209
people found this helpful, as of 2023
ranked #150,514 most helpful
out of 571,544,897 reviews
★★★★★
New (Orange) switches are much smoother & quieter! (Blackwidow Tournament Stealth 2014 edition)
I've owned several different mechanical switch keyboards and have been experimenting with the various different switch types (Red, Green, Blue, etc.), and had settled on Brown (Blackwidow Tournament Stealth 2013 edition) with Blue O-Rings added as the best I was going to get (includes Razer Synapse macro engine, couldn't find any other mechanical kb's with built in macro engines). I was really pleased to see Razer adding a new Orange switch in their 2014 lineup (basically same as brown but better). The new Orange switches are immediately noticeably smooth, quieter, yet still provide a tactile bump. I like the direction Razer is going ... I hope they can continue to shorten the key strokes a bit (avoiding the need to add O-Rings perhaps) for those preferring that.
I only wish Razer would create a "Short" (more ergonomic) version (BlackWidow Tournament Stealth) form factor that has full backlighting like the more full sized keyboard models ..... since the BlackWidow Tournament Stealth and its sisters have only a few backlit keys, I instead installed LED strip lighting under my desk to light my keyboard ... pretty awesome for now but hopefully they will add more backlighting options in future.
A few helpful links re: mechanical switch types:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherry_MX#Cherry_switches
And a table:
Switch type Clicky Tactile Actuation force
Cherry MX Black No No 60 cN
Cherry MX Red No No 45 cN
Cherry MX Brown No Yes 45 cN
Cherry MX Clear No Yes 65 cN
Cherry MX Blue Yes Yes 60 cN
Cherry MX White Yes Yes 50 cN / 80 cN
Cherry MX Green Yes Yes 80 cN
Razer Green Yes Yes 50g = 50cN; 50% stroke length
Razer Orange No Yes 45g = 45 cN; 50% stroke length
April 2014 · Video Games