Ok, that’s wrong. There’s actually two BlackWidows in town, and they’re invading your gaming space! There aren’t many mechanical gaming keyboards out there in the gaming market. Most notably would be Steelseries 7G Professional Gaming Keyboard, but that was also rather dated, launched back in May 2008 with not many gaming features like macros and bling-blings. For the past three years, the gaming accessory company has been toiling in a back room trying to figure out how to really get mechanical keyboards right; according to it, the vast majority of the options today “feature stiff keys that cause key actuation fatigue,” and it has sought to remedy said issue with the BlackWidow and BlackWidow Ultimate.

Launched today over at Gamescom, these two keyboards offer key actuation that feels much like a mouse click, with an actuation point that’s actually halfway through the full travel distance. The company claims that its power-packing pair has one of the lightest actuation forces for all keyboards, making it ideal for hardcore gamers who can’t be bothered with missing a single keystroke. The standard BlackWidow offers up fully programmable keys with on-the-fly macro recording as well as five additional gaming keys, while the Ultimate edition adds individually backlit keys with five levels of lighting, 3.5-inch audio and microphone out jacks as well as an additional USB port. Both ‘boards are due out next month for $79.99 / $129.99, respectively.

Actuation force

Most mechanical keyboards require 60-80g of force to actuate keystroke commands, resulting in actuation fatigue that decreases gameplay performance.

The Razer BlackWidow’s optimized key actuation force of 50g enables you to respond faster in the heat of battle and outlast your opponents.

Tactile feedback

Other mechanical keyboards provide little to no tactile feedback at the point of key actuation, so you cannot ensure that your command has fired until you bottom out your key stroke.

The Razer BlackWidow’s distinct tactile feedback upon key actuation simulates the experience and precision of performing a mouse click. Combined with an actuation point of 2mm (halfway through the 4mm full travel distance), you will know exactly when your command has fired so you can rapidly move on to the next key stroke and move in for the quick kill.

SOURCE via Razer