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

At a look

Knowledgeable’s Ranking

Execs

• Tremendous-quick key actuation thanks to eight,000Hz hyperpolling
• Eight devoted macro keys put extra choices at your fingertips
• The RGB is excellent, with each per-key RGB illumination and an immersive RGB underglow all through

Cons

• The Inexperienced change mannequin’s keys don’t bounce sufficient for lengthy typing periods
• You’ll want numerous desk area to put it down
• It’s fairly heavy, so not supreme for carrying to LAN events

Our Verdict

The Razer BlackWidow V4 Professional keyboard is loaded with choices, is tremendous fast, and will be simply programmed for a very bespoke gaming expertise.

Finest Costs At the moment: Razer BlackWidow V4 Professional

$229.99

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 an inventory of esteemed honors, together with options like its Doubleshot ABS keycaps, 8,000Hz hyperpolling price, eight devoted macro keys, and a few 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 tricky capsule to swallow, however we expect 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 one of the best 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 hooked up, it was so huge I wanted numerous free area round me simply to make use of it. For dimension 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 hooked up), which can make some avid gamers who like to hold their keyboards to LAN events wince on the prospect.

That stated, should you do have the room to accommodate it, it’s a luxurious that you just’ll get pleasure from for absolutely anything you do in your pc—be that gaming, mucking about in Home windows, and even for these lengthy hours of leisure spreadsheeting you love to do every night time after work.

Why? As a result of Razer has poured its highest 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 implies the lettering is sealed beneath a coating so it’s nearly unattainable to rub off.

Dominic Bayley / IDG

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

The change 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 power. Inexperienced, alternatively, have the next 1.9mm actuation level and ship 50g of power, so that they’re somewhat extra tailor-made for stopping unintended keystrokes.

For structure, the V4 Professional may be very thorough, with nearly every part 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 extremely popular 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 will be discovered on the left aspect 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 alternative 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 means that you can customise the BlackWidow’s performance by assigning or altering the instructions and modifying what the keyboard’s Command Dial can do. You’ll be able to’t remap the Command Dial, however you may activate a further 4 features which can be switched off within the default setting. You can too personalize the dial’s RGB indicator colours to be able to extra simply determine every perform.

In Synapse you can too arrange and edit the 5 onboard profiles or swap between saved configurations. All of the profiles will, nonetheless, stay locked into Synapse itself, so that you gained’t be capable to export them out elsewhere.

Dominic Bayley / IDG

With all its superb RGB lighting zones the BlackWidow V4 Professional makes a super candidate for tweaking in Razer’s Chroma Studio, the place you may create distinctive lighting results and colours for keys and even assign particular results or colour mixtures to particular person video games. For those who’ve collected different Razer Chroma RGB merchandise, you can too synchronize your RGB lighting throughout these units to create some dazzling mild exhibits.

Razer BlackWidow V4 Professional gaming efficiency

Throwing down $229.99 for a keyboard—the V4’s present worth—isn’t any small feat as of late, so I used to be tremendous eager to see if it carried out properly 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 varied 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 received somewhat blurry from observing my display for too lengthy. The Command Dial additionally felt lots 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 dimension additionally allowed me to find keys somewhat extra naturally than some smaller keyboards, and I actually loved the additional area I needed to stretch out and loosen up into my video games.

Moreover, the RGB lighting was all the time a surprising 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 varied media applications a lot simpler and faster than regular.

Amongst all of the V4 Professional’s varied options, nonetheless, the spotlight for me was undoubtedly 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 grew to become invaluable to my gameplay. The truth is, so helpful have been these eight keys for binding important actions in Remaining 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 tons to supply avid gamers of different recreation 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 Obligation 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 you might not see a sooner 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 quite a bit to start with. That’s just because keys like: Left Shift, Left Tab, Caps, and Left Ctrl are positioned additional to the best than in most standard keyboards, so I needed to considerably reorient myself rapidly.

In my Inexperienced change variant, the keys have 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 lower by an exceptionally sharp pair of scissors, that had me eager to press them an increasing number of.

But it have to be stated that for lengthy typing stints, like penning this assessment, the Inexperienced switches didn’t fairly have sufficient cushioning to be wherever close to as comfy as I’ve discovered the Yellow switches in my Razer DeathStalker V2 Professional keyboard to be. That isn’t a giant deal—it simply meant I needed to primarily follow gaming on my assessment unit.

Regardless, the V4 Professional’s chassis is simply supreme for gaming it doesn’t matter what switches you may have loaded. The surface of the chassis feels extremely sturdy due to its immovable aluminum alloy plate.

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

Do you have to 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 acceptable query is: Would you spend $230 on it? I used to be already leaning that approach, however simply to verify, I did a really fast comparability with near-rival the Corsair K100 RGB mechanical keyboard, which presently retails for $159.76 on Amazon. It additionally comes with further macro keys and a multi-function dial.

By itself deserves the K100 truly measures up fairly properly in opposition to the V4 Professional, regardless of being $70 cheaper. Nonetheless, there are a number of the reason 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 a number of extra macros could make a giant distinction in MMOs with excessive command hundreds. Having these further choices additionally means I don’t need to cannibalize keys elsewhere and jeopardize a good circulate 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 seems somewhat extra premium than the K100’s palm relaxation. The Razer to me additionally seems lots much less cluttered by way of its structure too, which on the finish of the day, makes discovering keys a extra natural and satisfying expertise.