Razer BlackWidow V4 75% Mechanical Gaming Keyboard: Hot Swappable Design - Compact & Durable - Orange Tactile Switches - Chroma RGB - Roller & Media Keys - Wrist Rest Snap Tap - Black

As the title reads, this is a wildly good, and capable, mechanical keeb from Razer that ups their quality substantially. I am not a keyboard enthusiast, as in I don't buy barebones builds and mod them out with sound dampening materials, etc., however, I am a fan of buying pre-builts and customs from time to time off of Ebay that people have worked on and poured some love into. Typically what I am looking for, as far as the switches, keycaps, and overall typing experience is concerned, is a medium to light feeling tactile switch.The Razer orange switches that come standard on the Black Widow V4 definitely have a bit more oomph to them than I would like; my other three boards vary in their switch style with two being linear and one other tactile with Kalih Box Browns installed on it. The tactile Orange switches can be easily replaced...that's because Razer finally caught up with the times and now allow you a hot swappable set up for said switches; you can find a lot of great sites to get affordable switches off of, but I typically shop on NovelKeys for all that stuff - check them out; KBDFans is another great site too.Now, as for the typing, due to the sound dampening tape job and a layer of foam in this board, you get a pretty nice, and at least to me ears, semi-deep thock sound to each keystroke; typing feels like a dream; not too hard, not too fast, and the spelling errors feel minimal as a result. You'd think, that this may translate to games feeling a bit stunted with the heavier orange switches here, but, no, they feel great surprisingly! Lightly tapping on the keys and actuating them yields a fast response time, and with this board you can speed up the response time in Razer Synapse if that's your thing; I am using the 1000 polling rate and haven't felt a need to go past this; my PC could handle it, but I enjoy...out of the box experiences and this feels great as is.In the coming month I have a Wooting60 HE on the way and a keycap set to add to a newer NovelKeys 65 (Oblivion Edition) board, so I am stoked to continue swapping between options and getting an ongoing feel for this Razer board. I usually stay at the 65% range for my boards due to desktop real estate preferences, but I think I may be a convert to the 75 / 80% territory going forward; time will tell.All I can say is that out of the box the stabilizers are rock solid, there is no key rattle to the right / left shift, space bar, enter, or backspace keys. This keyboard feels rock solid, as I just said, and I am quite impressed with what Razer was able to deliver for people who just want to plug in and play while remaining oblivious to the larger keyboard enthusiast / modding world. Without sound too ignorant here, I have pulled boards apart in the past and added lube to stabs, tape / foam / bandaid mods, and what not, but it just feels amazing to have something in your hands that just feels this good immediately. The last near-enthusiast style board that I bought for kicks and grins was the Glorious GMMK Pro; for the price and what it costs to get that board to shine, I would rather have gone with this Black Widow V4 instead back then; alas, this keyboard did not exist then and I am happy to be typing on it right now.So, TLDR version: Super solid keyboard with tactile switches and a sound profile that sounds amazing to those who are not incredibly nitpicky. Yes, you could probably add more to this board, void the Razer warranty, and make it sound / feel even better, but for what it is, you got something great on your hands. My board did not arrive with any double key press issues or any other small gripes in regards to keycaps, switches, or the stabilizers. It really has been a small dream of a keyboard experience.

If you are on the fence between this keyboard and another, save yourself the trouble and go with the other. This keyboard has a lot to like and trust me I really wanted to like this keyboard...Let's talk about the good first.Out of the box it sounds great and is a pleasure to type with. Build construction feels solid, keyboard has a nice flex to it, RGB is bright and customizable through synapse software. The wrist pad is comfortable and the magnetic attachment makes removal a breeze. There are key shortcuts to cycle through a few static colors and a few preset RGB profiles. I wasn't able to find a way to save a custom lighting profile directly to the keyboard's on-board memory. The custom profile seems to load when Synapse software loads up but this isn't very useful if you use the keyboard on more than one device (gaming PC and work laptop).On to the bad...This keyboard started to go bad after 2 months. Various keys became plagued by double registering keystrokes which made it virtually impossible to use as a software engineer. I would have only docked a few stars but Razer's customer service is awful. It took a lot of back and forth for them to attempt to address the issue. They make you do your own troubleshooting and ask for video evidence of trivial issues. I had to RMA my device for a new one knowing I would probably encounter the same issue. Just as I expected the same issue happened one month later. Even after re-opening the service ticket via email they will request info that you had previously already sent them, only responding once every one or two days. At ~$200 I cannot give Razer a pass on this one. There is an inherent design flaw in either the PCB or the switches that I am sure Razer is well aware of. You can find dozens of reviews and posts on forums about this. Maybe you can just replace all the switches and the keyboard will work in the long term but it is all the endured frustration and bad customer service for me that I strongly recommend you avoid this keyboard. If you are looking for a mainstream custom keyboard from a major brand, the ASUS ROG Azoth 75 is probably the way to go.EDIT: 5/12/24Since writing this review I've swapped out the Razer key switches with WS Morandi switches. I haven't experienced any issues since. I'm glad I am able to use this keyboard but you shouldn't have to spend an extra $$ on switches for an already expensive keyboard. Razer did not offer to replace the switches nor would they replace this keyboard with a different model