Razer’s Arctosa keyboard









Introduction

If you’re reading a keyboard review, then it’s clear that you care about your fingers. In a

way, that’s overly simplistic, really, you care about what your fingers are capable of. You

care about how fast you can type or the stresses that typing can encompass, or you care about

pure, unbiased killing. Video game killing, of course.




I, obviously, care about my fingers. They do the lifting, the hammering, the shoveling of my

work, and when I’m finished with that, they’re what guide my (no doubt) hobnailed boots across

the backs of my enemies. So what if that sounds trite, it’s true. I want to have a telepathic

link with my cursor and my crosshairs.


Razer and I have always had a close relationship. I don’t mean with the marketing department,

I mean me and their devices, we’re tight. As much as I’m fond of feature-rich devices, dense

with macros and custom binds, and as much as I love a sexy peripheral, Razer keeps me loyal

with one simple feat: their mice--as this is my first Razer keyboard--never get in my way.

They are extensions of me.

Razer’s Arctosa keyboard promises that the same thing that’s true for my right hand can be

true for my left. That I can puppet my avatars as though there was no input device at all.

The Keyboard and Keys

The keyboard is a slate. There are letters present on the keys, but almost only in spirit.

They’re gloss on matte black. Because the layout is standard, touch-typing is no great

difficulty for me, although I did have to think a little when hunting down the print screen

key. The first, most obvious feature, if featurelessness counts, will be what drives people

towards or away from this device.

The second deal-breaker is the slim-type style of the keys. This is a keyboard fashioned after

laptop keyboards, with short keys and shallow keystrokes. I seek this out, others I know abhor

it. So far, this keyboard is a straight win for me.


Because the layout is standard, so is the spacing: my first qualm. I like my keys bunched

together a bit, but I’ll manage. The slim-type keys make up for lazy fingers. The keys depress

very little, but with a resistance that makes them feel deep. It’s not a tension thing; just

letting your fingers rest on the keys can sink them. It’s that the motion is fast. The keys

pop down and fly up faster than your fingers move onto the next letter, which makes each key

feel like it’s fitted.

Only one thing surprised me in a non-pleasant way. This is a light, plastic piece of hardware.

It’s actually flexible. I could twist it with my hands in a way that doesn’t build confidence.

Not that you’re really going to encounter that sort of thing in regular use. The feet on the

underside compensate for that by being grippy. You’re not going to slide this keyboard around

easily no matter how enthusiastically you frag. Typing notwithstanding.

The keyboard has a detachable wrist rest (held on with screws, no flimsy clips) that is also

matte, but the body of the thing is glossy and supremely smudgy. On the other hand, if you’re

not just touching the keys, you’re doing something wrong. The activity LEDs are pure white,

and distracting at first, on account of being bright. I got used to that, too, and if you

sharpie over them they’ll dim without disappearing.

Just below the status LEDs are a handful of multimedia controls. They’re flush with the

surface and not at all lit. Suffice it to say, they are invisible. At first I thought they

were touch-sensitive and not working, but they’re physical buttons that really resist

clicking. I’d say that they were useless, but I never really use those anyway, and I don’t

have a problem with them being marginalized. That said, if you’re into keyboard buttons that

do non-keyboard work, the Arctosa will disappoint.

As a typing surface as well as a gaming device, there are no such doubts.