At first we would like to thank Razer for offering us their BlackWidow Lite Silent Mechanical Keyboard for testing and reviewing.

 

About Razer:

"Razer is more than just the world's leading brand in gaming.

We were founded in 1998 in San Diego, California by our CEO Min-Liang Tan and our President Robert “Razerguy” Krakoff in a tiny shared office with a couple other gamers. We have grown today to hundreds of employees worldwide with offices in seven cities, including San Francisco, Hamburg, Seoul, Shanghai and Singapore.

Our vision from the very beginning was to be the world's greatest gaming brand and we've set out to achieve that by designing the best gaming products that any gamer has ever seen.

We believe that truly great products are based on technology, designed with extensive human factors and user ergonomic studies and then tested by the top professional gamers. In simpler terms, our own world class scientists and engineers develop cutting edge technology in-house or with partners, design phenomenal products around core technologies – and test the hell out of them in the field with our pro-gamers before we launch them.

We are the only gaming hardware company in the world with dedicated gaming user interface research and development labs, and our technology and designs are incubated in three dedicated design centers located in facilities in California, Singapore and Shenzhen. No other company boasts of technology like we do – because we're the only guys who have what it takes under the hood.

We tell it like it is: some can pretend to co-develop products with professional gamers, but gamers don't develop technology: scientists and engineers do (and ours just happen to be gamers as well).

We develop and design our products in our own labs and then put them to the test with top professional gamers who use them in pro-level tournaments and then provide us with feedback. Then we iterate on the product, refining it with the feedback – over and over and over again. That's how it's done, that's how a Razer product is built from ground up. No marketing BS and no hype.

We pioneered the eSports movement with the world's first $100K tournament back in 2000 and we have continued to give back to the community by sponsoring top eSports athletes who give back to Razer by beta-testing our products. We remain one of the largest sponsors of eSports community sponsoring top global eSports teams worldwide.

The people that work here at Razer are gamers just like you – some amateur, some ex-professional gamers, some just play for fun, just ask our CEO who will lay the smack down on you in Quake Live or our President, who has over ten level 80's on his local server. Hell, he will even take you on a raid in the middle of the work day.

We are the same gamers who are told by the suits that we need adult supervision and we need a professional CEO or management team – and we're the same gamers who tell the suits exactly where to shove it because we like doing what we do – and we do it on our own terms.

We hope our passion for gaming speaks to you like it does to us, through our products and we hope you enjoy the competitive edge we bring to your game."

Product Features:

 

Make Work Feel Good

 

On average, you’re bound to spend 1/3 of your life working. It’s time to reconsider the tools you use every day—meet the Razer BlackWidow Lite. It melds the fast responsiveness for gaming with toned down features to be subtle for the office. High performance keys meets o-ring sound dampeners, and true white LED backlighting, keeping you focused and productive as you type away even into the late hours.

 

RAZER™ MECHANICAL SWITCHES: ACCURACY IN EVERY KEY

 

The Razer BlackWidow Lite utilizes our renowned Razer™ Mechanical Switches that are well known for their accuracy and responsiveness. The tactility in each individual key offers a satisfying experience when typing, making work feel good.

 

SILENCE IS KEY

 

The Razer™ Orange Mechanical Switches are quiet but still provide the tactile feedback that’s synonymous with mechanical keyboards. They come with o-rings which further dampen the sound of the already silent keys, so co-workers aren’t bothered. The Razer BlackWidow Lite is also the most compact mechanical keyboard we’ve ever made, tucking nicely in the middle of your working desk setup.

 

WORK IN THE DARK

 

Every key of the Razer BlackWidow Lite is individually backlit with true white LED backlighting. Stay productive with brighter keys even as you hustle through work at night. You can even control the brightness or turn them off when you don’t need them.

 

Reliability

 

Razer™ Mechanical Switches deliver top performance for a lifespan of up to 80 million key strokes so they are truly reliable for work.

 

Razer Synapse

 

Get access to advanced options and granular control with Razer Synapse 3, a cloud-based hardware configuration tool that lets you assign macros, set shortcuts, and more.

 

WE’VE GOT YOU COVERED

 

Get up to 2 years of warranty and access reliable tech support.

Purchase directly from RazerStore and get 14 days risk-free returns.

 

Product Specifications:

 

At a glance

 

Razer™ Mechanical Switches (Orange)

Silent Keys with included o-rings

Compact form factor

Individually backlit keys

Razer Synapse 3 configuration tool

 

Tech Specs

 

Razer™ Mechanical Switches (Orange)

80-million keystroke lifespan

Razer Synapse enabled

Detachable braided fiber cable with strap

10-key rollover anti-ghosting

Fully programmable keys with on-the-fly macro recording

Gaming mode option

1000 Hz Ultrapolling

Instant Trigger Technology

Compatible with Xbox One for basic input

 

With the launch of the new BlackWidow Lite keyboard featuring silent Razer-made Orange mechanical switches, the manufacturer has also covered the line of productivity users. The keys are no longer Chroma enabled, but feature white backlight so people can easily identify the keys even in less than ideal room lighting conditions.

 

The compact BlackWidow Lite mechanical keyboard is shipped inside a medium-sized cardboard enclosure, with the familiar Razer color scheme; we can note from here that the Chroma logo is not posted, as we have seen with other Razer-made peripherals in the past:

 

 

 

On the side of the packaging, we will get to spot the keyboard dimensions (361 x 133 x 36.2 mm), but also its weight (only 660.9 grams); this information is accompanied by the list of package contents, system requirements but also the needed specs for running the Razer Synapse 3 utility. Synapse 3 installation is not mandatory if we do not require key mapping customization or choose between different lighting effects:

 

 

 

Further to the right, we will get to see some words regarding Razer as a company, some serial numbers but also the confirmation regarding the keyboard layout:

 

 

 

 

Some more product highlights of the BlackWidow Lite are present on the back:

 

 

 

Here Razer does note the inclusion of their Orange mechanical switches, that are tactile and silent; these are pretty much the same to the CHERRY MX Brown so do not expect the level of silence as the MX Silent:

 

 

 

By removing the outside packaging layer, we will get to see another plain cardboard box, with a large logo on the top cover:

 

 

 

The keyboard comes with some documentation inside a black envelope, but also a very welcome transparent plastic cover:

 

 

 

Besides the manual, we will receive a leaflet with additional online resources, but also a nice set of case stickers:

 

 

 

The keyboard usage is described inside the manual, in different languages:

 

 

 

Besides the BlackWidow Lite, we will receive a micro-USB to USB cable, along with some extra bundle:

 

 

 

BlackWidow Lite does feature a professional look with an all-black color scheme, along with a TKL form factor; even if the textured top layer looks like plastic at first, upon a closer inspection you will find out that it is made of aluminum, a feat we have also seen with high-end CORSAIR keyboards:

 

 

 

The function keys do also present themselves with additional multimedia controls; since the keys can be mapped with many other different functions, Razer saw fit not to light up the additional functions of these keys, so only the F1-F12 text is made so light can shine through:

 

 

 

 

The F11 and F12 keys can be also used for setting the brightness of the LED lighting:

 

 

 

On the top area of the directional keys, we will be able to spot a subtle Razer logo:

 

 

 

A look on the side of the keyboard does show that the keys are placed a bit at an angle:

 

 

 

In the frontal area of the keyboard, we find no other interfaces besides the USB; the Razer switches do also feature a semi-transparent lip on the upper area, where white LED light does shine through:

 

 

 

 

The bottom layer of the keyboard is made of textured black plastic and large square rubber feet are placed in each corner:

 

 

 

 

 

In the middle, we will find a large sticker with the product serial number and power rating:

 

 

 

The kickstands are quite short (so you won’t see a very big angle difference when typing), but are rubber tipped, which is a nice addition:

 

 

 

The USB cable is fully-braided and features protective caps, handful when travelling:

 

 

 

 

The extra bundle we have talked about is comprised of a key puller, but also O-rings that have the same color as the included switches:

 

 

 

By using the included key puller, we can easily remove the plastic key caps and expose the yellow switches:

 

 

 

 

The supplied O-rings must be installed on the bottom of each key cap for reducing the bottoming out sound, so take some free time in order to perform this operation carefully, without damaging the switches:

 

 

 

 

After connecting the keyboard to a spare USB port, the keyboard lighting made its presence; some light bleed is present between the switches, but it looks good nonetheless!

 

 

 

 

Seconds after plugging in the BlackWidow Lite keyboard, we got the prompt to install the Razer Gaming Software:

 

 

 

The installation is pretty straight-forward; we can choose which modules to install, along with the installation path:

 

 

 

With the latest Synapse versions, we can log in to the application as a guest, but also with other accounts such as Facebook or Google:

 

 

 

The keyboard has been detected right away by the unified utility:

 

 

 

BlackWidow Lite can also operate with Hypershift, so we can practically double the number of programmable buttons:

 

 

 

 

For key mapping, we can simply press one of the keys from the GUI and choose one of the available configuration sets:

 

Default

Keyboard Function

Mouse Function

Macro

Inter Device

 

Switch Profile

Launch Program

Multimedia

Windows Shortcuts

Text Function

Button Disable

 

From the GUI we can also open Windows Keyboard Properties:

 

 

 

Profiles can be added, imported, renamed, duplicated or exported to a file:

 

 

 

The Lighting tab allows the user to select one of the brightness levels, choose when to switch off the lighting but also enable “breathing“ mode:

 

 

 

The unavailable Chroma options are confirmed by Synapse:

 

 

From the Macro area, we can define new sequences:

 

 

When working at the home office and you have quite a bit of typing to do on the laptop or desktop computer, Razer helps with the their new, compact TKL BlackWidow Lite keyboard that features non-intrusive, all-white keyboard lighting. The Orange Razer-made switches have a similar feel to the CHERRY MX Browns, which are ideal for typing purposes, but do not expect the same level of silence as with the MX Silent variants. For eliminating the bottoming down sound, Razer has included a set of O-rings that can be easily installed by the user on the desired keys. Be careful though when removing larger keys that feature stabilizer clips, in order not to damage it.

 

Even if we are talking about an office keyboard, it is fully supported by the latest Synapse 3 software, that you can now use without the need to actually log in! Plenty of software re-mapping can be performed here, in order to simplify your work routine.

 

The keyboard is not that expensive to get, which is a great thing! At the time of the review, we have seen prices as low as 80.55 Euros on Amazon.de.

 

Regarding negatives, we could only mention of the lack of a full-layout design, since there are quite a bit of people in production that use the numeric pad, such as ones working in finance.

 

Razer BlackWidow Lite Silent Mechanical Keyboard is Recommended for:

 

 

We would like to thank again to Razer for making this review possible!