We’ve Come a Long Way

When I first started gaming on the computer, playing Civilisation was done via one of those generic greyish work keyboards, complete with incredibly loud buckling springs. At the hands of a fast typist, one of those old keyboards made enough noise to drive people up the wall. Of course, the Razer Tarantula is nothing like that. Heralded as “THE definitive gaming keyboard”, it marks Razer’s first foray into the keyboard market, after their successful line of gaming mice.

The keyboard comes in sexy enamel black much like a PS3. Instead of the typical matt plastic used by most keyboards, the Tarantula has been buffed with a shiny finish. Together with the glowing macro buttons and a pulsating Razer logo, the keyboard is certainly an eye pleaser. Some practical considerations for the eye candy are that fingerprints and scratches appear easily. So for people who have oily hands or like to throw things around, some very unsightly oily fingerprints and scratch marks are bound to appear.

Hardcore Much?

The main draw of this keyboard for gamers will be the anti-ghosting technology and the macro buttons functionality. The box might be a bit misleading for the former. Boasting “unlimited simultaneous key presses”, it might give you the notion that should you flip the keyboard and press all the keys on your desk, it will register every keystroke. In truth, the limit is somewhere nearer to 6 keys (normal keyboards take 3 at most). Barring the mutant growth of more fingers or tentacles, that’s plenty for anyone. Still, the persuasive advertising is a little disappointing, especially from a company “for gamers by gamers”

The macro functionality is pretty much akin to the competition. 10 special macro buttons are there for you to map all the essential macros to buy weapons, use your hearthstone, and so on. Macros can even be programmed with a delay function, so that you wait before executing the next command. What set this keyboard apart are the 100 customizable profiles that you can program, save and load. Each profile has 2 key set-ups, so it is good to switch between gaming and just general typing on the fly. You can hence remap the entire keyboard, if you are so inclined, and still be able to type out that report at a press of a button. Additionally, the keyboard itself has a 32kb onboard memory that can hold up to 5 profiles. So if you want to be a real elitist snob, you can bring the keyboard along to LAN shops and still have your favourite profiles handy.

The keyboard itself is very tight and sensitive. The keys are spaced slightly smaller than a regular keyboard, but still larger than a laptop. This means that you fingers are closer to important keys, and reach for buttons like the “t” is slightly less of a stretch.

Necessary Evil?

Quite really, there isn’t anything bad about the gaming features. Probably the only real issue is how the insert/home/delete keys have been remapped, resulting in people reaching for the delete key at really bad moments. FPS players have also complained that they have a tendency to hit the macro keys on the WASD side of the board when they’re reaching out for the Shift/Alt/Ctrl buttons, but that’s a matter of getting used to it all.

What really bothers me is the gimmickry of the peripheral features. Honestly, do we really need glowing keyboards? Or for that, matter, the extra media functions buttons on either side, which gobbles up a bit more of your desktop space? Possibly the most evident is the “battledock accessories”. At the top of the keyboard is a docking bay that can house various accessories – a light and a web cam have already been announced. A lamp seems the slightly more sensible one, since not all the keys glow, and if you simply must play in the dark and ruin your eyes, the lamp comes in handy. The web cam however seems rather impractical, since at that position, the general view people will be seeing is your nose hair

Also, a set of special keys have been packed into the box, along with a key remover. Essentially, if you must have the tiny picture of a machine gun on your “buy a m4a1 carbine” macro, then you can replace the key with one of the special keys. Each has pictures such as a knife or a pistol relating to some of the more common key functions for games. Razer has announced that new pictures will be sold separately. All this reeks of “buy more Razer stuff”, and certainly is something we could do without.

If You Could Only Afford One Keyboard…

You probably can’t afford this anyway. When it comes down to it, this keyboard certainly has all the bells and whistles that a pro-gamer would want. Unfortunately it also comes with a lot of other stuff, that no one really needs, and all this is factored into a hefty $99 USD price tag. So unless gaming is a life or death issue, you probably might give this a pass.

UrbanWire gives the Razer Tarantula 6.5 out of 10

Tech specs:

  • Anti-ghosting capability
  • 100 customizable profiles
  • 32kb onboard memory that stores 5 profiles.
  • Docking bay for accessories
  • 2 USB ports, 1 earphone jack, 1 microphone jack.