Razer Blackwidow Chroma Preview

An RGB backlit mechanical keyboard, with near endless customisation and an upcoming SDK that will allow software and game developers to communicate with the keyboard in all sorts of clever and unique ways. Count us in.

The Blackwidow Chroma is Razer’s top-of-the-line mechanical keyboard. Built with their own switches aimed at gamers rather than typists due to it’s higher actuation point, the Blackwidow Chroma is mesmerising to watch and even nicer to use. It’s controlled through Synapse, Razer’s hub for all of their devices, which means you can move it over to another PC and have all of your settings ready to go without having to spend hours re-doing it all. This will be a god-send when you inevitably format your machine and forgot to backup your settings.

The upcoming SDK also sounds like it could be an interesting feature for gamers, where your keyboard lighting could be set as your health bar, for example, or to react to in game actions, such as when you get hit, the keyboard flashes up red. MMO player? Set your keys to flash when their respective cooldown has reset. There’s so many interesting ways this could go for something that’s still in development.

It’ll set you back £139.99 and can be found on Razer's official website. Unfortunately, the Stealth (which has quieter keys) is only available in the US layout, but can still be purchased in the UK. Which is fine if you need quieter keys more than you need to look at the keys to know what you’re typing.