Razer BlackWidow Tournament Edition Chroma V2
Yellow it from the rooftops!
RAZER’S YELLOW SWITCHES are paradoxical: at once very cool and really odd, super practical and annoyingly finicky, luxurious and squishy. We, frankly, didn’t like them one bit, but it’s not hard to tease out their practical benefits. They’re silent, for a start; the only sound you’ll hear is the unavoidable tap of a key bottoming out, and a little soft rubbing of the actuation shaft. For those with nearby ears exasperated by the audible click of, for example, Razer’s own ridiculously loud green switches, this is a boon. The springs don’t ring, even if you give the base of the board a solid whack— one of our biggest keyboard bugbears slashed through on the list. They’re also incredibly sensitive. There’s no debounce delay, thanks to Razer’s upgraded transmission technology, and the company claims a 0.0mm distance between the actuation and reset points, and just 1.2mm travel to actuation. With a meager 45g pressure required to overcome the force of the springs, and no tactile bump, this keyboard feels as though you could type just by breathing heavily near it.
Damn, though, we did miss that bump. While there’s still definite feedback coming from the springiness of the keys, their light nature means errant keypresses are incredibly hard to avoid, particularly if you’re sporting heavy fingers and questionable motor skills. And the feedback that’s there really isn’t that great either. It’s spongy, bouncy, soft—everything mechanical keyboards shouldn’t be. If it weren’t for the light touch of its linear mechanism, we’d have whispered quietly that this was even moving toward the experience of typing on a dome-switched keyboard. Smooth, silent, and mechanical may be your dream combination; it absolutely wasn’t ours.
The TE Chroma V2 has a lot going for it, even if those switches are contentious. It’s tenkeyless, giving it a tight footprint, but that amputation hasn’t left it lacking on the scales, as this is a heavy, unmoving slab of a keyboard. Its small size makes it inherently portable, as does the removable USB cable, and your lighting preferences (set via Razer’s moderately awkward, but generally very useable, Chroma app) are stored onboard, so they’ll follow you wherever you happen to be, and sync with your other devices when you’re at home.
Unlike earlier entries in the BlackWidow series, the keyswitches are slightly recessed above a white background, which makes the awesome RGB colors really pop. There’s a wrist rest, which carries the spongy theme beyond the keyboard. It’s fat—too fat, perhaps, depending on the position your tendons have seized themselves in after years of keyboard abuse. Nonetheless, it’s very comfortable, and clicks soundly to the front of the TE V2 magnetically, as long as you don’t have the keyboard’s fold-out feet extended. When raised, the attraction isn’t as strong.
There are times when reviewing tech feels a little cruel—sitting here as an unashamed fan of the clack, mashing stoically away at a squidgy keyboard, intensely disliking the experience of doing so, and having to crush the hard work of some of the brightest engineers in the field by telling you so. Particularly when the BlackWidow TE Chroma V2 is, in no uncertain terms, a brilliant keyboard, brilliantly designed, brilliantly bright, heavy, and thick, and crafted to be perfect for just the right user. The expertise and care that’s gone into it shines through, the upgrades from the previous generation all make sense. It’s an awesome thing. Objectively, it’s a win. Subjectively, it really isn’t. The wash of post-review separation anxiety isn’t there. All because of a little keyswitch; had this thing thumped on to our reviews desk with Razer’s loud, physical, visceral, excellent green switches, or even the bumpy-yet-silent orange variety, it would have been a whole different story. Maybe if the yellow switched version hits your desk, the same will be true—but that’s for you to decide. –ALEX COX