At DreamHack Winter 2016 I had the chance to receive a Razer Black Widow Tournament edition and review it. As a gamer your keyboard is like a extension of your hands. If you think "a move", your fingers needs to push the buttons before you have to check your keyboard. What a joy! I needed a gaming keyboard for my new gaming set up so I was exited to check it out. This will be my very first gaming keyboard.When opening the box where the keyboard was sleeping, yes I call it sleeping, when I connected the keyboard the options were on "breathing". Like it woke up from the first time from a long long sleep. The only that was missing was a voice saying "Hello Yumi, how are we going to slay people online". But, when I open the box and it had a handy bag for the e-sporters among us.

Oooh colours

When you first connect the keyboard, you can see the extensive color pattern. Razer offers RGB lighting and has the possibility to personalize every key in what ever colour you want, up to 16.8 million customized color options. When you install Razer Synapse you will have access to configuration software. This allows you to rebind controls or assign macros to any of your Razer peripherals and save all your settings automatically to the cloud. No more annoying device configurations when you arrive at LAN parties or tourneys, as you can pull them from the cloud, and get owning right away.Every key on your keyboard can be adjusted into several colours. There are also pre configurations for FPS, MOBA, MMO and RTS games. I usually use the League of Legends configuration, since that is the game I play most on PC. It is pretty easy to change the pre configurations. I even added some more keys that I use like, Y for lock screen. I also changed the logo of Razer into waves of colours ( changes colours every ms). The rest of the keys on the keyboard are in breathing stand. That means that the colours of every key that is not in my League of Legends configurations is changing different colours every second. I chose this because it feels like my keyboard is alive. All the keys are breathing and the Razer logo is its heart. I know...that sounds Awesome!!

Mechanical keys

In the gaming scene a non mechanical keyboard is blasphemy,  everything in this scene is build for performance increase. What I thought was great about the keyboard is that I can unplug every key on the board, but what sucks is that some keys are bigger then the rest. So I can't swap keys. Underneath every key is a physical switch because of that your typing feels more natural. Why is this important for a gamer? Well, when you are in an epic League of Legends battle it's really important that every keystroke is registered. Otherwise you will be the feeder of the team and you will be reported.

Team mate during an epic team battle in League of Legends: Nami you noob! Do something!Nami (me) : I am sorry! My stupid keyboard didn't react to all of my millions clicks. Total panic.

When you press a key, the stem travels downwards, depressing the spring till the switch is activated and your action is actuated. Upon release, the spring bounces back to its original position, thus resetting the key. I do understand why this is necessary for FPS. If the key is slow and is not in it's original preset you will lose moves to shoot people.  During League of Legends, we do have a cool down so the problem will have less impact. The life span of a Razer Black Widow keyboard goes up to 80 million clicks in comparison to a regular mechanical keyboard of 50 million clicks. If you want to know more the design behind Razer Mechanical Switch, click here. 

Clickety clack

You know what really grinds my gears? The sound of every click is crazy loud. Next to using this keyboard for gaming purposes, I use it for work. That's when it gets annoying. Typing up documents real fast makes it sound like a hailstorm. My boyfriend who plays on the PlayStation is not happy with my beautiful keyboard.  When typing with a headset on I have no problems. As soon as I take them off, I heard the clicking and clacking and just want to throw it right out window.

Look and Feel

The keyboard is pretty light and looks descent. The material does not look and feel cheap.  The keyboard feels very soft, sort of flat. The keyboard is missing its numlock part on the keyboard. It's smaller then a regular keyboard.  It's not called "tournament edition" for nothing. Razer made this keyboard for easy mobility for gamers who join tournaments or LAN parties. That's why they included a keyboard bag.The USB cable is detachable which makes for easy storage and portability.  It's a smaller keyboard then you are used to. This is not annoying at all. I was always playing on my laptop, so I never had any problems adapting to this keyboard.

Verdict

As my very first gaming keyboard I am really happy. The keyboard looks and feels great, the extensive options of colors and keys are massive. I really had a great time turning my keyboard into a Yumiboard. It's easy to use for me alone. But hey, you don't loan your mobile phone either. I am hyped about this keyboard, although I hope they will change the click sound of the keys for future keyboards. It's way too loud for my liking. The keyboard is a tad bit pricey, around 150 euro this keyboard is yours.I give the keyboard a 4* star out of 5* stars! I would recommend this keyboard to anyone. Yes, it is build with e-sports in mind, it is also a good keyboard for casual gamers and work purposes.