This is my first mechanical keyboard and I feel that it will most peoples first mechanical keyboard as well. This is the first keyboard I have bought in several years. Since I get a lot of parts and pieces coming through my office I have just been using recycled and extra’s out of new builds. This is definitely a new experience.

Let’s go over the two big things on this keyboard.

The RGB under lighting. This is super neat. From being able to have it ripple when a key is pressed to full scenes that are downloadable (I liked the Christmas and US Flag). There is lighting under the keys and the main key function is lit. Razer comes with a really good customizer to make your own lighting designs. I’m no good at it but I am able to appreciate the power. The lights were bright but not blinding. It was in that sweet spot.

Clicky Clacks Clickety Clacks Clicky Clacks Clicky Clacks Clicky Clacks. This is the main selling point of a mechanical keyboard. The keys here are like arcade buttons with actual switches and not a little membrane overlay that completes a circuit as most keyboards use. With this being mechanical it is noisy. It felt like I was firing off a machine gun when using this at night. I was afraid it was going to wake up my wife and newborn when I am typing away. But it feels so good to use. It’s not like typing on a sponge. I love it I really do. There are different flavors of switches if you don’t like the noise.

The braided cable that comes on this keyboard is long, at 6 feet this should be long enough. Also, it’s not just a single USB. There is a passthrough port for USB, mic, and audio. Which is super convenient. As a southpaw, I would have preferred the ports being on the left side, but that’s not a big issue. I might have been blind, but I did not see a way to default the function keys to be to be the media keys. Also the numlock and capslock light are really faint and hard to see. Which is kinda funny since all the other lights are amazing.

The Razer Synapse software is good with the color configuration tool. Although being forced to create an account before you can do anything with the keyboard was a letdown. I did like how it saves my configuration when I took this keyboard from the office to my house. I just wish I didn’t need to have an account to play with the colors.

The switches are rated for 80 million presses. To put that into perspective you would need to press a key 219,179 times a day to key a switch in a year. There are five macro keys on the left-hand side that come in really handy. I’m all about keyboard shortcuts so these keys are really useful.

This is a really good keyboard. When I type on a membrane keyboard it feels like something’s missing. If you want to get a mechanical keyboard you will not go wrong with the is purchase. I highly recommend it.