Razer’s newest BlackWidow gaming keyboards go low-profile

BlackWidow is Razer’s best-known series of gaming keyboards, and for years they’ve all used Cherry-style mechanical switches, as do most gaming keyboards at this point. Customers who want sleeker, low-profile designs often look to the DeathStalker line. But the BlackWidow is now getting some low-profile love too, thanks to new switch designs. It comes in standard and TKL (tenkeyless) layouts.

According to Razer’s promotional material, the BlackWidow V4 Low-Profile HyperSpeed keyboards deliver all the same performance as their bigger, thicker stablemates while cramming parts into an 18.5mm-thick body. That includes custom, low-profile switches in linear, tactile, and clicky varieties (yellow, orange, and green, respectively), two layers of foam for vibration and noise isolation, PBT keycaps (finally!), 2.4GHz and Bluetooth multi-device wireless, and a 980-hour battery life.

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Naturally, Razer’s Chroma lighting is in place, and you can save up to five profiles to local storage. Razer also says that these new BlackWidow keyboards can handle the contentious “snap tap” feature, a near-instant response tool that generally requires adjustable actuation. Razer claims to have implemented it all via software, but some gamers are unconvinced.

It’s a sleek design, to be sure, and I appreciate that the easy-to-use wide volume wheel is in place. But compared to other members of the excellent BlackWidow V4 series, I have to say there are a couple of notable omissions. These new, low-profile switches aren’t hot-swappable, meaning you’re stuck with Razer’s switches after you buy. And yes, there are plenty of low-profile keyboards that include that feature, which I consider essential in a high-end keyboard. It’s got just 1000Hz for polling, which is fine for us mere humans, but super-sweaty gamers might demand more.

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They’re also very expensive. The TKL version is $200 and the full-size will run you $230. That’s in line with the DeathStalker series, but 200 bones is still a lot to ask for a keyboard without hot-swap capability.