Razer BlackWidow V4 Pro review: Lightning quick and loaded with macros

Price When Reviewed

229.99

Best Prices Today: Razer BlackWidow V4 Pro

$229.99

The Razer Black Widow V4 Pro mechanical keyboard crept into Razer’s peripherals line-up as the primary V4 product the corporate ever made—and certainly it’s an excellent take a look at case to indicate 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 fee, eight devoted macro keys, and a few of the glitziest RGB you’re ever more likely to see. It comes with a silver spoon value of $229.99 USD, which admittedly is a troublesome capsule to swallow, however we predict severe avid gamers aren’t going to be too fussed in regards to the value as soon as they get a style of what’s on supply.

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

Razer BlackWidow V4 Pro design and construct

The V4 Pro 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 large I wanted a lot 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 Pro. 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 mentioned, if you happen to do have the room to accommodate it, it’s a luxurious that you simply’ll take pleasure in for absolutely anything you do in your pc—be that gaming, mucking about in Windows, and even for these lengthy hours of leisure spreadsheeting you love to do every night time after work.

Why? Because Razer has poured its highest applied sciences into the V4 Pro and it actually reveals. Take the keys as an illustration: They function 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 just about not possible to rub off.

Dominic Bayley / IDG

As for the switches, the V4 Pro comes with the easiest Razer has to supply—both Green (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. For occasion, the Yellow switches are mentioned to be quieter and smoother. They have an actuation level located 1.2mm above the keyboard and supply 45g of actuation power. Green, alternatively, have a better 1.9mm actuation level and ship 50g of power, so that they’re a little bit extra tailor-made for stopping unintended keystrokes.

For structure, the V4 Pro could be very thorough, with nearly all the pieces 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 Pro and which is able to undoubtedly show very talked-about with MMO avid gamers.

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

Razer BlackWidow V4 Pro software program

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

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

Dominic Bayley / IDG

With all its superb RGB lighting zones the BlackWidow V4 Pro makes an excellent candidate for tweaking in Razer’s Chroma Studio, the place you’ll be able to create distinctive lighting results and colours for keys and even assign particular results or colour combos to particular person video games. If 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 reveals.

Razer BlackWidow V4 Pro gaming efficiency

Throwing down $229.99 for a keyboard—the V4’s present value—is not 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. However, what’s on supply appears to match the fact of the keyboard’s stiff value.

I had loads of key choices for all my numerous gaming and dealing wants. But I additionally actually loved utilizing the Command Dial, which proved invaluable for zooming into Microsoft Word pages when my eyes acquired a little bit blurry from looking at my display screen for too lengthy. The Command Dial additionally felt rather a lot taller and simpler to make use of than the equal management dial within the V4 Pro’s close to rival, the Corsair K100.

The keyboard’s large measurement additionally allowed me to find keys a little bit extra naturally than some smaller keyboards, and I actually loved the additional area I needed to stretch out and chill out into my video games.

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

Among all of the V4 Pro’s numerous options, nonetheless, the spotlight for me was positively the macro keys. Indeed, the V4 Pro’s macros are just like the keyboard equal of the Razer Naga V3 Pro’s mouse buttons—each supply so many choices to assign spells or instructions for expertise that they’ve rapidly grew to become invaluable to my gameplay. In reality, so helpful had been these eight keys for binding important actions in Final Fantasy XIV, they really allowed me to complete quests in half the time I usually do.

Razer

That’s to not say the V4 Pro doesn’t have tons to supply avid gamers of different sport sorts too. With an extremely fast 8,000Hz hyperpolling fee, you get just about instantaneous key actuation, which is good for frantic FPS gaming.

Indeed, in video games like Insurgency or these belonging to the Rainbow Six, Battlefield, or Call of Duty 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 could not see a quicker deployment than you’ll with the V4 Pro.

I discovered the configuration to my liking too, though altering from my ROCCAT Magma keyboard to the V4 Pro did take some getting used to at first. In reality, I discovered myself miss-hitting keys quite a bit at first. That’s just because keys like: Left Shift, Left Tab, Caps, and Left Ctrl are situated additional to the fitting than in most typical keyboards, so I needed to considerably reorient myself rapidly.

In my Green change 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 increasingly.

Yet it should be mentioned that for lengthy typing stints, like penning this evaluation, the Green 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 Pro keyboard to be. That isn’t a giant deal—it simply meant I needed to primarily persist with gaming on my evaluation unit.

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

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

Should you purchase the Razer BlackWidow V4 Pro?

It doesn’t take mind surgical procedure to see that the BlackWidow V4 Pro 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 ensure, I did a really fast comparability with near-rival the Corsair Okay100 RGB mechanical keyboard, which at the moment retails for $159.76 on Amazon. It additionally comes with extra macro keys and a multi-function dial.

On its personal deserves the Okay100 truly measures up fairly properly towards the V4 Pro, regardless of being $70 cheaper. However, there are a number of explanation why I’d nonetheless select the V4 Pro over it.

The first issue is the macro keys—the Okay100 has six whereas the V4 Pro 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 additional choices additionally means I don’t must cannibalize keys elsewhere and jeopardize an excellent circulation to my key mapping—which in flip saves pointless mucking round in Synapse.

Additionally, whereas each keyboards function RGB, solely Razer’s wrist pad enhances the board with its personal dazzling RGB, so on the entire it seems a little bit extra premium than the Okay100’s palm relaxation. The Razer to me additionally seems rather a lot much less cluttered when it comes to its structure too, which on the finish of the day, makes discovering keys a extra natural and pleasing expertise.