechanical keyboards are made for typing
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I mean most keyboards are made for typing but they really are uh so when
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you're typing I'd take that longer backspace over the uh misplacement of
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the Windows key any day now you can hear that the keystrokes are quite different
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between the 7g and the Black Widow so I want the camera to get really close and
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just
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listen so you can really hear distinct click to the key on the Black Widow
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ultimate and then I want you guys to listen to the
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7g so you don't really have that that click so just because there's one
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mechanical key switch and another mechanical key switch doesn't mean
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they're identical it's worthwhile doing a little bit of research and as I always
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tell anyone buying a keyboard you should always find some way to test drive it
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before you actually purchase it I like the finish of the Black Widow although I
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don't know how fingerprint proof it's going to be but that's just pretty much
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something that if you're if you're used to running razor peripherals you're
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probably already used to you've got a couple of little legs back here for
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tilting the keyboard up should you so desire and then if you don't have those
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up you've also got 1 2 3 4 five rubber
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pads on the bottom of it to keep it from slipping on this side you find nothing
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of note same goes for the back and then
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on the other side that's where you find the USB port so that is a single pass
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through Port so I'm going to go ahead and assume hopefully I'm not wrong that
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it is USB 2.0 which is personally I'd
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take that over a USB 1.1 Hub which we find in most keyboards any day and then
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we've also got our pass through for the microphone as well as the headphone jack
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so thank you for checking out my unboxing of the Black Widow ultimate
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don't forget to subscribe to Lis Tech tips for more unboxings reviews and
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