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While Corsair currently owns his gaming keyboard throne with his Killer K95 Platinum Razer aims to usurp it with a brand new flagship keyboard, the Huntsman Elite ($ 199.99). To this end, Razer has deployed a new type of key switch that uses optical light technology. The company says that it will improve durability and that it provides a key feel that is both light and tidy at the same time. In addition, the Razer Huntsman Elite introduces for the first time dedicated multimedia keys, a volume dial and an integrated memory for settings and profiles on a Razer keyboard. It's a solid effort, but it lacks a handful of features that were already present in more affordable Razer keyboards before it. We would call this strike the brave king, but a near-miss.
All but the Macro Keys
Last year, the Razer BlackWidow Chroma V2 of 3.31 pounds impressed by its minimalist RGB backlight design by key and dedicated macro keys. Huntsman's elite takes some of these ideas and stuffs them into a more solid board of 3.82 pounds, measuring 1.42 out of 17.64 out of 9.21 inches. If this feature set (or price) is greater than what you can handle, Razer also offers a non-Elite version of the Huntsman, priced at $ 149.99, without a lot of bells (no palm rest, controls dedicated media or volume wheel) "
Much of the Huntsman Elite's weight gain compared to the BlackWidow Chroma V2 is due to a new metal faceplate screwed into the plastic center of the board. A handful of new buttons has also been added. The Back, Play / Pause and Skip media controls, for example, now sit above the numeric keypad. To their right is a volume dial (or, as Razer calls it, a "multifunction digital dial") that you adjust by rolling your finger to the side.
Otherwise, the design of the Razer Huntsman elite looks a lot like the BlackWidow Chroma V2. The keycaps are identical, with vertices that curl slightly to fit my fingers. The 7-foot braided fiber cable also appears to have the same circumference as the cable of its predecessor.
The biggest difference you will notice is the lack of dedicated macro keys from Huntsman Elite. They seem strangely absent from a keyboard as expensive as this one, but depending on your priorities, the mass of RGB lighting and comfort equipment could offset the lack of dedicated macros.
This is probably the case if you are a RGB geek; if that's the case, this keyboard will tickle you in pink (and all other colors). Almost all the physical functions of this keyboard, from the keys to the volume dial to the leatherette wrist rest, have this time been incorporated into the lighting. The lighting works with Razer's Chroma control system, which means you can assign any of the 16.8 million colors to each discrete key. In addition, you get 24 customizable lighting zones on the underside of the wrist rests. This keyboard can be a real fireworks desk, if you want it.
Speaking of the palmrest, it is a comfortable model. It magnetically attaches to the base of the keyboard, with an electrical contact in the center to transmit the signal and the power of its integrated LEDs. If you prefer an imitation leatherette on plastic instead of a hard wrist rest, you are in for a treat.
Switching Up: Opto-Mechanical
The make-or-break element of any mechanical keyboard, of course, is the switches that it uses, and these are a new genre. The keys to the Huntsman Elite resemble those of the old Cherry MX Blues, that is, clatter without a doubt, with clear feedback on the key and a little bump in the key action. They have the same sound as the classic MX Blues, but they have a lighter touch, requiring a force of 45 centiton-newtons (cN), unlike the 50cN rating of the original Cherry MX Blues.
This is an important distinction, as Razer whips these new opto-mechanical switches as the "lightest clicky switch in the world" based on this specification. According to Razer, these switches use infrared light beams to detect when the keys are depressed, rather than taking advantage of electrical contacts as traditional mechanical keyboards do. As Razer says, "A light beam passes through the switch rod when a key is pressed, which then actuates via a receiver that sends the corresponding signal to the computer's operation at the speed light."
I suspect that some marketing mumbo-jumbo here-speed of light compared to the speed of an electrical contact? -and could not tell the touch sensation a specific tactile distinction that the optical appearance book. It feels like a typical mechanical switch, with a slight clean flavor. To test if that makes a difference in real life applications, I put the Huntsman Elite to LiveChat's free hit speed test against a keyboard equipped with Cherry MX Blue that I had on hand, the Fnatic Streak. On the Fnatic, I got a speed of 72 words per minute and an accuracy of 97%. On the other hand, with the Razer Huntsman Elite, I got 71 words per minute with an accuracy of 95% on the second try
This is quite anecdotal, of course, and I'm waiting to upgrade the Elite Huntsman as I'm getting used to these lighter switches. But in the beginning, I find that every keystroke on every keystroke is not as easy as it is with non-clicky switches such as Cherry MX Reds. (Then I prefers linear key switches, such as the MX Reds, to those that are rattling and noisy, so take my stand with the appropriate grain of salt.) However, down-out the feature is curious if we consider that the key switches of the Huntsman Elite have a vertical movement distance of 3.5 mm and a 1.5 mm operating point; on the other hand, the Cherry MX Reds / Browns have a movement distance of 4 mm and an operating point of 2 mm. So, you have to press the keys of the Huntsman minus to activate them.
Also note: unlike the Chroma V2 from BlackWidow, the Huntsman Elite comes in a single switch flavor, the so-called "purple" Opto-Mechanical. That's fine, although my instinctive reaction is to ask, where are the Razer Orange and Opto-Mechanical Yellow equivalents? As a long time user of Razer keyboards, it seems strange to me that a new flagship is devoid of option for quieter keys. Maybe Ming Lian-Tang and company will save them for a later date.
For the game, the Elite Razer Huntsman is, indeed, fast for a slamming mechanical keyboard; I would equate it to a red Chery MX red. In the PlayerUnknown Battlegrounds (PUBG), you can crawl into the bushes with the reassuring and audible assurance of your keys as you are moving. Plus, in Starcraft II, you can be certain that your frantic strike of the letter "A" will be recorded when replicating a new Navy. For Cherry MX Blues fans, Razer's Opto-Mechanical switch is a promising and lightweight alternative to the long-time favorite. Players and typists who prefer a metallic and decisive answer to their keys should love the sensation.
Razer notes the switches for a lifetime of 100 million keys, raising the bar for non-writable requests here. Cherry MX Switches are valued for a lifetime of 50 million keys, but given no way to test durability, these claims are essentially about faith. Moreover, even if it is true, it would take almost 100 years to record 50 million hits based on an analysis conducted by Digital Citizen. As bleak as it may seem, none of us are likely to survive a Razer Huntsman Elite if Razer 's claims are true. Not that matters, anyway; most of us go through a keyboard before the end of its effective life. This future model with 300 RGB zones will probably seduce us first
In the meantime, take of comfort the fact that the Huntsman Elite Razer has a 10-key bearing that works well, according to my experience with Aqua Key Test OTD . The image above illustrates one of my many attempts to overwrite 10 keys at a time, all of which have all recorded keystrokes. Although I can not imagine a scenario in which I could achieve a 10-key master stroke in a game, the 10-key flyby is a buzzword that some keyboard makers consider a distinct feature, given that some models only support six.
Synapse Shapes Up
This is not the first with a 10-key rollover, but the Huntsman Elite is the first Razer keyboard that can save profiles and settings locally – this is the only way to save time. that is, on the keyboard, in addition to the cloud. Previous Razer keyboards linked these elements to a Razer account needed to connect to the control utility, Razer's Synapse software. The Huntsman Elite, on the other hand, gives you the ability to store up to five profiles on the keyboard itself, a task as simple as dragging and dropping profiles into a section of the Synapse 3 utility. Razer, called Integrated Memory. Better still, you can store macros on the keyboard as well as part of the profiles.
As a result, if you weave the Elite Huntsman with you into tournaments of esports, you will not have to worry about the l & rsquo; Installation of the software. (Assuming, of course, that your tournament allows profiles, macros and shortcuts.) All your profiles will be there with you, on your keyboard. To switch between profiles, you must press the Fn key and the Menu key (to the right of Fn) at the same time. Each of the five keyboard profiles is indicated by a color; the Menu key turns on to show you which one is active. (The profile colors are white, red, green, blue and cyan.)
The Synapse 3 software, which was still in beta, is more reliable over time and updates. outside. It's still not clear when he's going to leave the beta; It was said "June" in early May, but the month of June ends when I write this and there is still no sign. Previously, as I mentioned in my review of Razer Basilisk, Razer 's device lighting settings did not "stick" sometimes when Synapse 2 and Synapse 3 were installed . The reason why it was necessary to have both versions of the active software: The older Razer devices (especially before 2017) required Synapse 2.
For households that plan to synergize their peripherals Chroma compatible, one must keep in mind my uneven experience with Synapse 3 until now, although I am experiencing problems on a less common basis now. That said, Synapse 3 is more intuitive than the other gaming keyboard software I use, so I hope the time that wrinkles are eliminated.
From the Home screen, accessing the Razer Huntsman Elite's settings is as simple as clicking on an image of the keyboard under the subtitle Devices. After that, all you can change is listed under two categories: Customize and Lighting.
Customize, you can change the function any key to emulate a keyboard function, a mouse function, a macro and more. In addition, you can create, import, and switch between profiles manually from the Profile drop-down at the top and the Profile Settings option at the right.
At the bottom of the Customize screen, you can switch between Standard and Hypershift. modes. This last option allows you to configure shortcuts that only work when you play games, rather than typing. Further down on the screen, you can enable or disable the game mode of the keyboard (or choose to activate it in the game). You can configure what the game mode involves: disable the Windows key, disable Alt + Tab or disable Alt + F4, whichever seems most logical. This is useful, for example, in Overwatch when you want to avoid starting the Start Menu by mistake when all you are trying to do is to squat down.
In the Lighting column, things get interesting. At the basic level, you can change the brightness of the backlight or choose to turn it off completely when the screen is off or your PC is idle. But look for the Advanced Effects tab, and you can immerse yourself in Chroma Studio, where you can customize the 168 discrete keypad lighting zones, ie each of the standard 104-key layout keys plus two zones. for multimedia keys, 38 under-lit areas on the keyboard alone, and 24 zones on the underside of the wrist rest.
You may change the color of each area to one on an individual basis, but you do not necessarily have to get this granular. Instead, you can use the preset effects of Chroma Studio. These include breathing, fire reagent, ripple, spectrum cycle, starlight, static and wave. In addition, if you use more than one Synapse 3 compatible device, you can return to the previous Synapse screen to enable quick effects, which apply a single animation (or a static lighting setting) to all of your Razer Chroma. At the same time, Synapse 3 sees an improvement. Although it is not 100% stable when it is installed with Synapse 2, I hope that this problem will be mitigated once Synapse 3 has left the beta and will be compatible with older ones. Chroma devices. At the present time, however, unless you accumulate a whole family of Razer accessories (like yours), you should not have any problems with the software designed to complete the program. Elite Huntsman.
Beauty has its price
The Razer Huntsman Elite has a lot to do for that, to be sure. It's a mechanical gaming keyboard that tries something new with its opto-mechanical switches, and that, from the point of view of key switches, is something new, a unique midpoint among several types of switches Cherry MX. And if advanced lighting is your thing, the Chroma function and the absurd number of lighting areas will brighten your desk and everything around it in a rainbow as wild as n & rsquo; Any keyboard so far. The dedicated multimedia keys and the volume wheel, are also more,
For $ 199.99, however, we expect to have everything: several switch options to key, perhaps, but some some dedicated shortcuts / macros. These are two things that the Razer BlackWidow Chroma V2 had already before the Huntsman Elite debuted, and they are a prerequisite for playing $ 200-keyboard tables. As a result of this, we hope that Razer-and-sonailers-adjust where this keyboard will register, before long, with a bit of a drop in prices.
