Razer Tarantula Gaming Keyboard - Articles / Reviews

Reviews: Peripherals

Accessories | Gaming Devices | Keyboards / Mice

Razer Tarantula Gaming Keyboard

Author:
Editor:
Sponsor:
Published:

Anthony Fiti
Kurtis
Razer
Dec. 19, 2006

<< Home

Next >>

Introduction

Many companies are focusing their attention on gamers as a new group of people to ~~fleece~~ try and sell premium products to in order to make up for their shrinking margins. You probably see lots of "gaming" products, from mice to keyboards, joysticks, mouse pads and anything else they can slap the word "gamer" on.

Today, we're reviewing the Razer Tarantula gaming keyboard. The Razer Tarantula is a keyboard marketed to improve your reaction time which will improve your in-game performance. One of the primary ways that Razer promotes this is their Hyperesponse™ gaming keys which are supposed to provide for faster response time, and their anti-ghosting technology is supposed to allow more simultaneous key presses than traditional keyboards.

The Tarantula sports a whole host of features designed to help the gamer. There are ten macro keys, a button on the keyboard to switch profiles, and even the ability to store profiles on the keyboard itself so you can take your profiles with you.

How does this keyboard stack up to other "regular" keyboards? Read on and find out.

First Looks

One of the first things you notice when you take the keyboard out of the box is the shiny black keytop. It looks very nice and professional. However the next thing I notice are the big fingerprints my greasy hands leave behind (I'm Italian, what can I say!).

On either side of the keyboard there are five keys, each assignable to a macro. Also, the key can be removed and replaced with one of many provided keys adorned with various icons. This way, instead of having to remember L3 is to change weapons, you put the blue weapon key with the corresponding icon in that spot. It's much more convenient than having to remember ten macro assignments.

The one odd thing that strikes me right out of the box is the two USB plugs. Yes, you read that correctly, there are two USB plugs to plug into your computer. You can plug in only one and get by; the keyboard and all of its functions appear to be fine, the two port USB hub still operated properly, and the keyboard and media keys worked fine. The installation guide talks about primary and secondary USB plugs, but it doesn't mention any negatives from not plugging in the secondary USB cord (all my USB ports are full, thank you). I had to go to their online knowledge base to find out that the second USB cable is provided for power purposes only - so if you plug in power hungry devices into your keyboard, they'll work. While it's not as elegant as a real powered hub, I can understand why they chose this route - who wants to plug their keyboard into the wall just to get a powered USB hub. With that said, it would be nice if the included documentation mentioned this and I didn't have to turn to their online knowledgebase to find out the purpose of USB plug numero dos.

<< Home

Page 1 of 4

Next >>

Page 1: Introduction & First Looks
Page 2: Taking a Closer Look
Page 3: Setup & Testing
Page 4: Conclusion

Subscribe to Gaming Devices [more info]

Add Comment

1 User Comment

1 - Posted by PsychoSnowMan on May 6, 2007 - 8:01 pm

I've read some other reviews that have said you need to upgrade the firmware for the anti-ghosting to work. It might be a good idea to try this out and update the review.
Also can the backlighting be disabled? I sleep in the same room as my computer, and my mouse, joystick, and stereo already have LEDs that shine all night.

Add Comment

To add a comment without being a member, you may omit the password field, but you must enter your name (or nickname) along with your comment. * Denotes required fields.