I just switched from razer to keychron for a few reasons that cascaded out after my blackwidow v3 died over night. For starters, it's incredibly frustrating that the contact support option on their website opens a chat window that's just a bot filling out a warranty request form that I could have filled out faster on my own. After that it took 2 days to get an email response to the form and from the questions asked by the actual support rep, they didn't read the ticket at all making the whole exercise a grand waste of my time when I'm already frustrated with an unusable PC because their hardware just up and quit. After a few days of chasing emails with the rep, it finally came out that I was two months past the 2 year warranty window so they are not offering a replacement product but also that they no longer provide repair services for PC peripherals. There's no reason that it should have taken 4 days for a service rep in another hemisphere to tell me I was outside of warranty when the date of purchase and proof of receipt were the second and third questions asked by the chatbot less than a minute after starting the chat.
I bought a Keychron V6 on sale from Amazon for $70 with a set of switches to try a setup with a heavier throw and a louder click, which I'm actually really enjoying, for another $30. With tax it was about $115 all told, a firm $15 under the MSRP for a baseline blackwidow v4 pre tax. Their RGB control, driver updates, and button programming is all handled through a webpage app rather than another proprietary bloat ware app that slows my computer and harvests my data for resale and it works on mac and linux for whichever route I choose to go when windows 10 ends support in October.
tl;dr
Razer has shitty customer service, requires a bloatware app, and is more expensive when compared to an entry level offering from a mid market brand like Keychron which also offers hot swap customization and user serviceability and repair
It's not for everyone, but for me it's the far better option on every front
Even outside of software bloat, if tomorrow I decide I want faster or slower latency on my hardware, $30 and 30 minutes is all it takes to swap in any of dozens on dozens of switch options
When the w key died on my old razer blackwidow V1 I had to buy an entirely new keyboard, which is how O wound up with a V3 that died of its own accord 2 years later
The V1 at least lasted about 7 years including a couple drink spills
I'm still clackin away on my 5yr-old Razer Blackwidow v3 with green switches and loving it. If I had to replace it tomorrow, I'd replace it with the Blackwidow v4 pro with greens, without a second thought. But I LOVE noisy keyboards.
Very happy with my Black Widow V3 (wired, green switches) as it's the first "premium" mechanical keyboard I've ever owned that \*didn't\* croak a week after the warranty had run out.
Other than that, I do like its switches and feel while typing because I prefer things to feel a bit more tactile and "click-y". I don't really need wireless and while the handrest could be nicer (no magnets or any other way to attach it to the main unit, plus it's not padded) at least it came with a handrest.
Going to assume that the V4 is at least as good, though I will say that I only bought this keyboard because I got it for pretty cheap during a sale. Considering my experiences with other "gaming" keyboards from other manufacturers (including HyperX and Corsair) and their unwillingness to help with a product whose warranty had (just) expired, I don't think I'd ever pay full price again for any of them.
Used the Blackwidow V3, upgraded to the V4 and I was/I am happy with both. Both full-size, non-pro, non-X versions. Can't comment on the Huntsman, though.
If you can get the BW V4 at a decent price, I'd go for it. At a glance, I'm not sure the V4 Pro is worth the substantial extra cost as it doesn't seem to offer that much more over the non-Pro V4.
One thing I will say for both my V3 and V4 is that they never suffered from "mechanical-keyboard-itis" so far - unlike some higher-end products from Corsair and HyperX I've used before. Meaning: So far I've never had any issues with keys acting up on either of the Razer products - something that happened to all the other mechanical "gaming" keyboards I've used in the past.
**Keyboard recommendation?**
I've had a razer Blackwidow v3 for about 5 years now which is starting to crap out on me, and I'd like some recommendations for a new keyboard to get. Haven't got a clue how to find what's considered "good" for a keyboard nowadays, but see a lot of people online saying to avoid the big "gamer" brands, hence needing some advice on what to switch to.
I'd like to preferably keep it around £100, but if there's something that's really worth a little extra then I'm flexible. The loud clickiness of this keyboard has become more annoying the longer I've owned it, so preferably one of those smoother thunk sounding ones would be great lol. I like full size keyboards as I use the numpad as hotkeys for stuff, so would like a fullsize. I'm not particularly interested in the whole building from scratch aspect so I'd rather something that's ready out the box. I play some competitive games but not seriously, and mostly just game normally, so I don't need any crazy high spec competitive keyboard, I care more about something that feels nice to use. Other than that I don't really have any other specifications I massively want, just want something good for a good price.
Anarchy_Shark
