Piling on to its BlackWidow line of gaming keyboards for a more mainstream crowd, Razer takes the opportunity to pair its first hot-swappable-switch keyboard with a reintroduction of its tactile Orange mechanical switches — last seen in the productivity-focused BlackWidow Lite circa 2018.
The compact BlackWidow V4 75% wired keyboard is closest in spirit to the 2-year-old wireless 65% BlackWidow V3 Mini, just a little less Mini. The 75% size adds a few more keys, including a multifunction, mute and a volume roller, as well as the accent key (grave/tilde) to the left of the 1 key. The $190 black model is available now, and a $200 white version is slated for mid-September.
Similar to competitors like the Glorious GMMK 2 and the NZXT Function TKL, you can replace the socketed switches — and keycaps — and add screw-in stabilizers, but the rest is fixed. (You can customize the GMMK if you want to, but out of the box it’s a functional keyboard.) Even if you have no desire to swap ’em, it makes replacing busted switches a lot easier, and mechanicals suffer a lot more friction than opto-mechanical or magnetic-mechanical alternatives.
