Razer BlackWidow V4 Professional overview: Lightning fast and loaded with macros

Value When Reviewed

245 €

Greatest Costs As we speak: Razer BlackWidow V4 Professional

The Razer Black Widow V4 Professional mechanical keyboard crept into Razer’s peripherals line-up as the primary V4 product the corporate ever made—and certainly it’s a super check case to point out off simply how lavish the corporate’s V4 merchandise are more likely to get.

The keyboard’s deserves learn like a listing of esteemed honors, together with options like its Doubleshot ABS keycaps, 8,000Hz hyperpolling price, eight devoted macro keys, and a number of the glitziest RGB you’re ever more likely to see. It comes with a silver spoon worth of $229.99 USD, which admittedly is a troublesome tablet to swallow, however we predict critical avid gamers aren’t going to be too fussed in regards to the worth as soon as they get a style of what’s on provide.

Additional studying: See our roundup of the perfect gaming keyboards to find out about competing merchandise.

Razer BlackWidow V4 Professional design and construct

The V4 Professional is a hefty full-sized battle station of a keyboard. Measuring 1.7 x 18.25 x 9.25 (HWD) inches with the wrist relaxation connected, it was so huge I wanted a number of free area round me simply to make use of it. For measurement comparability, it’s half an inch wider than its predecessor the Razer BlackWidow V3 Professional. It additionally weighs 2.40 kilos (once more with the wrist relaxation connected), which can make some avid gamers who like to hold their keyboards to LAN events wince on the prospect.

That stated, in the event you do have the room to deal with it, it’s a luxurious that you simply’ll take pleasure in for absolutely anything you do in your laptop—be that gaming, mucking about in Home windows, and even for these lengthy hours of leisure spreadsheeting you love to do every evening after work.

Why? As a result of Razer has poured its absolute best applied sciences into the V4 Professional and it actually exhibits. Take the keys for example: They characteristic delicately carved concave tops so your fingertips sit neatly in place with out sliding off. Per-key RGB lighting additionally shines brightly although every key cap, which by the way, are made Doubleshot, which suggests the lettering is sealed beneath a coating so it’s nearly inconceivable to rub off.

Dominic Bayley / IDG

As for the switches, the V4 Professional comes with the perfect Razer has to supply—both Inexperienced (Clicky) or Yellow (Linear) full-sized mechanical switches, every rated for an exceptionally hardy 100 million presses.

The swap variants do differ barely in how they reply and really feel. As an example, the Yellow switches are stated to be quieter and smoother. They’ve an actuation level located 1.2mm above the keyboard and supply 45g of actuation pressure. Inexperienced, however, have a better 1.9mm actuation level and ship 50g of pressure, in order that they’re slightly extra tailor-made for stopping unintentional keystrokes.

For structure, the V4 Professional could be very thorough, with nearly every thing however the kitchen sink thrown in for keys, together with an array of 4 media buttons and eight macro keys—the latter of which weren’t included within the V3 Professional and which is able to undoubtedly show highly regarded with MMO avid gamers.

5 of those macros are positioned as a neat row numbered M1-M5 on the keyboard’s far left flank, whereas one other three might be discovered on the left facet of the chassis. The V4 Professional’s Command Dial can also be a winner. It’s very tall and joystick-like and positioned within the top-left nook, the other of the place it was within the V3 Professional. It helps as much as eight programmable features, 4 of that are prepared to make use of within the default setting.

Razer BlackWidow V4 Professional software program

Razer’s downloadable Synapse software program permits you to customise the BlackWidow’s performance by assigning or altering the instructions and modifying what the keyboard’s Command Dial can do. You possibly can’t remap the Command Dial, however you possibly can activate an extra 4 features which can be switched off within the default setting. You may also personalize the dial’s RGB indicator colours as a way to extra simply establish every operate.

In Synapse it’s also possible to arrange and edit the 5 onboard profiles or swap between saved configurations. All of the profiles will, nevertheless, stay locked into Synapse itself, so that you received’t have the ability to export them out elsewhere.

Dominic Bayley / IDG

With all its wonderful RGB lighting zones the BlackWidow V4 Professional makes a super candidate for tweaking in Razer’s Chroma Studio, the place you possibly can create distinctive lighting results and colours for keys and even assign particular results or coloration mixtures to particular person video games. When you’ve collected different Razer Chroma RGB merchandise, it’s also possible to synchronize your RGB lighting throughout these gadgets to create some dazzling mild exhibits.

Razer BlackWidow V4 Professional gaming efficiency

Throwing down $229.99 for a keyboard—the V4’s present worth—is not any small feat lately, so I used to be tremendous eager to see if it carried out nicely sufficient to make me wish to pay that a lot. Nonetheless, what’s on provide appears to match the fact of the keyboard’s stiff worth.

I had loads of key choices for all my numerous gaming and dealing wants. However I additionally actually loved utilizing the Command Dial, which proved invaluable for zooming into Microsoft Phrase pages when my eyes bought slightly blurry from observing my display screen for too lengthy. The Command Dial additionally felt quite a bit taller and simpler to make use of than the equal management dial within the V4 Professional’s close to rival, the Corsair K100.

The keyboard’s huge measurement additionally allowed me to find keys slightly extra naturally than some smaller keyboards, and I actually loved the additional area I needed to stretch out and calm down into my video games.

Moreover, the RGB lighting was all the time a shocking sight to see, and the media controls, which do a greater job separating out particular person instructions than within the V3 Professional, made controlling my numerous media applications a lot simpler and faster than regular.

Amongst all of the V4 Professional’s numerous options, nevertheless, the spotlight for me was positively the macro keys. Certainly, the V4 Professional’s macros are just like the keyboard equal of the Razer Naga V3 Professional’s mouse buttons—each provide so many choices to assign spells or instructions for abilities that they’ve rapidly turned invaluable to my gameplay. The truth is, so helpful had been these eight keys for binding important actions in Closing Fantasy XIV, they really allowed me to complete quests in half the time I usually do.

Razer

That’s to not say the V4 Professional doesn’t have heaps to supply avid gamers of different sport sorts too. With an extremely fast 8,000Hz hyperpolling price, you get nearly instantaneous key actuation, which is right for frantic FPS gaming.

Certainly, in video games like Insurgency or these belonging to the Rainbow Six, Battlefield, or Name of Responsibility franchises, you’ll actually wish to take my recommendation and go and bind your flashbang or grenade actions to your keyboard, as a result of it’s possible you’ll not see a quicker deployment than you’ll with the V4 Professional.

I discovered the configuration to my liking too, though altering from my ROCCAT Magma keyboard to the V4 Professional did take some getting used to at first. The truth is, I discovered myself miss-hitting keys rather a lot to start with. That’s just because keys like: Left Shift, Left Tab, Caps, and Left Ctrl are positioned additional to the suitable than in most typical keyboards, so I needed to considerably reorient myself rapidly.

In my Inexperienced swap variant, the keys had been exceptionally fast and nippy too. They made a good quantity of noise, though it was a deeply satisfying kind—every press sounding like a clear snip minimize by an exceptionally sharp pair of scissors, that had me eager to press them an increasing number of.

But it should be stated that for lengthy typing stints, like scripting this overview, the Inexperienced switches didn’t fairly have sufficient cushioning to be anyplace close to as snug as I’ve discovered the Yellow switches in my Razer DeathStalker V2 Professional keyboard to be. That isn’t an enormous deal—it simply meant I needed to primarily keep on with gaming on my overview unit.

Regardless, the V4 Professional’s chassis is simply supreme for gaming it doesn’t matter what switches you might have loaded. The skin of the chassis feels extremely strong because of its immovable aluminum alloy plate.

Utilizing the plush leatherette wrist relaxation was one other expertise I savored within the V4 Professional. It felt remarkably delicate, but in addition lit up my desktop with extra of that immersive RGB underglow—a pleasant contact that basically lifted the general aesthetic of my gaming den.

Must you purchase the Razer BlackWidow V4 Professional?

It doesn’t take mind surgical procedure to see that the BlackWidow V4 Professional is a really succesful premium gaming keyboard. A extra applicable query is: Would you spend $230 on it? I used to be already leaning that means, however simply to ensure, I did a really fast comparability with near-rival the Corsair K100 RGB mechanical keyboard, which at present retails for $159.76 on Amazon. It additionally comes with further macro keys and a multi-function dial.

By itself deserves the K100 really measures up fairly nicely in opposition to the V4 Professional, regardless of being $70 cheaper. Nonetheless, there are just a few explanation why I’d nonetheless select the V4 Professional over it.

The primary issue is the macro keys—the K100 has six whereas the V4 Professional has a full eight. Admittedly, that doesn’t sound like a lot however even just a few extra macros could make an enormous distinction in MMOs with excessive command masses. Having these further choices additionally means I don’t need to cannibalize keys elsewhere and jeopardize an excellent circulation to my key mapping—which in flip saves pointless mucking round in Synapse.

Moreover, whereas each keyboards characteristic RGB, solely Razer’s wrist pad enhances the board with its personal dazzling RGB, so on the entire it appears slightly extra premium than the K100’s palm relaxation. The Razer to me additionally seems quite a bit much less cluttered when it comes to its structure too, which on the finish of the day, makes discovering keys a extra natural and pleasant expertise.