Razer Tartarus v2 Gaming Keypad: Mecha-Membrane Key Switches review

Razer Tartarus v2 Gaming Keypad: Mecha-Membrane Key Switches review

Razer Tartarus v2 Gaming Keypad: Mecha-Membrane Key Switches review

OUR VERDICT

The Razer Tartarus V2 can be useful for high-level MMO players, with easily programmable buttons, but its benefits are mild for most gamers.

FORUseful for high-level MMO play
Easy to program
Decent button layout

AGAINST
Expensive for membrane keys
Steep learning curve
Limited utility for most players

it's the portly gamer again and today I'm bringing you something different once again , so let's see how this goes so today I wanted to talk about the Razer Tartarus v2 right here the reason I wanted to talk about it is because I purchased it recently and I don't really see a lot of reviews out there about it and I feel like there's some things I want to touch on about it that maybe if you're looking into buying it you might want to know and just to reiterate this is not a sponsored video I purchased this with my own money a couple months ago actually and here we go so what product review would be complete without an unboxing there it is so if you don't know maybe you do because you looked up this review the Razer Tartarus v2 is a brand new gaming keypad from Razer just came out at the end of 2017 and I've had it for like I said a couple months now and it ain't bad it's actually my first gamepad ever I've added one for a long time mainly to play mmo's when I started to play Final Fantasy 14 again recently I was

like you know what I want one of these things and then I just happened to find this found out it was brand new bought it as soon as I could and I have it I'm using it for a lot of games since I've gotten it I've been playing a lot of destiny to a little bit of Rainbow six siege and I just used this thing pretty much for every game now one thing I will say about this review is I'm not a super technically knowledgeable dude I mean I kinda am but as far as like points evacuation and and all that weird keyboard mumbo-jumbo that you'll hear in a lot of more professional

reviews this isn't gonna cover that this review is going to be more about just the consumer side of like I've had it for a while here's what I think so here it is in all its glory I just have a simple purple lighting with the fireplace or fire effect whatever it's called and so you've got all these keys the Tartarus the old Tartarus just had three rows of five keys this has an additional fourth row and then has a scroll wheel which I only use for volume I don't know if you can see on my screen there in the corner but I've mainly just use this for volume I don't really find another

use for it and then of course you can have three different settings per profile I think I are actually not really used these that often and then you have your thumb stick which goes in eight different directions there's up down left and right of course then you have the diagonals in between and then there's this button which I usually use for an Alt key and it helps in mmo's like I can program these different keys to different attacks and then I have the alt and press that and it'll do an alternate version like a like an alt one all to or whatever so I can it assign all my different abilities to these different keys originally I bought this with the intent of using this thumb stick for movement top value but it turns out at least to me personally and from a couple reviews I've seen for other similar keypads it doesn't really work as well for a thumb stick as you would think so I end up defaulting to using these middle keys here like WASD it's just easier to kind of use sort of what you're used to as far as finger placement so that's why I ended up defaulting to the WASD and jump then whatever whatever I would use for space is all here you can still buy the the old Tartarus on like Amazon but on razor website you're only going to

find the orb weaver which is the higher price point keypad and the Tartarus v2 and the reason the target is v2 and improved as it is it isn't much as it is more comparable to the orb we for the reason it's cheaper is because the orb weaver uses mechanical keys this uses razor's mecca membrane keys here that if you've ever seen or heard of or used the eraser or not a keyboard these are those types of keys so if you if you're familiar with that keyboard you know what to expect from these keys look at this dude down here I have full confidence in my Black Widow tournament Edition keyboard when I compete it always gives me top-notch performance which I need to win if you just stick your buttons just press the buttons just play the game and press the buttons so this is the orb-weaver chroma which is the other gaming keypad that razer offers and as i mentioned it's a mechanical keyboard so you can actually you can actually choose between the green switch which is clicky and the orange switch which is quiet I actually have the orange which is on this Razer BlackWidow chroma tournament edition v2 oh my gosh so many words just to name a dang keyboard so just to show you a little comparison if you press real softly on the Mecca membrane keys of the Tartarus v2 real soft you still get that click right and then the orange keys press real soft like nothing so that's the difference with the orb-

weavers you can choose the different keys there a Kanaka these are not technically mechanical on the TARDIS the Tartarus retails for currently out of stock that was actually the thing to is when I first tried to buy this from Amazon and from Razer it was actually out of stock because it's so new and people are I think just kind of going after what units are available now the weird thing for me is out of the box this seven key sounds different sounds and feels a little different from all the other keys if you just let me put it up to the mic right and then here's the seven much quieter for some reason now it works just fine that seven key has no problems it's just weird to me that that one key came out of the box sounding and feeling a little different I actually kind of prefer the sound of that key because it's a little quieter but it still feels punchy and satisfying it to press another difference from the orb-weaver is that this handpiece here is

just one unibody piece with a little soft foam pad and the hand rest whereas the orb-weaver it's kind of like a like a multiple piece kind of thing I don't really understand how it works because I've never had the orb-weaver seen it in person but I just know that it's a little different it has more pieces this is just one piece that you can take out and move I've never actually figured out how to take it out and move it without possibly breaking it but I also don't need to because it's out of the box it works just fine that's more if you have bigger Longer manly fingers as opposed to these little sausages now another main reason that I bought this to begin with is for comfort playing on a keyboard I've just I'm still fairly new to PC gaming compared to the years of console gaming that I've done and so when I play for hours on the keyboard it starts to really hurt my wrist now with this it really alleviates that problem it's a lot more comfortable to let more ergonomic my hand is more elevated and tilted so it's not like this the whole time because if your hands like this for hours it starts to really wear down on you but if you're more natural like this which is you know a little more vertical which is why a lot of times you'll see organ

omniknight's that our vertical but yeah it's a lot more comfortable feels more natural to use than just a regular keyboard so that's pretty cool now one of the features that I use with this is razors hyper shift or basically you assign a button to hyper shift on this thing or if you have another compatible razor device you can assign to that basically you hit the hyper shift button that you assigned to and and all of these keys can become something else so you have 20 keys more or less on this thing but if you use the hyper shift you have an additional 20 don't know why you would ever need that many unless you have just you're playing an MMO where you just need all of the attacks in the game or something but yeah I mean it's it's there and it comes in handy because sometimes these Keys just are not enough even when I'm playing destiny I'll need different keys for like the f1 and the f2 and all the function keys so usually I have my hyper shift assign to down on this thing and I'll just pull that down whoopsie doodles so let's pull that down and then one of these keys will be one of the function keys and it works now as

much as I enjoy using this Tartars beats you there are some issues but I think it has more to do with the software than it does the actual hardware like I mentioned there is that one key that's a little bit weird but all the keys work just fine and I think the issues are more software related and I'm gonna get into that right now , now a couple of the bigger more annoying problems that I've encountered with the Tartarus are sometimes and this is a rare thing it actually hasn't happened to me in a while but when I first got the unit what would happen is I'd be playing a game and for example I'd be playing Final Fantasy 14 and I would hit the street key that I had a sign on the TARDIS and I would get stuck not the actual key the actual physical key did not get stuck but in the software the command or whatever I guess somewhere wires got crossed or something not literally but it would get stuck and my character would continue strafing even though I stopped and at first I didn't know how to fix it it just wouldn't stop until I like closed the sign up software restarted the game but after a while I don't know if

it was maybe I just didn't try it at first or it got patched but when that would happen I would just press the key again and it would stop that would fix it I've only really had that problem in Final Fantasy 14 and minecraft and again I haven't had that problem in a while however on the Razr reddit page I posted a question about that when I first experienced it and in the months since then I've had more and more people come forward and say that they've had the same problem more recently again hasn't happened to me in a while it was very intermittent but it's something to know and another super annoying problem that I've had and again this is probably just the sign up software is the software just wouldn't work sometimes like I'd be playing a game I'd be playing destiny too for example and I have certain keys mapped onto the TARDIS for destiny to specifically and it would just stop working it would default to the normal just default controls that it has set up for the Tartarus out of the box and so my custom

controls just wouldn't work so I couldn't use certain functions on the Tartarus I would have to switch to my keyboard and then take care of it later when I wasn't playing in the crucible or something doing something important so when you're playing an online game for example like destiny and happens it's very annoying and that is something that still happens I mean there was just an update before the for the software yesterday which included an update for the Tartarus I haven't played any games really recently that didn't use a control I didn't use a controller on so I don't know maybe maybe that's not a problem anymore as of recording this but I just know that recently is in destiny and Final Fantasy and minecraft and Rainbow six it's a problem that I've encountered many times but again that's more to do with the software I believe just from what I can tell it has more to do with the software than it does the actual device despite those few issues that I've had which again are so intermittent so rare that even though they are very annoying I don't regret spending that I did on this a couple

months back so if you are interested in the Tartarus v2 after watching this review I'm gonna have a link in the description that you can just go and click on directly to go buy it assuming it is in stock because as I've recording this it is not in stock yeah if you're familiar with my channel you know I've never reviewed a product like this before I usually just review games and movies so this is a little bit different I tried to add my own little humorous spin on things

Design

The Tartarus V2 is what Razer calls an "ergonomic keypad," which means it's a small keyboard that has four rows of five keys apiece (except for the bottom row, where there's a scroll wheel in place of the fifth key) above a hand rest. Off to the side, there's an eight-directional D-pad, a small, circular button (Alt, by default) and a thumb button that usually functions as a space bar.

All told, there are 25 programmable buttons. That's about one-quarter as many as you'll find on a standard, full-size keyboard. If you need only a handful of keys for whatever game you're playing — or whatever graphic design project you're working on — it's easy to see the appeal.

Even so, the Tartarus V2 isn't nearly as comfortable as it could be. You can adjust the hand rest to one of two positions, but in either case, you're going to be reaching for the top row of keys and the space bar, unless you have truly enormous hands.

The button that maps to S has a little ridge to help you identify the movement keys by touch, but the bump is extremely subtle, and I found that I often reset my fingers one position to the left or right. That's inconvenient in a single-player game, dangerous in a multiplayer game and absolutely deadly in a high-stakes tournament match.

Razer Tartarus v2 Gaming Keypad: Mecha-Membrane Key Switches review

the gaming desk is a highly competitive space to survive one must overcome the challenge of economic support visual stimulation and satisfying the fingertips of the host this ancient species of navigation is quite the rare and until now was on the verge of extinction however the latest research suggests the growing population of these small one-handed keyboard species it is unfortunately still unclear why many of its kind have disappeared this is the Tartarus v2 the reproductive snake helps to lure nearby prey locking them to become lifetime hosts or until it dies little blast from the past the tart recipe - let's check it out the legendary hyper 212 CPU cooler from Coolermaster now comes in this breathtaking matte black finish the included Silencio 120 millimeter fan delivers great airflow and reduced noise plus you can pick up an

RGB version of this cooler as well learn more about the hyper 212 black edition and it's RGB sibling down below by the way everything is linked in description below thank you very much alright so I'm honestly quite surprised at the number of people who have commented on our Twitter post saying they still use a one-handed keyboard either for I cannot do anything but game with it or the exact opposite using it for professional applications and using it for macros so not gaming I remember owning the Logitech g13 and that was a pretty interesting experience but you know since then the mainstream keyboard market has expanded with tons of affordable and excellent quality mechanical switches and that is the reason why we are visiting the Razer Tartarus v2 it comes with Razer's Mecha- membrane which is which are less clicky blues and because of the membrane thing in the bottom it has that typical squishy bottoming out of a membrane keyboard in total we have 19 keys in the main front area with the Oise

layout program by default and you can see the arrows for that visual guide now it's kind of weird using the shift key because it's so small and had to program mine 211 so the 16 key could be my control the scroll wheel is quite poor here with very loose scroll steps but it is easy accessible when you point finger while the thumb gets a whole lot more than usual so there's the d-pad that's well-positioned with the option to remove the knob to slim down the joystick the round button above and your space key below that is quite heavy because of the Mecha membrane switch and I wish that they did not have that much travel distance so everything is easy to remap but this is Razer synapse that we're talking about so a login is required to create those custom profiles and you can see what key map setting you're using with these three side LEDs so the size is the obvious advantage with these products I love 10 keyless keyboards because full-size boards are just always in my space for Mouse navigation while these keypads

open up so much of there's no real estate for Mouse movement and actually a lot of flexibility to position the keypad however is more comfortable for you like this rotated the close to your body wrist position allows the elbow to rest on the surface without anything interfering with your mouse area also I think the keypad is a massive compliment for notebook gamers because anything is more comfortable than a flat surface with that 2 millimeter of travel distance but more importantly it's located on the side of the notebook instead of the front where you could typically place a keyboard thus the overall setup is just more comfortable the ergonomics on this one in particular a far superior to even the keyboard with the wrist rest so the slight dip and the keys strength in my fingers from a claw grip to something a bit more natural and because the spacebar is lower the entire wrist is more balanced versus a regular keyboard and that can immediately feel some strain relief after a few days my finger memory kind of kicked

in and the only thing that I never really used is a scroll wheel it is a bit unnatural for my left hand by the way you can remove the wrist rest and move it back slightly and it flattens out the entire structure that makes the space key a lot more comfortable to use but there is no way to further angle the keypad from the bottom alright so from a gaming perspective despite the ergonomic and size advantages the keypad only fits a particular play style which is why it clearly hasn't become this mechanical keyboard killer for example in the division 2 you have 10 key commands just for your inventory alone and I attempted to remap everything needed to the keypad but kind of got awkward and I was still reaching for my keyboard to execute basic stuff and we can all find the G key in our sleep on the standard keyboard but because that column of keys is absent on the keypad thus it's kind of awkward not having our standard grenade key on the gaming pad I also had to map an escape key to the keypad and also control to the bottom-

left and generally for any game that has a semi complex control system the keypad might not be sufficient for example an escape from tarkov there are so many controls from checking your ammo type to switching between flashlight and laser to cycling between reticle on your scope that I just couldn't fit all of it on the keypad but for games with simple control schemes like bf5 apex legends quake champions Metro Exodus there are no hiccups and gaming on the keypad aside from that missing G key but you know if you use one those crazy mice with a thousand buttons many of the shortcuts that don't really fit the keypad could be allocated to the mouse instead as for professional applications outside of gaming I think would be a fantastic addition to macro managing certain things that require let's say three presses like ctrl shift and L control shift and something else on the keyboard that you can easily macro that to the keypad or keys that are slightly further away from each other like ctrl + ctrl - ctrl page down

Razer Tartarus v2 Gaming Keypad: Mecha-Membrane Key Switches review

something that does not require you to lift your mouse hand to the keyboard and therefore you can just Mac macro those keys to the keypad and my workflow for resolve and Adobe Premiere and other Adobe applications has improved greatly I now have my editing profile saved with over 10 shortcuts on to the keypad which is awesome I colored that in orange and it is on whenever I am editing anything and this way my keyboard hand stays in the keyboard area and doesn't have to move too much in my mouse hand always stays on the mouse and the main benefit with these type of keyboard products is obviously the size because if you were to get a separate keyboard just for macros that definitely is going to occupy more room versus the Tartarus V2 or the orb-weaver but it will definitely be cheaper because for some reason these tiny keyboard products are quite expensive and also the lack of mechanical switch options for users is a massive roadblock for this becoming a bit more mainstream even so it has that dual functionality either for gaming or productivity that you could fit into your lifestyle and for

work efficiency but yeah it's just not there yet and I don't think it will ever get there and really one of the main challenges with this keypad is the lack of a proper size shift key because the one that's included here the regular key is actually quite small and the muscle memory kind of has to rework itself so you recognize where to press and so it makes sense why these tiny keyboard species have not exploded in popularity despite their dual life style and ergonomic benefits the host might choose a larger more abundant and cheaper animal to avoid any future bottleneck I'd love to hear your thoughts on these one-handed keyboards and if you'd consider getting one now we must leave the snakes alone the mating season is about to start.

I don't know about you guys but Razer is quickly becoming my favorite gaming brand of 2019 it seems like they're listening releasing products that are actually innovative at competitive price points to it really started with the lightweight Razer viper mouse that pretty much everyone in the FPS base loved then came the huntsman te a TKL keyboard with insanely fast Razer zone optical switches pbt keycaps a standard bottom row in the type-c connection literally a perfect gaming keyboard I've also received the siren emote microphone and this one isn't for everyone but the built-in a bit screen is actually very cool and complements the whole streaming interaction if you're into that and then came the Razer Viper ultimate a wireless Viper mouse with a charging dock awesome battery life still a lightweight design and excellent sensor performance I've been using it since its arrival and finally we have something to compete against G Pro wireless the Viper ultimate is a strong contender in the wireless space and now

we have this an update to their gamepad products this is a Tartarus pro it's got the exact same shape as a Tartarus v2 but with new analog optical switches with adjustable actuation points and this new awesome looking mercury white color to the be quiet pure bass 500 is a perfectly sized handsome mid tower with the usual silent properties on the front panel and foam on the interior with to quality fans included plus a modular top section to expand the cooling potential give you Hardware a new home with a pure bass 500 alright so let's get the basics out of the way as the shape and the design really hasn't changed from the previous v2 unfortunately the price has gone up for the Tartarus v2 so you have twenty main analog optical switches a scroll wheel that still doesn't have good scroll steps and kind of awkward to reach with your point finger this space part though is perfectly placed under the thumb and now with better switches it makes a huge difference we still have the same d-pad joystick with the

removable tip this way you are less likely to accidentally press it and finally a profile switcher with three LEDs and up to eight profiles none of which are unfortunately saved on a gamepad itself and will not run outside of your default traditional layout unless synapse 3 is installed and running and this is recognized through the software so that is one unfortunate thing there is no built-in memory the rest rest is the same rubberized material with some padding in the bottom with dual positions for extra ergonomics so when it's extended your hand is flatter and it's easier to reach the spacebar so it's good for large hands or if you prefer a more claw type shape for smaller hands the default position is good for that as I mentioned in my original v2 review these game pads are fantastic space savers and much more comfortable versus your regular keyboards because you can place the probe closer to the body at a comfortable angle it also complements nobu gamers so you're not suffering through two millimeters or less of travel distance on a notebook and of course these are incredible for macros both in gaming and

productivity and what makes the pro so special are the new analog optical switches so they're linear and very smooth and have four millimeters of travel distance and dual actuation points primary and secondary and you can adjust either to register between 1.5 millimeters and 3.6 and this is pretty unique for two reasons first the second actuation point can have a secondary function or a macro but it is only activated when you pass that actuation point for example the primary function can be W while the second function at three point six millimeters can be shift plus W allowing you to walk and csgo by using the same key if you set the secondary function to be the same as primary you get fast double taps and there are plenty of options to choose from although you cannot record mouse clicks to be your secondary function the difficulty here would be training your finger tips and how much pressure you apply to either hit the primary actuation point or the secondary actuation point and to be honest the two millimeter difference is not that significant to notice or to feel in the heat of the battle and you have to focus on your finger tips and how much pressure you apply and that is one of those elements that you have to

train for and be prepared for in order to use this functionality properly it also feels like the secondary actuation point happens earlier than three point six millimeters as you can see I've marked three point six millimeters on the key cap and the shift and W is registered before I past that point I feel like that would have been much better to have the secondary actuation point happen you fully bottomed out this way you have a bit more control on when the primary happens depending on when the actuation set but then the secondary to always happen when you fully bottomed out I feel like this way you'd have more control or even expand that secondary actuation range to be even lower to the bottoming out because a three point six I feel like there's quite a bit more travel distance before the switch bottoms out while it's already activated at three point six and the second unique function behind these switches is analog input so basically treating all of these switches as joystick movements so depending on how far down you press the faster or slower your character moves and you can adjust analog sensitivity

I do like the slow preset to give me finer control at the very top of key travel but this again requires quite a bit of finger training to get right and after all that I feel like the Tartarus pro is just like an overkill macro station because not only do we have eight profiles and even the Razer hyper shift that adds one more layer of macros on top of that we also have those secondary functionality via the actuation distance even if you are not interested in using all these macro tools at least I'm happy we have better switches let a linear and in my opinion better suited for gaming than the mecca membrane switches found on the b2 but why did they have to pull a Razer because at that price is expensive it's competing directly against their latest tkl keyboard the Huntsman te which is fantastic and sure doesn't have analog switches or that much macro customization like this thing does it's almost like if you're not utilizing all

these macro commands and analog switches and dual actuation points then this thing is going to be left underutilized and perhaps not as popular as it should be it brings great promise to the macro lens but it's terrible value and if you're not using it it's hard to recommend at this price alright guys .