Razer demoed a bunch of new products at RazerCon last week. Trust me, it was two packed hours of going table to table. But the BlackWidow V4 Pro 75% keyboard was one of the releases that stuck with me till way after the event. Even after an entire week today, I was harassing my coworker into looking at all its pictures on my phone.
The BlackWidow V4 Pro 75% is a wireless, hot-swappable gaming keyboard with an OLED screen. Hot-swappable means you can replace all its switches and keycaps if you wish to personalize it. This isn’t Razer’s first hot-swappable mechanical keyboard. The predecessor to this keyboard, the BlackWidow V4, was the company’s debut gaming keyboard with hot-swappable keys, though that was a wired model. Razer also isn’t out-innovating competitor gaming peripheral brands with the OLED display. The SteelSeries Apex Pro already offers one.
Razer’s new keyboard also boasts its proprietary HyperSpeed and 4K Hz HyperPolling tech. The Chroma RGB on this device is pretty standard across many other Razer keyboards. You get per-key illumination and a two-side underglow. You can use the Razer Chroma app to customize the lighting and create multiple lighting profiles. A soft plush leatherette wrist rest with very generous padding magnetically attaches to the bottom of the device.
The OLED display is situated next to a Command Dial that lets you scroll through settings and have your actions show up on the screen. You can use the dial and display for quickly checking PC or keyboard-related stats and for changing keyboard settings such as polling rate or RGB Chroma profiles on the fly.
Offering multi-point connectivity, the BlackWidow V4 Pro 75% can wirelessly connect to up to three devices simultaneously, even while it’s being charged. You’re likely not going to reach for a socket too often, though. Enabling the Power Saving Mode on the device turns the OLED display and RGB off, and pauses communication with the Razer Synapse companion app. In this mode, it apparently lasts 2,100 hours before you’re tethered to a socket again.
Razer’s latest keyboard ships with its proprietary Orange Tactile Switches Gen-3, but can be replaced with both 3- and 5-pin mechanical switches. This keyboard was pre-shipped to a handful of YouTubers whose channels are about customizing keyboards, and some of them were present at the demo to showcase their final results. It was extremely interesting to look at the range in design. The endless gamut of personalization possibilities that come with a hot-swappable keyboard is huge.
The Razer BlackWidow V4 Pro 75% is now open for pre-orders on the Razer site and in Razer stores. It retails for $300 and will become available on September 24.
