Reviewed by Barry Little - December 3, 2007

Manufacturer: Razer

Tarantula Model Number: RZ03-00070100R2

BattleLight Model Number: RZ30-00070101-R2U1

Price: Razer Tarantula at Amazon.com

Price: Razer BattleLight at Amazon.com

Gaming keyboards are no longer the frivolous, overpriced luxuries they were once viewed as. Everything from First Person Shooters to Massively Multiplayer Online Games for the PC are evolving with more ways for the player to interact more realistically with the virtual worlds these games create—which means more keystroke commands that require greater speed and precision. In the increasingly crowded and competitive gaming keyboard market, it takes a quality product with a world-class set of features to stand above the rest. Today, we’re going to find out if the Razer Tarantula Gaming Keyboard and the Razer BattleLight have what it takes to do just that.

About The Razer Group

Headquartered in Carlsbad, California, Razer™ collaborates with gamers to develop, manufacture and market cutting-edge gaming peripherals utilizing proprietary technologies that give gamers the competitive edge. Razer products have earned critical praise and won multiple awards from around the world for their precision, sensitivity, usability and distinctions in product design. Engineered to near perfection, Razer’s reputation of being the leader in gaming peripheral technology is embodied in every single Razer product. For more information, please visit www.razerzone.com.

Razer - For Gamers. By Gamers.™

Razer Tarantula Features

● Anti-Ghosting Capability

 

With the anti-ghosting capability of the Razer Tarantula™, you can press up to an unprecedented 10 buttons at one go without the "ghosting" effect (For a conventional keyboard, signal failure occurs when three to four keys are pressed simultaneously). This means more commands can now be executed at any one time.

 

● Onboard Profile Memory

 

With a 32KB onboard memory – Powered by Razer Synapse™ – up to five onboard profiles for different games can be stored. So no matter which LAN party you go to, all you need to do is bring your Razer Tarantula™ along, and you're ready to play.

 

● A Keytop That is Eight Times as Responsive

 

The Razer Tarantula™ is the only gaming keyboard on the market with 1000Hz Ultrapolling™. This means a delay of only 1ms between the keystroke and the key's reaction, as compared to that of 125Hz / 8ms found in conventional keyboards.

Package

The box is likely to be as much of a stand-out on a store shelf for its size, as well Razer's simple yet powerful design. One look at the sleek, imposing photo of the Razer Tarantula Gaming Keyboard and its main selling points on the front of the box—Anti-Ghosting Capability, Up to 100 Customizable Profiles (5 Onboard), and 10 Programmable Gaming Keys—and it’s clear that the Tarantula is definitely a keyboard, as Razer would put it, "For Gamers. By Gamers." If the endorsement by the Cyberathlete Professional League and the two pro gamers on the box doesn’t convince you, the Tarantula’s specs compared against a “regular” keyboard, will. Opening the top flap of the box confirms it, where you are given a brief but in-depth tour of the Tarantula’s impressive features and capabilities. A window on the right displays a set of gamer-centric keys and a tool that looks like a ring with a pair of prongs attached, stored in a clear blister pack. Since the Tarantula is anything but an average keyboard, its elite gamer status is reinforced by the stealth black rather than the usual bland, brown inner box that the keyboard ships in. When marketing to a specific audience, presentation is everything. And as usual, Razer is spot-on in catching the eye of their target market.

Once you unpack the box, in addition to the keyboard, extra keys and key tool, you’ll also find a Quick Start Guide, a Master Guide which also doubles as a jacket for the Software CD; a Razer Sticker and a Razer Certificate of Authenticity. Dust caps are included on the keyboard connectors—a small but noticeable touch that shows Razer is just as serious about the little details as the big ones. Packaging that says “quality gaming-grade gear enclosed” is one thing. Having a product that actually personifies the concept is another. While any company with a good marketing department can design a slick (and expensive) looking box that grabs your attention and (hopefully) persuades you to buy whatever’s inside, putting together a first-class product capable of delivering on the marketing hype takes a lot more skill—and finesse. Hefting the Tarantula in your hands, you realize that Razor seems to have plenty of both—which should be no surprise, given their track record in the gaming peripherals market.

The Keyboard

The first thing that stikes you about the Razer Tarantula Gaming Keyboard is its size. At 522mm x 220mm x 33mm it’s a bit larger than your average 104-key Windows keyboard. Next is the weight. Light weight in a keyboard usually means cheap construction and materials. But that’s definitely not the case with the Razor Tarantula. It may be light for its size, but it also has a solid, quality feel not associated with cheaper or “budget” keyboards. Then there's the shape, which is more like a conventional keyboard as opposed to the more “radical” gamer-oriented designs like the original Logitech G15 Gaming Keyboard, or the more ergonomic-oriented Microsoft Reclusa Gaming Keyboard (which Razer co-designed with Microsoft, by the way).

The majority of keyboards are wrapped in some sort of plastic bag for shipping protection. The Razer Tarantula, however, is covered with the same removable film that you’d find on the windowed side panels of tower cases. Peel the protective film away and it’s no surprise why: the Razer Tarantula Gaming Keyboard sports one sweet piano-black mirror finish from top to bottom! With the exception of the keys, the only part of the keyboard that doesn’t look like the paint job of a show car is the non-removable wrist support which has a satin-black finish, and Razor’s famous “tribal serpents” logo. The wrist support is not padded—but on closer inspection you realize why: it serves as home for the LED Razor logo that glows a soft blue when the keyboard is powered up.

Programmable macro keys are nothing new to keyboards—gaming or otherwise. The first-generation Logitech G-15 came with a whopping 18 programmable keys and a separate set of multimedia keys at the expense of desktop real estate—making it one of the largest consumer keyboards, gaming or otherwise, in history. The Microsoft Reclusa’s six programmable hotkeys double as multimedia keys (in addition to having separate volume and speaker balance controls). The Razer Tarantula strikes an interesting balance between the two, with 10 fully-programmable macro keys—five on each side of the keyboard—and a smaller set of buttons along the left and right edge of the board to handle your basic office and media-oriented functions. On the left from top to bottom you have the Standby, Home, Image Rotation, Zoom and View Full Size buttons. On the right, there’s the Media button which launches your media player; and the Play, Stop Fast Rewind, Forward, Shuffle, Volume and Mute buttons. Pushing Standby will put your system in standby mode, if your PC is configured accordingly. Home will launch your default web browser, whatever it is. Windows Picture Viewer uses the photo imaging buttons by default, but they can be configured for Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Acrobat Reader or ACD Systems’ ACDSee. It should be no surprise that Windows Media Player is the default player for the Tarantula’s media buttons. But you’re not entirely out of luck if you’re using iTunes, Real Player or WinAmp. The buttons are small enough not to be intrusive on overall keyboard space, yet not so small that they’re difficult to press—and they do so with a firm and audible “click” that is neither too stiff or cheap-feeling, and loud enough under normal room noise levelst o confirm that you’ve actually pushed the button.

The Razer Tarantula Gaming Keyboard pretty much follows the standard 104-key Windows keyboard layout, with a few exceptions. You’ll undoubtedly notice a removable block-off cover at the top of the keyboard—the dust cover for the Tarantula’s BattleDock accessory port. Because of the size and location of the BattleDock, all of the top row keys are half the height they would normally be. Depending on the size of your fingers, this design feature will probably fall into either the blessing-or-curse user-friendliness category. A Profile key for toggling through the macro profiles you’ll be creating is just above the <Home>, <End>, <Page Up>, <Page Down> and <Delete> key cluster which is narrower and packed into a tighter space compared to a standard 104-key layout. The <Delete> key has been elongated and the <Insert> key cut down and moved next to the <Scroll Lock>, <Print Screen> and <Pause> keys. The only other departure from the norm is a relatively minor one: the Windows key is labeled Start, and the pop-up Context Menu key has been replaced with Razer’s Tribal Serpents logo.

The rest of the keys are standard-sized, and all of them have a slightly-textured semi-gloss finish. The characters on the keys appear to be painted on and protected with a clear protective coating that matches the shape of the particular character. Given the intended audience of this keyboard, laser-etched characters that don’t fade or chip as easily under long-term heavy use might have been a better choice. Only the ten macro keys and the Profile key are lit by LEDs. They are bright enough to be seen under normal and low-light conditions without being excessively bright or distracting, but the level of illumination cannot be adjusted or turned off. The Num, Caps and Scroll Lock indicators are almost invisible beneath three small, square outlines until activated, showing off their blue LED illumination as well.

Along the back edge of the Razer Tarantula Gaming Keyboard, you’ll find a pair of USB ports; a Headphone jack and a Microphone jack. Flip the keyboard over, and you’ll find that it has the same slick, mirror black finish as the rest of the keyboard. Four rubber feet insure that the Razer Tarantula stays put on your desk—though not quite as firmly as a heavier keyboard would, especially if you use the two legs to adjust the keyboard's typing angle—something to keep in mind if you tend to get “physical” during those intense, online fragging sessions. There are no cable-routing channels underneath the Tarantula to help tidy up the keyboard and mouse cords. The two USB ports are USB 1.1-only compliant. A Quick Start Guide, Software CD, Razer Sticker and Certificate of Authenticity are also included.

The Tarantula's cable branches into two USB connectors—one primary, one secondary—and one headphone and one microphone plug for the appropriate jacks on your sound card or onboard audio. The primary USB connector is the thicker cable, while the secondary is the thin cable. Both are needed to power the keyboard, USB ports and the BattleDock. And like most top-of-the-line gaming keyboards, both use gold-plated connectors for maximum signal transfer. At 6.5’ in length, the cable is long enough to reach your PC whether it's on or underneath your desk.

One unique feature of the Razer Tarantula, is that any of the QWERTY or macro keys can be removed and exchanged with the ten game symbol hot keys included with the keyboard, using the Razer Tarantula Tool. For example, if you use the <R> key to reload ammo in all your favorite shooters, you could replace it with the hotkey with the bullets icon. Simply slide the tool down horizontally along the sides of the key you want to remove until the tool “clicks” in place—those are the little prongs inside the tool’s legs latching underneath the sides of the key. Then pull the tool straight up to remove the key. All of the hotkeys are painted bright blue, with see-through icons—if you install a hot key in place of one of the Tarantula’s macro keys, the blue LED lighting will shine through the icon.

Short-travel switches are part of the reason behind the Tarantula’s blazingly fast response times that are critical for having a winning edge playing today’s fast-paced games that require speed, precision and accuracy above and beyond what an ordinary keyboard can deliver. It requires less force and a shorter distance to depress the Tarantula’s keys, which lack the stiff or spongey tactile feedback of typical “Quiet-Touch” key switch technologies used in many keyboards—including some “premium” gaming keyboards. Using the Razer Tarantula feels similar to a high-quality laptop keyboard with full-sized rather than laptop-sized keys. Tactile and audible feedback is excellent, almost approximating a mechanical-switch keyboard. The other part is due to an incredible 1000Hz polling rate which translates into a 1ms delay between the time you strike the key and it reacts. To put things in perspective, a standard keyboard has 125Hz polling rate with a 8ms delay. If you’re one of those gamers with lightning fast moves and reflexes, but have always found yourself struggling with the limitations of a regular keyboard, the Tarantula could be the answer to your prayers.

Another problem with the growing number of games that require an increasing number of multiple keystrokes which must be pressed simultaneously to peform commands, the problem of signal failure, or "ghosting" occurs. But Razer’s Anti-Ghosting technology allows you to press up to ten keys simultaneously without worrying about commands not registering at that crucial moment while in your game.

It’s all well and good to have sound barrier-breaking polling rates; but sheer speed alone does not a gaming keyboard make. Games are becoming more realistic and immersive, requiring more elaborate keystroke combinations as a result, which is great—if you’re an Octopus. Fortunately, the Razer Tarantula Gaming Keyboard is up to the challenge.

Most gaming keyboards can record keystroke commands used in games and store them in profiles that can be recalled and loaded from disk when the game is launched. Razer’s SYNAPSE Profile Technology utilizes a re-writable 32K ROM chip that allows you to store five game profiles directly in the keyboard. Once you load the drivers and software, record your macros, and save them to the SYNAPSE slots in the keyboard’s memory, they will always be on tap for you to use via the Profile button—even if you connect the Tarantula to another PC that doesn’t have Razer drivers or control panel software installed. If you frequent LAN parties and tournaments but don’t have the option of bringing your own rig along, this is a great feature to have at your disposal, and can give you an edge over your opponents—unless they’re also equipped with Razer Tarantulas…

Of course five profiles isn’t much if you’re a serious gamer and have a ton of favorites titles. In addition to the five SYNAPSE profiles, the Razer Tarantula Gaming Keyboard supports up to 95 additional Auto Profile-capable profiles (for a grand total of 100 gaming profiles including the SYNAPSE profiles). When the Tarantula detects a specific game (or application) on launch, it will automatically load the profile and macros you’ve created for it. Auto Profiles require the drivers and control panel software to work.

Razer’s Auto Profiles for the Tarantula Gaming Keyboard also have another feature—Keymaps.  Profiles 6 through 100 have two sets of Keymaps—A and B. In the Master Guide, Razer uses the example of a MMOG (Massively Multiplayer Online Game) that has all 26 QWERTY keys mapped to perform specific in-game functions on Keymap A, while leaving the default QWERTY key configuration on Keymap B. As a result, you can switch between controlling the game with Keymap A, and type chat messages to other players with Keymap B, simply by pressing the Profile button. Impressive!