Razer BlackWidow V4 Pro: Specs, Features, Pros & Cons

Full-size keyboards have quietly become a minority product, and the BlackWidow V4 Pro goes the other way and commits completely. It is 466 mm wide before the wrist rest attaches, with a numeric pad, a column of dedicated macro keys down the left edge, a rotary dial, separate media buttons and a lighting strip around the base. This is a keyboard designed to be the object the rest of the desk arranges itself around.

Underneath the presentation the specification is more conventional than the positioning implies. The switches are ordinary mechanical rather than magnetic or optical, and they are soldered in place. Polling runs at up to 8,000 Hz over a fixed wired connection, the top case is aluminium alloy, and there is sound dampening inside. It weighs a little over 1.6 kg, which is a virtue if it never moves and a nuisance if it does.

The parts that earn their place are the physical controls. Five dedicated macro keys, a dial and separate media buttons are arguably more useful to someone cutting video or working in a CAD package than to most gamers, and they are why this board turns up on desks that have nothing to do with games. The lighting is the opposite: extensive, nicely implemented, and irrelevant to anything the keyboard is actually good at.

The reasons to hesitate are about what it does not do rather than anything it does badly. There is no wireless option at any price, and none of the adjustable-actuation or rapid-trigger capability that now appears on cheaper boards, including Razer's own. For a product sitting at the top of a range, that is a lot of ground conceded, and it only adds up if the layout and the controls are specifically what you came for.