ISSUE 380|COMPUTER SHOPPER|OCTOBER 2019 85
RAZERHASMADEmany great gaming
keyboards –we’re particularly fond of the
BlackWidow Chroma v2 (Shopper359) –
but the BlackWidow Liteisvery different.
It’s Razer’s first crack at applying its
mechanical gaming expertise to awork-
minded office keyboard.
This shift towards amore professional
product is made manifest in several ways.
The most obvious is the design. Most Razer
keyboards are big, bold planks of plastic and
metal, dripping with multicoloured RGB
backlighting. The BlackWidow Lite, by
contrast, is aslim and light tenkeyless board,
with abarely visible Razer logo just above
the arrow keys. The only backlighting,
meanwhile,isatasteful, strait-laced white,
with the minor exception of the Caps Lock
keyturning green when toggled.
There’s nothing here,inother words, that
would attract uneasy glances from colleagues
should you take it intoanoffice,and nothing
that would seem toogaudy should you keep
it at home.Razer hasn’t entirely abandoned
its penchant forcustomisation options,
however; there are no fewer than 19
different backlighting brightness levels to
choose from, not including the option to
switch it off altogether.That’s an incredibly
fine level of control.
GIVENASHUSH
The second big step towards making this an
office contender is an emphasis on quietness.
Besides using Razer’s own Orange switches,
which have atactile bump but no MX
Brown-style click, the BlackWidow Litecomes
with abag of rubber-ring sound dampeners
that can be installed underneath each keycap.
Razer markets the BlackWidow Liteasa
‘silent’ mechanical keyboard, which is
stretching definitions abit –it’s impossible to
avoid typing noise unless you take the
impractical degree of care to avoid bottoming
out every keypress –but it is fairly subtle for
something that uses mechanical switches.
The lack of ahigh-pitched click means the
RAZER BlackWidowLite
★★★★★
£100•From http://www.razer.com
VERDICT
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BlackWidow Litecan easily meld intoan
office’s ambient noise,instead of piercing
through and annoying everybody in it. The
sound dampeners playtheir part, too–we
removed afew to see what the difference
would be,and there’s definitely less of a
noticeable impact sound when the keycap
slams intothe base of the switch.
At the same time,there’s more than
enough tap-tap-tapping noise to function
as audio feedback, and the light bump
sensation provides tactile feedback. Razer
Orange switches have ahigher actuation
force than their closest Cherry equivalents,
MX Browns –50g to 45g –and this means
aslightly heavier-feeling switch, but not to
the extent that they’ll tire your fingers out
during long typing sessions.
In fact, the BlackWidow Liteisessentially
devoid of problems or oddities that would
make typing anything less than comfortable
and productive.Obviously there’s no number
pad, but if you can live without this then the
rest of the layout, the keysizing and spacing
will all feel fine.Wewere able to plug in the
USB cable and start typing at normal speed
and accuracy without any delaywhatsoever.PLAINAND SIMPLE
It reminds us, in agood way, of the Filco
Majestouch-2 Ninja Tenkeyless (Shopper359),
another compact keyboard that combines
office straightforwardness with amodern yet
understated design. The BlackWidow Liteis
also £20 cheaper,despitenot losing out on
responsiveness or build quality.
However,the BlackWidow Litedoesn’t just
share positive traits with Filco’s tenkeyless
board. This, much like the Majestouch-2 Ninja
Tenkeyless, nails the essentials but is arguably
lacking in extra hardware features –and even
if it is cheaper,£100 is alot to payfor a
keyboard without them. There are no onboard
USB ports, no audio jacks and no dedicated
media keys, the latter being merged with the
function keys. This could be expected of a
compact keyboard, to adegree,but it’s still ashame to see when even the £16 Raspberry Pi
Keyboard offers three full-size USB ports.
In fairness, the BlackWidow Litealso has a
few, less immediately visible tricks. With the
help of Razer’s Synapse software,which is
presented as an optional download when
you first plug in, it’s easy to set up custom
macros. There are no dedicated macro keys,
so you’ll need to assign them to your
lesser-used main keys, but it’s good to have
both the flexibility of macro support and a
user-friendly method of configuring them.
Even without macros, the BlackWidow
Lite’sdecisive but non-distracting key
switches make it adecent gaming peripheral.
Not nearly to the extent of the Roccat
Vulcan 120 Aimo,with its livelier response,
ergonomically friendly wrist rest and superior
media controls, but it will do in apinch.
Lastly,its small, thin design can be a
benefit in itself.Few mechanical keyboards are
this portable,something that’s also helped by
the detachable USB cable,soit’s ideal if you
want to use the same keyboard both out at
work and on your home PC without having to
buy two of the same.It’s generally robust
enough forcommuting; our model had a
strangely loose Escape key, though this only
came off when we specifically pulled it off,
and it can be stuck back on just as easily.SHRUNKENTREASURE
Despitesome shortcomings, then, the
BlackWidow Liteisagood choice if you want
to upgrade from abasic office keyboard.
Quiet mechanical switches, simple but
effective backlighting and asteady,sturdy
base put it leagues ahead of the kind of cheap
membrane models that would much more
commonly occupyawork desk.
That, it must be said, is what you should
expect for£100. This high price might
understandably put off some potential
buyers, but it can be worth it, provided you
understand you’re paying forabetter core
typing experience rather than an arsenal of
bonus features.KEYBOARDS
Bl kWidowLite