The Razer Blackwidow V4 Pro is a sturdy keyboard with the same edgy appeal as its predecessors. Razer, a company that has been known for its top-class keyboards, had a lot of challenges in bringing the Blackwidow V4 Pro to the market. And while the wealth of features make this a premium keyboard, it is a bit more affordable than some of the major competitors in the premium gaming keyboard space. Let us walk you through the process.

Razer has now adopted a line of macro keys on the left side of the board. At first glance it seems like a great idea, and I admit it's useful once you get used to it, but at first it's a bit of a distraction.

Incidentally, when typing, I don't keep my fingers glued to the home ASDF line, but use my pinky to slide around the edge of the board to get a sense of where I am. thanks to Razer's macro placement, the first few days I used it as my main board, I repeatedly had to start a sentence with I had to type. Even when I tried to hit the caps lock, I ended up hitting the macro keys. It ruined the main way I operated the keyboard, so much so that I considered mapping the actual Tab, Caps, Shift, and Control keys to the macro keys they were placed respectively. Nevertheless, I got used to it over time.

Even in Sons of the Forest, I mapped GPS, Craftbook, Inventory, etc. to macro keys. Using my pinky for anything is a little uncomfortable and I find that I have to look down at the keyboard before pressing.

Logitech's G613 (open in new tab) and G915 (G915 macros that Jacob ended up using very little) have similar problems, but unless you care about retraining yourself to care about typing ergonomics, these are definitely more accessible than the average placement . MMORPG players who use a lot of spells will be happy to know that everything is within reach of their little fingers, yet they can move around.

Razer has also put a lot of effort into the macros, adding another row of three macro buttons on the left edge of the board. Not only do these make it easy to hit the wrong buttons when typing, but they also make it easy to binge on commands while trying to move the board out of the way for lunch: the Xbox's default game bar or snipper tool will randomly pop up, or the game tends to forget about this feature until it is win-tabbed out of the way.

I've seen it arranged this way on NZXT's Function board (open in new tab), but even there it didn't have a significant effect.

Nevertheless, the media controls along the top of the Blackwidow V4 Pro are much appreciated. They have a unique gleam to them and look a bit out of place against the board's other plastic textured surfaces, but they are gorgeous indeed. The aluminum knob has a criss-cross pattern and doubles as a nail file. The command dial in the upper left corner is also multifunctional.

The command dial is the most exciting thing this board offers. The default control is set to keyboard brightness, but if you are brave enough to try Razer's Synapse software, you will see a multitude of options ranging from simple zoom control to track select, browser tab switching, and horizontal scrolling. These options can be selected multiple times, or all at once. With each click, a color-coded LED glows from below the dial and a pop-up appears in the corner of the screen to let you know which is which. The

dial is one of three keys that cannot be remapped by the Synapse software; the other two are the Windows key and the function keys. This means that all other keys are remappable, so if you wanted to try a new keyboard layout Colemak (open in new tab), for example, you could do so. However, this is kind of the standard for keyboard remapping these days.

What is not so standard, however, is Razer's own selection of keyswitches. It's an unusual boxed cross stem, which doesn't work with any older keycaps. As for the switches themselves, I'm not a big fan of the linear type. I'm not a big linear fan, but I've been most disturbed by the linear GX switches on the Logitech G715 (opens in new tab).

Not only are they a bit quieter than the Razer's, but they feel faster, even though the Razer's switches are about 0.6mm shorter pre-travel and require less force to actuate. With less bounce-back, the Razer linear feels harder to use; the V4 Pro's only other alternative is the Razer's clicky green switch.

We also really like the new wrist rest. The aesthetics of the super high quality, textured carbon fiber are not as bad as I thought they would be. I especially like that it clips on easily without lifting the board, and that it lights up around the pedestal in a fancy way.

The Blackwidow V4 Pro is not too far behind in terms of price vs. performance: it's $50 less than other high-end boards like the Corsair K100 Air (opens in new tab) and has all the same features, plus a command dial. The problem is that this is a wired keyboard.

However, when compared to the wireless Blackwidow V3 Pro (open in new tab), which still sells for the same price, something feels off. The only major differences between the two are 8k hyperpolling versus the V3's 1k ultra-polling, USB pass-through, and fancy command dial. Thanks to the hyperpolling, I can't blame the board's latency for my poor FPS gaming, but my gut tells me that I shouldn't pay the same price for a wired keyboard, no matter how fancy the media dial is. In particular, the placement of the macro keys makes them difficult to use.

Now, I got somewhat used to it after about a week of nonstop use, but it will definitely be a pain for some users. [For example, you could combine the Azeron keypad (opens in new tab) with the TKL gaming board, but it wouldn't be as cheap as the Blackwidow V4 Pro's suggested price of $230. Alternatively, you could get the Wooting Two HE (opens in new tab) for $35 less, get hot-swappable, actuation-adjustable analog key switches, and put the money you save toward a gaming mouse (opens in new tab) that is perfect for MMOs. That way, you get the best of both worlds without having to relearn how to use a keyboard.