razer blackwidow - my experience

[Keller]

I though i'd make a statement about the razer black widow keyboard. I got the keyboard a year ago ( i believe ) and so far, it has broken down atleast 5 times. Now i've decided that i'll make a post about how displeased i am with the damn thing.

The first time it decided to break down was right after I spilt some beer on it - all the keys went haywire and i was actually surprised that it worked out well after drying out. At the time, it was also a very convenient reason to clean the board out since it attracts and stores dust like it's the main use of the board. After a 2 day downtime, the bw was up and running. Few months later down the road, i managed to spill something on it again, this time 2 of the switches became extremely tacky and sticky when pressed. - ctrl and escape. Ctrl managed to 'fix itself' after getting pownded on for month, escape though - escape's switch has lost it's tactility. I've showered the board numerous times afterwards with no switch damage.

A few days ago though, some of my keys stopped responding. Namely "." and "n". I tossed the board aside for a few weeks and used a crappy a4tech rubber dome board i got for two bucks. Earlier today, after i got home from my vacation I decided that i missed the mechanical feel and fixed the malfunctioning keys and dusting it out, yet again.


If you decide to get this board - just keep this in mind - It's more trouble then it's worth, the macro utility is a joke, the rubber feet fall off after the first few couple'o months, and as a whole the keyboard keycaps feel crappy. The plastic also bends, but it wont break even after heavy pressure is applied.


All in all - these are just my thoughts laid out for people to see. If anything on the black widow, the circuit is well made so it triggers some kind of failsafe against shorting the board with liquids, since it just stops responding for a while and nothing really fries, and that's about the only pro i can think of, other then it being the cheapest and most widely available mechanical evar.



P.S, excuse the horrible format this post is in.

[Erous]

I'm sorry, I find this review credible, but not in the negative aspect you're trying to give. You're basically saying that you've personally ruined your Blackwidow keyboard by spilling crap all over it on more than one occasion and finally after a few months of horrible device treatment, it is finally not working as expected. I'd say the Blackwidow actually was doing pretty well after the onslaught you put it through.

[Keller]

I'm sorry, I find this review credible, but not in the negative aspect you're trying to give. You're basically saying that you've personally ruined your Blackwidow keyboard by spilling crap all over it on more than one occasion and finally after a few months of horrible device treatment, it is finally not working as expected. I'd say the Blackwidow actually was doing pretty well after the onslaught you put it through.

I'm just sharing what i did with it. In general i treat my hardware like shit because i can(in most cases) fix these issues, except in the case of a short circut.


As far as the final key failure, it had nothing to do with the liquids that were spilt. The problem was at the joints on the bottom of the circuitboard with the switches. There's literally no way those points can fail via dumping water/alcohol on them. A quick solder fixed all issues, though.

It's still my main keyboard and i'm going to continue using it for a long time. I'd just expect it to live a longer life though, being so much more expensive compared to a normal board and the only feature being mechanical buttons.