Razer announced its Ornata Chroma series of gaming keyboards. The Ornata features “mecha-membrane” technology, which combines comfortable membrane rubber parts and mechanical buttons, which allow for better input feedback.
The Ornata Chroma’s keys are situated at a medium height, which Razer promotes alongside the softness of its mechanical pieces, providing a unique and precise tool for computer-savvy users.
Razer’s Ornata Chroma is an attempt at making the “best keyboard for gamers,” according to Razer CEO Min-Liang Tan. Tan commented that the design and engineering behind the Ornata Chroma underwent many years of research and testing, as it was envisioned to tackle real-life scenarios for gamers to excel in their activities.
A top-tier keyboard for gamers
The main difference between membrane and regular mechanical keyboards is that the keys of membrane keyboards are not separate, but are much rather like pressure pads with printed symbols on them. The issue is that most users feel that membrane keyboards do not offer enough feedback, which increases the chances of making a mistake while typing or inputting a command. Razer’s Ornata keyboard combines both alternatives to bring the best of both worlds for gamers.
It is important for a gamer to have precise feedback on what keys is it pressing. Pressing the wrong key, especially for competitive players, can lead them to lose an event, costing thousands of dollars in sponsorship. Competitive gamers need to pay complete attention to what is going on their screens, so they can not allow themselves to look down the keyboard to see what they are pressing.
One of the details that many reviewers have pointed out is that the Ornata Chroma is distinctively louder than most keyboards. Users sometimes loathe the clicking sound of a keyboard, but others love it, as it is a real-time input feedback that creates another layer of presence for the user’s actions.
Razer’s latest keyboard features multiple customizable keys and a 10-key simultaneous input. It also has a detachable wrist rest with monochrome backlighting.
The Ornata can be set to have different lighting effects. It can be programmed to perform a starlight pattern, lighting random keys as the user types, ripples, waves, a breathing effect which slowly lights up and dims down, and the intuitive reactive effect, which lights ups the keys that the user presses.
The keyboard can be programmed using the Razer Synapse interface. It allows the user to rebind controls or assign macros to each of Razer’s products. The configurations are saved in the cloud, which allows the user just to log in and skip configuring each key. Razer Synapse can also track the user’s clicks and movements, which allows having a higher level of stat-tracking to assess common issues to improve a gamer’s performance. Razer Synapse is free for download and is compatible with all of Razer’s products.
The monochrome version of the Ornata costs $79.99, while the Ornata Chroma version with individual backlight for each key costs $99.99, featuring 16.8 million colors and several presets for popular computer games.
Source: Razer Zone