At a look

Expert’s Rating

Pros

• Super-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 Green swap mannequin’s keys don’t bounce sufficient for lengthy typing classes
• You’ll want lots of desk area to put it down
• It’s fairly heavy, so not ultimate for carrying to LAN events

Our Verdict

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

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 a really perfect 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 number 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 tricky tablet to swallow, however we expect critical players aren’t going to be too fussed concerning the value as soon as they get a style of what’s on provide.

Further studying: See our roundup of the best gaming keyboards to study 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 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 Pro. It additionally weighs 2.40 kilos (once more with the wrist relaxation connected), which can make some players who like to hold their keyboards to LAN events wince on the prospect.

That stated, for those who 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 laptop—be that gaming, mucking about in Windows, and even for these lengthy hours of leisure spreadsheeting you love to do every evening after work.

Why? Because Razer has poured its highest applied sciences into the V4 Pro and it actually reveals. 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 not possible to rub off.

Dominic Bayley / IDG

As for the switches, the V4 Pro comes with the perfect Razer has to supply—both Green (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. For occasion, the Yellow switches are stated to be quieter and smoother. They have an actuation level located 1.2mm above the keyboard and supply 45g of actuation drive. Green, however, have a better 1.9mm actuation level and ship 50g of drive, in order that they’re just a little extra tailor-made for stopping unintentional keystrokes.

For format, the V4 Pro may be very thorough, with nearly every little 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 Pro and which is able to undoubtedly show extremely popular with MMO players.

Five of those macros are situated 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 Pro’s Command Dial can also be a winner. It’s very tall and joystick-like and situated within the top-left nook, the other of the place it was within the V3 Pro. It helps as much as eight programmable capabilities, 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 capabilities which might be switched off within the default setting. You also can personalize the dial’s RGB indicator colours as a way to extra simply establish every operate.

In Synapse you can even 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 received’t be capable of export them out elsewhere.

Dominic Bayley / IDG

With all its wonderful RGB lighting zones the BlackWidow V4 Pro makes a really perfect 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 shade mixtures to particular person video games. If you’ve collected different Razer Chroma RGB merchandise, you can even synchronize your RGB lighting throughout these units to create some dazzling mild reveals.

Razer BlackWidow V4 Pro gaming efficiency

Throwing down $229.99 for a keyboard—the V4’s present value—isn’t any small feat today, so I used to be tremendous eager to see if it carried out nicely sufficient to make me wish to pay that a lot. However, what’s on provide appears to match the truth 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 received just a little blurry from observing 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 dimension additionally allowed me to find keys just a little 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.

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 packages 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 provide 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 have 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 heaps to supply players of different recreation varieties too. With an extremely fast 8,000Hz hyperpolling fee, you get nearly instantaneous key actuation, which is right 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 chances are you’ll 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 to start with. That’s just because keys like: Left Shift, Left Tab, Caps, and Left Ctrl are situated additional to the correct than in most standard keyboards, so I needed to considerably reorient myself rapidly.

In my Green swap variant, the keys have been exceptionally fast and nippy too. They made a good quantity of noise, though it was a deeply satisfying type—every press sounding like a clear snip lower by an exceptionally sharp pair of scissors, that had me desirous to press them increasingly.

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

Regardless, the V4 Pro’s chassis is simply ultimate for gaming it doesn’t matter what switches you may have loaded. The outdoors of the chassis feels extremely sturdy because of 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 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.

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 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 extra macro keys and a multi-function dial.

On its personal deserves the K100 truly measures up fairly nicely in opposition to the V4 Pro, regardless of being $70 cheaper. However, there are a number of the explanation why I’d nonetheless select the V4 Pro over it.

The first issue is the macro keys—the K100 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 further choices additionally means I don’t should cannibalize keys elsewhere and jeopardize a good circulation to my key mapping—which in flip saves pointless mucking round in Synapse.

Additionally, whereas each keyboards characteristic RGB, solely Razer’s wrist pad enhances the board with its personal dazzling RGB, so on the entire it appears just a little extra premium than the K100’s palm relaxation. The Razer to me additionally seems rather a lot much less cluttered by way of its format too, which on the finish of the day, makes discovering keys a extra natural and pleasant expertise.