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United States4126 Posts
On November 08 2010 23:50 CaptainFwiffo wrote:The problem is that there aren't that many materials that fit the manufacturing requirements of keyboards (in terms of cost, weight, ability to be molded, not too much expansion/shrinkage, won't change physical properties over time) and are so wear resistant that they won't eventually become shiny. Backlit keyboards are often worse (particularly those with rubberized coatings); the black coating can be thin or not very wear-resistant, so you can wear right through it quickly, so your keys just have light blobs in the middle of them instead of nice lettering. However, keycaps can be replaced if you find they are too worn after a few years of use.
I saw that video a while ago and there's no possible way that guy didn't abuse the crap out of his keyboard. I mean look at the space bar, it looks like someone purposely scratched off the coating.
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I just roll up a t shirt to act as a wrist rest that i can wash and clean regularly. But i leave part of the shit unrolled and just cover my keyboard with it, which frankly works better then those nasty feeling and looking rubber covers for keys, t shirt works fine as long as you're a touch typist.
If you're so worried about killing your keys just do something about it, else look for replacements online every few years
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so i just got mine in the mail and i'm typing this on it right now. just going to clear up any concerns you all might have about it.
the keys feel fantastic, just like cherry blues always do. some of the keys feel stiffer than others, such as caps lock, but i don't think that's a bad thing.
the body is glossy, but the keys are made of a dull plastic, so while it will attract some fingerprints, i don't think there's enough glossy surface area on the keyboard to ever look too messy. besides, mankind invented the cloth to clean stuff.
the whole thing feels very heavy, solid, and sturdy.
the lettering on the keys is painted. it's not as nice as a laser etched key, but it's better than stickers.
so yeah. basically the build quality is great, for all of you who are concerned. razer's track record with keyboards has been pretty bad, but it looks like they got their act together for this one. i wouldn't go for the backlit one, though. backlit keyboards are always trouble. and real men don't look at their keys.
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United States4126 Posts
Do the keys have a rubber coating on them like the Lycosa or are they just plastic?
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nope. no rubberized keys. it's a rough plastic.
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I just got my keyboard today and I'm pounding on it now as we speak. Love the feel, and in general, I think I prefer cherry blues (and browns to a lesser extent after playing around on my friend's kinesis advantage keyboard) over blacks because general typing on the blacks on my old 6gv2 was fatiguing compared to this. Playing starcraft 2 is just fine, and I enjoy the clickiness to the keys.
The one gripe I have right now is that it turns out that I use my pinky finger as my guide when I cross the keyboard with my left-hand. Namely, to return to home position, I normally latch my finger on caps lock. Unfortunately, the macro keys on the left-hand side of the keyboard that I have little intention of ever using are there, so my pinky natural falls on them when returning my hand to home position. The result is that I am consistently off-by-one on my keys when a starcraft 2 game picks up.
I'm going to give it a little bit longer, but if it becomes too annoying, I'm probably going to return this and get a cherry blue filco board instead.
While I have the keyboard, though, is there anything else that people want me to compare or try out? I had a 6gv2 before, so I can comment on the differences after I've had a little more time to play around.
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On November 09 2010 02:32 Kinky wrote:
I saw that video a while ago and there's no possible way that guy didn't abuse the crap out of his keyboard. I mean look at the space bar, it looks like someone purposely scratched off the coating.
Yeah, I read the youtube comments too. IMO, the pattern of wear on the keyboard is completely consistent with what you'd expect; certain keys are a lot more worn than others, and they all make sense (e.g. rarely used keys like Z are a lot less worn). It also matches my personal experience with those kinds of rubberized keys on things like cell phones, remote controls, etc.
Differences in body chemistry, fingernail length, etc. can cause some people to wear out keys more quickly, and the differences are more pronounced in rubberized keys. He's not the only person to have that kind of problem, so I don't see any reason to think that he trashed his own keyboard just to have something to complain about.
It's all moot however, since apparently the Black Widow apparently doesn't have rubberized keys.
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On November 11 2010 06:08 Kambing wrote:
The one gripe I have right now is that it turns out that I use my pinky finger as my guide when I cross the keyboard with my left-hand. Namely, to return to home position, I normally latch my finger on caps lock. Unfortunately, the macro keys on the left-hand side of the keyboard that I have little intention of ever using are there, so my pinky natural falls on them when returning my hand to home position. The result is that I am consistently off-by-one on my keys when a starcraft 2 game picks up.
How hard would it be to just pop the macro keys out?
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On November 11 2010 06:28 Zingerac wrote:Show nested quote +On November 11 2010 06:08 Kambing wrote:
The one gripe I have right now is that it turns out that I use my pinky finger as my guide when I cross the keyboard with my left-hand. Namely, to return to home position, I normally latch my finger on caps lock. Unfortunately, th`e macro keys on the left-hand side of the keyboard that I have little intention of ever using are there, so my pinky natural falls on them when returning my hand to home position. The result is that I am consistently off-by-one on my keys when a starcraft 2 game picks up. How hard would it be to just pop the macro keys out?
Not hard at all. But I've pretty much convinced myself that if I'm going to spend a significant amount of cash on a keyboard, it might as well be as perfect as humanly possible.
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yeah i too had that initial problem with my hands always returning to the caps lock key instead of A, and my pinky was going to M5 when i meant for it to go to control, but i've been typing on this keyboard almost nonstop for the past 6 hours, and i'm not doing it anymore. it's just one of those small things that will take a day or two to get used to.
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Not sure if it's been asked, but it's too much effort to read through 7 pages.
I've read that it has no N key rollover (registers multiple key presses). Is this true? And if so, surely that makes it an awful keyboard for gaming?
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there is n-key rollover. n-key rollover is a pretty standard feature in keyboards theses days.
edit: by n-key rollover i mean that in the USB keyboard definition of the term, which is up to 6 keypresses at one time. only ps2 keyboard can have true n-key rollover
so if you plan on sitting on the keyboard a lot don't get this thing
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On November 11 2010 06:33 Rayven wrote:
Not sure if it's been asked, but it's too much effort to read through 7 pages.
I've read that it has no N key rollover (registers multiple key presses). Is this true? And if so, surely that makes it an awful keyboard for gaming?
if that makes it awful keyboard for gaming then like 99% of keyboards which people use are awful.
and for starcraft, you really don't need nkro, even though blackwidow does support some most often used combinations of keys.
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On November 11 2010 06:33 Rayven wrote:
Not sure if it's been asked, but it's too much effort to read through 7 pages.
I've read that it has no N key rollover (registers multiple key presses). Is this true? And if so, surely that makes it an awful keyboard for gaming?
The blackwidow is 2KRO + gaming optimized keys. Practically speaking this means that keys that fall naturally on your left-hand function operate better than 2KRO for most practical key combinations. You can find specific information on geekhack's wiki:
http://geekhack.org/showwiki.php?title=NKey Rollover - Overview Testing Methodology and Results
For most games, no N key rollover is sufficient. I'll go on record to say that NKRO is a nice novelty that will make you feel good about your keyboard purchase, but it rarely is a significant factor for modern games. For example, for starcraft 2, how often are you holding multiple key presses during a match? Aside from shift-n and ctrl-n (which is standard across any keyboard), you'll be fine with a regular keyboard, much moreso with a "gaming optimized" keyboard like the blackwidow.
On November 11 2010 06:33 universalwill wrote:
yeah i too had that initial problem with my hands always returning to the caps lock key instead of A, and my pinky was going to M5 when i meant for it to go to control, but i've been typing on this keyboard almost nonstop for the past 6 hours, and i'm not doing it anymore. it's just one of those small things that will take a day or two to get used to.
I hope you're right. For normal typing, it is just fine because my left-hand doesn't move from neutral position. But in starcraft where I'm doing finger gymnastics constantly, it is pretty frustrating. Luckily for razer, elitekeyboards.com doesn't have nkro blues in stock (today is suppose to be the day), so I can't just order one right now.
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Thanks for the replies bLah and Kambing, the link was very helpful too. Seems the NKO should be fine for SC2, thanks again.
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To clarify, modifiers (shift, ctrl, alt, windows on PC or shift, ctrl, option, command on Mac) are treated separately in the keyboard protocol, and are not counted in terms of rollover. So even a 2KRO keyboard will let you hold any combination of the four modifier keys in addition two regular keys. That's why you'll sometimes see rollover specified as 2+4 or 6+4 or something.
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United States4126 Posts
After researching and browsing through tons of mechanical keyboards, I don't see why NKRO is so important. Who is seriously going to press more than 6 keys at a time in a normal scenario unless they were doing it to prove that their keyboard has NKRO. It just seems like something elitists would brag about.
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Usually it's a choice between NKRO and 2KRO (6 keys would be an NKRO keyboard hooked up through USB). I could see situations in FPS games or key-jamming rhythm-type games where I'd want to be able to press more than two keys at once. For example, a 2KRO keyboard might keep you from throwing a grenade while running diagonally in an FPS game.
I agree that it doesn't matter for RTS games.
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The letters are definitely painted on. Not as cool as laser etching, but whatever. I'm typing on it right now and I'm really enjoying it. The complaints that cherry blues are loud are damn true. This thing is pretty damn loud. It's not that big of a deal to me though. I usually have other noises going on such as my music or my TV that completely drown out the cherry blues.
The only thing I really hate about this keyboard is the gloss black finish. Personally, I don't see what is so special about using a glossy finish on something that is going to be used all the time. I understand using a gloss finish on TVs and monitors since you rarely ever touch them, but on something like a keyboard, it would have been cool if they could have chosen a different finish. It's not that big of a deal though. I guess I just have to clean it more often.
The other thing that I've noticed is that the keys are spaced a bit closer than in most keyboards or at least it feels like that. To me, that's not that big of a deal really because I don't have huge hands and I prefer that it feel like that. I do need to get used to the Macro keys though. I tend to hit M1/M2 every once in a while instead of tab or escape or something stupid like that.
This thing feels really solidly built overall, so I think this may be Razer actually upping their quality a bit. It's heavy and it hasn't moved a bit on my desk and the keys feel wonderful. I'm still not 100% sold on it though. My Razer Lycosa only went 2 weeks before it decided to not work anymore. I'm definitely going to wait 2-3 months before I give it a final review, but right now I'm giving it something like a 9/10 just for cost alone. $75 for a mechanical keyboard is just win.
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United States4126 Posts
I think the laser etching is only on the ultimate edition? Seems logical to me.
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EPT
