Razer Ornata Chroma Gaming Keyboard review

Razer Ornata Chroma Gaming Keyboard review

Razer Ornata Chroma Gaming Keyboard review

FORA fresh take on the membrane switch
Supportive foam wrist rest
Chroma RGB lighting

AGAINSTCan’t beat mechanical switches
Same price as mid-range mechanical keyboards
Bare on features

hello guys welcome back to another review they were looking at the razor or not a chroma this is a mid height key keyboard that has the new switch which is called their razor Mecca membrane we'll cover this in more detail of course as we go through the review but this combines the soft cushion touch of a membrane rubber dome will be tactile click or a mechanical switch to give you a quick actuation so it's available with the RGB chroma that we see in all the razor products generally nowadays that features the sixteen point eight million colors to choose from but you can also get it with just the Rays of green backlight if you so wish at the point of record in this review the RGB is respectively other things tonight got ten key rollover as well when you're in gaming mode to make sure all those buttons are recognized one thing I really do like is they've now included a wrist rest with this keyboard that's one thing

that I really wanted to see with the Black Widow Chrome or X and they have implemented it with this so that is very nice to see and coincidentally since I've actually had the uh not in for review they've released a black widow v2 that also comes with a rest rest so it's nice to see that on the black widow model I'm very keen to tested Black Widow v2 versus the Black Widow X chromatid if you'd like to see a review on that form with them please do let me know and I'll try and get it sorted but of course let's get back to the or not err it comes in the great ways of boxes that we see from them a lovely matte black box with the green sides you'll see obviously got the names and brandings on there as necessary I know a lot of people may not care about it but the unboxing experience you get with Razer products is always very enjoyable also nice little Windows valve is in the shop display you can try before you buy so the top left hand corner

we've got the important information that like the use of my newest and the instructions a lot of you won't want that but your one was underneath the beautiful Razer stickers so first I want to show you the wrist rest as it was kind of one of the big things I really emphasized that the Black Widow ex chromatid now this one they've made magnetic which makes attaching it an absolute breeze a lot of companies use some stupid clip and leaf which is quite brittle so that can be prone to snapping but magnets is a much better way to go about it nice pleather covered and very soft padding on there as well pleasantly surprised by the quality of it is a lot more comfortable than it looks as well the camera doesn't really portray how come fiend softer is nicely embossed with the razer logo as well you've also got some rubber feet underneath to help prevent slipping although it does have a bit of a tendency to go it left and right should you put that kind of pressure on it but if you're typing straight on it would be a problem so looking at

the UH Nitra itself if you've seen the Black Widow keyboards you'll see that it's a very different style from what they are they've gone with much more of a squared off approach with the UH Nauta but that being said it is very clean and stylish so going briefly across the keyboard itself at the bottom we've got the function button which acts for the buttons at the very top of the keyboard which of the F keys please offer functionality for the mute volume up and down previous pause and next track on the fly macro button the gaming mode button as well as a brightness decrease increase and then further along we've got the sleep key so the top right of the key will be got the small section that shows the caps lock scroll lock number lock also macro recording and the game mode we can see actually the plastic protection film that is over the top of this but once you put it off it does look exactly the same as it is there underneath the keyboard we've got nice cable management options so you can rotate it to the left right or just straight to the centre for rubber feet there as well if you wanted to use the keyboard flat on the

desk or you can of course use this stands to raise it up a little bit there's the varying angle personally I use the stands I just find it a little bit more comfortable the cable glued it on the anatta is a lovely braided cable very thick weave as well so it's not going to show any cabling through that's 2 metres in length and terminates to a gold USB like most of the razer keyboards this is a cable that's attached to it you can't actually remove it which is a bit of a shame as some people like to have the option should they damage it so now let's look at the mecca membrane keys and a little bit more detail this first gives you a sound sample of what you could expect to hear when you use this firstly to me just sounds like a less dense version of the green switch so taking one of the key caps off don't recommend you do this too much but just to demonstrate I thought I'd be fine as you can see it's frosted plastic so that allows the color to glow through nicely being on a white backplate also helps as well just to bring an overall really great illumination it's a lot better than the Black Widow crow max we previously looked at and the

layout of the or nighta is what they're actually using for the Black Widow v2 as well using the white backplate with recessed keys to help that glow again so if you've seen my keyboard reviews before you know I always like to touch on the white effects that the keyboard gives off when using this 16.8 million colors that a lot of them offer this one is slightly blue adjusting on the camera now is how I see it I made sure to get that very accurate so it does come across true but just to reiterate RGB do struggle to make white as of seal mixing three colors together so in this case a little bit blue but it's not the end of the world so let's get on to the lighting of the un-- arter this is just one of the custom profiles I threw together quickly then going on to the color wave we'll go through all the different presets that are available first and then we'll take a look into the synapse software and all the customization that that is possible I will put a time stamp on this screen now if you want to skip past all the software and lighting because it is very

similar to what we've seen before would BlackWidow chroma x and it is quite a lengthy bit of time that you may want to skip over if you already know what it can offer so take that option if you so wish so first of all we just got the color breathe option you just did see the color wave as well this Goodin you can pick between a couple of different colors an or fade in and out of then you've got reactive simply press a key and it will illuminate next up is ripple pressing a key and then the light will illuminate from left to right of each side that will happen with every keystroke this is color cycle we have spread this up just for the time but that will go through every color in sequence this is one of my favorites is his starlight which basically lights each key individually with a different color you can set those to certain colors if you so wish but I think the random effect is really what makes this then of course you've got static is you expect to just pick a color and it will stay like it color wave obviously goes through the full spectrum from left to right or right to left whichever you select then if you'd rather you can turn off the illumination completely okay so this is where it gets into depth so kind of bear with me for this so this is the chroma configure way to wake in there just each key and the illumination you can leave from the layer the different effects you have so you could have some keys that were static for example maybe the ones that you can oppress the most in-game and then you can have to

rest doing a ripple effects or a wave or starlight literally anything you fancy you can do it here so first up showing you here are a few of the presets that come included so that's the FPS one for example you can use the WASD and then the half of reload the number buttons for changing weapons for example things like that then I'm going in here and then changing all the number pads to red white and Red's a good combo that I use quite a lot so in this case I'm doing the up and down left and right now it's as white as well so you get a nice contrast and a couple more presets showing you there and then this is all the Advanced Options you've got as well what you can and can't do when that is enabled once you press the function and then the gaming key and then again you can go and make programs and profiles for each different game so you can have one for GTA one for minecraft one for dota 1 for Forza for example anything like that you can go and do that easily in the options and then you can also go and remap every single key if you so wish one thing you could do is if you don't use the function keys very much you could reverse map them so you could use the function key to then do the actual F key so then you could use the media keys to just do a single press without doing the function

something to think about but this is more to show you what you can do and give you an idea of each menu and then obviously you can customize it to your heart's content afterwards you can also do delay key presses as well you can do like key press down and hold literally there's so much to do on this you could be there for hours just getting that down exactly how you want it but hopefully that showed you everything you want to know with the chroma configurator now on to my conclusion so we're coming out for 10 minutes before we've even hit the conclusion I hope you could tolerate it to a certain degree the software does take up a lot of time so let's go a big chunk of it so then the biggest thing to say about this keyboard is is different from what they've done before or skin from the razor green or even the razor Orange keys to the Mecca membrane is a totally different flip and it's something it does take a little bit of getting used to you kind of go in ready for the membrane fill but then having that click which to me resembles like I said a lighter version of the green sound or even the cherry blue sounding for that matter it's something you do have to get used to and you know the click is a very controversial thing that some people like and some people totally dislike it's not something gonna want to be using around other people that's for sure this is definitely a keyboard for use at home when I first started this I thought the click was way too loud but I did start to grow to that over time and

after a while it was nice to have that audible feedback it also means you've got a very low actuation point you may have seen in the earlier clip when I was just lightly pressing that key once you pressed that there's hardly very much traveled to be bottomed out which means you can't get very fast typing and also activation during gameplay so overall typing experience I was a bit skeptical at the start but now I've actually grown to love it in general the build quality is very well made I did try to do my usual keyboard flex and it was very very rigid aesthetics wise it's got a very minimal design which I really do like having the white backplate helps the RGB lighting and then speaking of lighting is on point as always with Razer products the foyers gotta be my new favorite effect and then the addition at the wrist rest is probably one of my favorite things it's very very soft and just makes overall typing much more enjoyable you may think you can't really show much of it during the video but that's purely for framing I couldn't really fit it on the desk at an angle and make it look good or having the wrist rest on by during day to day work I do have it on the keyboard and I thoroughly enjoy using it I did like the

coating of the keys as well it does pick up significantly less grease than the BlackWidow chroma X did that's especially good if you edit like me and you're using you know the same two or three buttons constantly you do find the grease build up to be a lot higher than when you're just generally gaming so that was nice to see on this that it did take longer to actually occur so I think I've covered pretty much everything I'd like to say in this review if there's anything you want to know please do let me know down in the comments and I will answer it for you yes seems like ham so summed up it's a very different experience from what we've seen before but one that they have done very well and being priced at 9999 I don't think is too over-the-top either so as usual if you like to get yourself one of these

The Ornata Chroma’s keycaps are made of ABS plastic. ABS is the standard material for gaming keyboard caps, but it’s not the most durable. ABS keycaps usually have a somewhat slimy feel to the touch, but Razer has given these keycaps a matte coating that feels better than the standard semi-glossy finish. However, the matte finish doesn’t help hide skin oils and sweat.

Where things start to get interesting is the shape of the keycaps. The keycaps are low-profile, yet the top of the keycaps retain the curved shape of Cherry and OEM profile keycaps. Low-profile keycaps tend to have flat or close-to-flat tops that don’t keep fingers centered on them. I think it’s a good move on Razer’s part to stick with curved tops.

What Razer doesn’t stick with on the Ornata Chroma are the standard Cherry stems. Unfortunately, this deviation from the usual means you can’t put on your own keycap set, at least not without a whole lot of effort. However, there is a good reason as to why Razer went with different stems on the Ornata Chroma. See that little nub on the right side of the stem in the picture above? That nub is one of two components that form the mechanism Razer has added to standard rubber dome switches to make them mem-chanical.

razor now this is their brand new or not a chroma a very popular keyboard of theirs but this actually is obviously the chroma model and it has the Mecca membrane switches and so yeah but you can be up in this video if they unboxing it checking out giving a bit of an overview telling you guys what I think and showing off the RGB lighting I'll leave links down below to where you can purchase this keyboard , but as you can see it comes in the kind of standard Razer green and black box rays the logo top right hand corner image of the products and then you've got a preview window here where you can feel the keys so actually up there if you can hear that boxy they still a little bit clicky but they also feel like membrane keys obviously a nice soft touch we'll talk about more about the keys in a second you get an ergonomic wrist rest included on the end of the box obviously the new Razer logo UK layout and on the back it talks

about viously their maker membrane switches as for a soft cushion touch with the Chris tactile click mid-height keycaps policy reduce the travel time for faster actuations and then the customisation for sixteen point eight million colors with the Razer synapse software and obviously the chroma technology inside the keyboard so without further ado let's get into the box now first of all you're always greeted with a nice welcome pack from Razer so this will give you your Quick Start Guide Razer stickers etc etc etc nothing much I need to explain there so that can go back in its little pouch then obviously you have this plastic cover over the keyboard so bear with me and I'll just fine get that off there we go to put that to one side then obviously you have your keyboard here it's not got to catch your cable and we'll just leave over there for one sec just a bit of cardboard inserts and then in the bottom of the box you have your wrist

wrist so I think that's about or what's in the box as far as the content so let's just put this box on the floor take a closer look at the restaurant the wrist rest the keyboard so first of all you have a very high quality braided cable I think's around 1.5 to 2 meters long to a razor gold plated USB connector to plug the keyboard in to your PC so the next thing is the wrist rest so I'm just going to show you guys this first the voice as you can see the Razer logo embossed on the material here nice and comfy pattern it's just not a plastic wrist rest it is made out plastic as far as the actual padding a very nice kind of foam leather material and so yeah what we do is there's no clipping involved you just literally slide it up next to the keyboard and it goes on with the magnet very very cool very easy to remove and one of my favorite features already about this keyboard ok so let's take a look at the aesthetics of this keyboard first of all as you can see the key height is kind of a mid-range very very small though compared to a lot of keyboards

out there and kind of look said on the box reduces the actuation force needed for these keys but as far as the actual overall look as you can see it looks really really nice it's going to look even better with the RGB lighting as far as the actual keys obviously they all light up so you won't be able to see them very well as of right now but the RGB lighting would improve that later on obviously have your game mode for the keyboard a very much compact looking keyboard though quite chunky but raising Razer products generally are so you just have to get used to that as far as on the back of the keyboard and this is what I do like to raise that they do look after the cable management so as you can see you can put the cable straight out the back of the keyboard through this little one if you wish or you can route the cable along to the left or right as you can see have four rubber feet here so if you will a the keyboard down flat without the extenders then you have the grip if you do flip these two feet up one here and one here these

have also got a little bit of rubber on them as well to stop them slipping around so what I'm going to do is I'm going to put the keyboard around 25 centimeters away from my microphone which is directly on top of my camera and give you guys an audio test of the keys and then I'll explain how they work so so as you can tell they have the sound test of the mecha membrane switches they've got some those feel terms of most tactile feel you've also got the audible click just obviously people like it feedback purposes obviously with the low profile keys and raise or classing them kind of mid height and don't really need too much to obviously actuate the force of the key but overall some nice mix of the both and I can see what they've done with the mecha membrane keys so this keyboard you also get tanky rollover and you also get anti-ghosting for a capability of up to ten key presses okay guys let's take a look at the Razer synapse software for the Razer on r2 chroma key board so as you can see on the first tab you have customized

Razer Ornata Chroma Gaming Keyboard review

this obviously where you can edit your profiles click any key and customize it and also link programs and create shortcuts you can also register your warranty through the software if we move on up to will go for the other stuff before we go back to loading and gaming mode but if you click macros this well see where you can make your macros program and save them to different profiles record them etc Chrome apps this obviously way you can use third-party apps with the chrome loading on the keyboard to create different loading effects and different stuff for games and if you click stats this will load up the heat map software and stats & gameplay analysis for your razor on r2 keyboards so if we click off that and go back to keyboard and then go to gaming mode this obviously way you can disable the gaming mode and just use different there shortcuts to do so and if we go back to loading this solder pip you guys are probably interested in so as you can see you can load the loading to different profiles and you've got your

effects if we go in close to this as you can see you have breathing fire reactive ripple spectrum cycling star like static wave and none then obviously having to select your colors you can apply this to all of your other row Makran oba rogue razor chroma and Apryl devices and also going to change the brightness I've actually just clicked apply to other chrome running but the voices as you can see my mouse here is white too the keyboard is now white and also my razor Firefly mouse mat is also white so I'm just going to go through some settings for you guys as you can see this is the breathing feature so in and out of the colors then you have fire so this is a really really cool pro as you can see yellow to red top and the kind of fire rippling through the keyboard now I've not not seen that one yet on a razor key but that's a very very cool reactive obviously this is where you click a key as you can see a key will stay lit if you didn't change it to ripple you can press a key and as you can see it will go throughout the keyboards spectrum

cycling this will go where it goes all the way through to sixteen point eight million colors so as you can see purple to pink then I'll probably go to red and then to orange the yellow etc and Starlight so this is really cool so as you can see it's like stars you can actually change the different colors as well so you have different colors all the way around the keyboards next one is obviously static so white which I had it on before waves this obviously way you can change the direction left to right so obviously the different colors probably people's favorite of the Razer chroma features and then obviously select none where all of the RGB lighting goes off so guys that's going to conclude my unboxing of the Razer or not a chroma Mecca membrane keyboard very very cool product once again by Razer the RGB loading is fantastic the Mecca membrane keys I think are really good it kind of provides like a mix between tactile clicking and obviously being silent if you like or compared to a mechanical keyboards so they found the right balance

there and made a very good job of it and the keyboard looks fantastic and it situates very well on desk the removable arm wrist rest is just top-notch especially with the Magna very easy to remove but yeah top quality product products once again from Razer I'll leave a link down below to wake and buy this product and find out more information

which design has been booming in the past couple of years with every personal manufacturer and their dog coming out with their own flavor of mechanical switch Razer has been at the forefront of this movement with their own green and their orange switches there's only so many ways to make a mechanical switch unique though and the cost is all prohibitive to many especially for premium RGB boards that's where hybrid membrane keyboards come into play we've already checked out two on this page the Cougar 450k and the CM Devastator - you can check out the reviews and now racing has done there's a little bit differently creating a low profile quickie switch which is available on there or not a keyboard we'll take a look at how it's done after this message from our sponsor the new NZXT air RGB fans can be daisy chained together for awesome lighting cohesion in your build with vibrant and accurate color illumination all easily controlled through the hue plus via camp software for details in the

description below so what are we looking at with the O nada well it's a full sized board which it comes with chroma RGB lighting or for $$ with the regular backlighting that's a price tag which brings it into the realm of true mechanical keyboards the design on the anatra is simple a hard plastic frame gives a solid if not particularly exceptional build and the top is occupied almost entirely with the keys there's no separate media controls here the condensed footprint certainly has some benefits but certain people will miss the chance to play with the extra macro buttons that some extra large keyboards feature the bottom has two rubber feet as well as a cutout for routing the thin but very manageable braided cable back on the top we have a very

nice addition a wrist rest but it's not just a cheap plastic wrist rest like some of the companies include Razer has stepped it up with a plush faux leather finish it's also magnetic so removing it is easy it's more comfortable and just straight-up better than the competition Razer is really showing how it's done from an economic standpoint this wrist rest is almost perfect although I would have liked to slow down a little more at the end but what of the keyboard the key caps for the first contact you'll have when typing and they're a little different than most razors went for a mid height key cap creating this strange in-between not as low as Chiclets but higher than regular key cap size this has the advantage of sleeker looks and a unique feel which will be familiar to those coming from chiclet keyboards the font choice is nice and the key caps feel

quite good but what's really interesting is the switch sitting underneath in essence it's a membrane switch even though Razer calls it a Mecca membrane the key principle is still the key cap hitting the rubber membrane service to actuate but it has a couple of tricks to imitate a mechanical switch the first is the travel distance it's not as satisfying as a mechanical switch but it's further than the membrane one's reaching a satisfying middle ground Razer has also implemented a mechanism to fake the actuation of a physical switch and it audibly clicks when getting closer to bottoming out and the faking works the key presses on the anartha feel different when compared to most other mix switches but it feels good it's quick to type on thanks to that shorter travel distance and the fast actuation and the clicky response is satisfying if a bit loud give it a listen now in game these are a very solid switch thanks to their fast

actuation the short travel distance and the lights which allow for quick responses and even though keyboards make very little difference to end game performance you'll still find this quite nice for gaming so are these worse than mechanical switches it's really up to your preference I think of these less of a poor man's mechanical and more another switch variant for your preference it's not for everyone but they're very good in their own right as usual when it comes to talking about any peripheral I would really suggest you try these switches before spending any money on a keyboard like the anata personal buying is an intensely personal choice and you should always have a frame of reference before spending almost $100 on a keyboard mouse or even a headset your NASA is also accompanied by Razer synapse software

suite which is always very good unsurprisingly you've got profile and macro support as well as the option to set up custom key binds as well as a dedicated game mode disabling the windows key as well as alt f4 and alt tab optionally the cool part of Razer software is the stats sections when synapse opens it will record your keystrokes in-game and give some cool stats as well as a heat map of the keyboard so you can see which keys you press most it's not a whole lot of practical application but it's a nice feature to have the last point of contention is the chroma lighting for another $20 it is a decent price premium but you do get some nice RGB lighting for it the white back plate on the anartha creates this vibrant glow which looks great and it's one of my favorite lit keyboards I've seen raises software as powerful as ever allowing for some solid customizations and effects they also have Chrome or apps allowing for third party game integration so that you can have specific in-game reactions of the lighting in the end it's up to

you if the RGB lighting is worth $20 so conclusions the razor or Nauta is something different and that's a good thing the low profile key caps and the interesting switchers combined with great lighting and a solid design create a compelling keyboard and the best in its class wrist rest is a nice touch it's still not cheap , for the chroma variants but if the switches are your thing it's a solid offering so thank you for everyone if you enjoyed this review make sure to leave a comment down below on your thoughts on Mac brain switches and other - mechanical keyboards on the market I made with hardworkand we'll see you in the next one