24.7.2018

I’ve had the luck to be no stranger to mechanical keyboards, so was pretty excited to get my hands on the Razer Huntsman Elite. At first pass – and as you’d expect at this price tag – it’s a very nice piece of kit.It sounds ridiculous, but the unboxing was a pleasure. It’s a big box, and the easy-open seals on the front make the ritual of unboxing much easier. There’s a small flap with instructions in it and the box inside simply says ‘Welcome to the Cult of Razer’ which implies a kind of fanatical dedication to the construction of the keyboard, again, which is kind of what you want for this price tag. You also get a wrist-rest and, oh yeah,the keyboard.The wrist-rest is definitely the nicest I’ve ever used; it’s ‘leatherette’ and is basically a big comfy cushion. It – like the rest of the keyboard – lights up underneath around the outside. This is essentially a waste of engineering and I don’t really thing it adds anything to the set.I wanted to love the keyboard, but honestly it’s a bit of a mixed bag. Yes; there is a spin dial volume control – although (despite being a wheel) you kind of have to just use it at the side, rather than the ‘spinner’ of other models. It has music track control, which is great.But unlike the other ‘boards I’ve tried – including the HyperX Elite and the Corsair K70 – there’s no one-touch lighting control. The instructions claim that you can do this via holding down function and pressing another key, but it didn’t really seem to work for me in a predictable fashion. It sounds daft, but if I want to turn the lighting off and change the colour, I want to do it simply.Also – and loads of reviews have said this – there’s no USB passthrough. Instead, the second USB cable is used to power the wrist-rest lighting; again, a functional fail and a bit of a waste in my mind.The keyboard is topped with smooth, matt black aluminium, which lends a fairly sophisticated look and feel to the board, but it doesn’t have the rugged aircraft-grade feel of the Corsair. When I got the K70, I felt like I could basically defend myself from muggers with it; the Huntsman Elite feels pleasingly solid but it’s sophisticated rather than sturdy.There are – rather to my disappointment – no replaceable keys supplied, when many boards give you at least WASD to replace if you wish. The entire keyboard is untextured, leaving you to mess around with lighting configurations if you want to have zonal lighting to help you navigate.But thankfully, the keyboard is a joy to use. My typing feels accurate; the key travel feels just right and – again, as you’d expect with a keyboard of this price – every keystroke registers exceptionally well. It’s a noisy, light, clickly feel, rather than the slightly thuddy sound of Cherry MX Red or Brown. I tried dampening the sound with o-rings, but – for some quirk of engineering that I don’t really understand – it doesn’t work, so it’s clicky or nothing.In gaming, it’s responsive; you know when you’ve hit a key and the travel is just right. I’m sure the marketing spiel is right – the keystrokes are measured by light beams just under the ‘stub’ of the switch. It’s a fairly effortless thing to type; your fingers feel like you’re just drifting over the keyboard, but with a satisfying click when you do tap them. I completely understand what other reviewers mean when they say that their error rates really go down when typing with this, and it holds up just as well for gaming as well.The software – synapse – is pretty decent. I didn’t delve too deeply; other packages have left me cold. But it’s easily as usable as Corsair’s and better than HyperX’s software package. You can set all kinds of effects, and per-key lighting, as well as syncing with Philips Hue devices to make sure your entire room reflects your gaming priorities, which is kind of cool. There are a lot of per-game presets, which is a nice touch – something that HyperX also does, and it’s pretty handy.I’m not quite sure where this leaves me – in terms of actual typing and gaming, it’s a hands-down winner; I love gaming and typing on this thing. But the lack of USB passthrough, the unnecessary rim lighting, the untextured keyboard, the sleek rather than sturdy construction, the lack of one-touch lighting controls – all of this adds up to a keyboard which certainly makes the top ten of mechanical keyboards, but maybe not top five – and doesn’t quite earn its £199 price tag.

27.7.2018

Flagship Huntsman Elite…Razer is best known for its gaming gear and of course keyboards are an important tool to any gamers arsenal. Mechanical gameboards seem to be the go to genre for top end players. This type of keyboard tends to be very high quality with precision mechanical keys being the benchmark and they are not cheap. Cherry MX keys seem to have held the high ground for years with their superb positive ‘feel’ and the solid click gained from pressing the keys. Mechanical keys are just that – mechanical spring-loaded contact points bringing together two electrodes and making a connection. Razer have designed and made the “Opto-Mechanical” switch,combining laser technology with a mechanical switch and bypassing the need for the contact points using light to actuate the switch instead of contacts. This results in a clean and shorter movement to actuate but gives the same click and feel. The actual movement required is 1.5mmI can’t say that my typing is fast enough to warrant light speed, but it certainly makes for more accurate typing and there is no difference where you hit any particular key, they all actuate with the minimum 45 gm weight no matter which part of the key is hit and probably what makes my typing more accurate?The keyboard itself is a very robust affair – I am assuming it is a one-piece aluminium frame machined to take the various keys: a full qwerty with F1 to F 12 Function keys; the usual Prt Scrn; Scr Lck and Pause keys; a set of arrow keys with ins, home, page up/down end and del; a full number pad and multi media keys with a multi-use volume/mute spinner which very handily hangs over the edge of the board. The whole is very similar to the Logitech G513 boards, I reviewed that back in April and I loved it. The Logitech is also made of similar material, is mechanical, easier to set lights and almost £50 cheaper. Both have nice long braided USB connections, although the Logitech has a pass through USB port, the Razer uses the extra USB lead for power with no pass through which is a shame.There is a wrist rest with both keyboards, although the Razer has a magnetic grab securing the wrist rest which is absent from the Logitech. The Logitech however wins on comfort with the padded faux-leather going all the way to the edge. The Razer has a sharp-edged finish which, after a couple of hours hard gaming tends to leave marks on my wrists. The Razer also sports a ring of light all the way around the keyboard and wrist rest, (there is a connector midway along the board and rest for power). This can be programmed - as can all the lighting effects. It also supports 5 users profiles activated with key presses – again programmable. There is a 10 key rollover, (the Logitech supports Nkey rollover although I feel that a 10 key rollover is within my capabilities whereas what am I going to do with a 26 key rollover?) and the whole thing is reportedly good for 100 million keystrokes.What’s not to like?Well the price for starters, R&D have obviously pushed this price to the top of the ladder, it is probably well worth the Logitech G513 price, but this – little change from £200 is very steep and probably out of the way for a lot of us. I think a pass-through USB port would be a welcome addition.I also think the chroma light programming is okay, but it seems complicated and fussy, I just want to hit a few keys on an app to sort out the lights – although having said that it appears to be able to connect itself to my Philips lighting system which I might just try if the wife allows it! The printing of characters on the dual function keys is reversed, so if you normally expect the @ to be below the ‘and the / to be above the ?. it might be confusing if you type by looking at the keys although they are quite normal in operation and the illuminated portion is the ‘live’ character. This is consistent through the whole keyboard including the number pad where the characters are printed side by side ignoring convention.Apart from that I haven’t found anything else to dislike, there are even a couple of Razer stickers included for my desktop case.JC

22.8.2018

I was asked if I’d like to review Razer RZ03-01870300-R3W1 Huntsman Elite, Gaming Keyboard, Multi Media Keys, Opto-Mechanical Switches, UK-Layout, RGB Chroma, and I said yes.Let's be honest - most keyboards are like Vanilla ice cream - unexciting. Not the Razor Huntsman Elite. Oh deary me no. This thing is choc mint, raspberry ripple and strawberries and cream sprinkled with hundreds and thousands and ..... well, you get the idea. I like it.I'm a fan of mechanical keyboards and a long time user. I don't think you can beat the tactile feedback and the satisfaction of that mechanical click. So what's so special about the Huntsman?Picking up the box, this is no lightweight.There’s a cut out in the top of the box over the cursor keys so that you can try the feel of the keys without opening it up.Taking it out of the box, the keyboard looks fresh and uncluttered with good spacing between the keys and a nice clear key font. All the standard keys are present and at the top right you have three media keys together with what looks like a volume wheel (more on that later).All keys are RGB backlit and a light strip runs around the edge of the keyboard. Add the included detachable wrist rest and the light strip extends around the wrist rest edge (easier to read than say). This is a really nice touch and makes the wrist rest compliment the keyboard perfectly.The wrist rest itself is soft and comfortable with a leather effect, which didn’t cause my wrists to sweat with extended use, and some previous rests have done.The software to control the Huntsman is easy to use and gives you exacting control over all the keyboard functions with a mind boggling array of options.Remember that volume control I mentioned earlier? Well that's just one function you can assigned to it. It can control microphone volume, scroll up/down, windows zoom, switch apps and much MUCH more.Move to the RGB control section and again there are many options for the tinkerer in you. Options include the standard rainbow wave, breathing and colour cycle effects together with more interesting effects. These include ripple (press a key and the lights ripple out to the other keys), starlight (making your keys twinkle different colours individually), fire (makes it look like your keyboard is on fire under the keys). And most effects have lots of different options to customise them further. If you get one of these for Christmas then you could stick it in the window as a Christmas decoration ;-).OK - so with all that raspberry ripple goodness - what's it actually like to type and game on. The blurb on the box says the keys are designed "for a superior speed and instant gaming response". Well, I didn't notice my kill score averages go up - but then that's more likely to be limited by my gaming prowess than they keyboard. More importantly by averages didn't drop.As for the day job of typing? The keyboard gives an excellent mechanical clicky feedback with a nice feel on the downward travel. The 6 rubber pads on the underside help to keep the keyboard from slipping and there are two sets of nested rubber feet to angle your keyboard. This allows you to pick your preferred position, from flat to slightly angled to - er more angled.As with my gaming experience, my word count neither increased nor dropped but then my current keyboard is an excellent mechanical model. If you're coming from a cheaper keyboard then I'm almost certain you'll notice the difference - and that's without all the RGB and programmable goodness.Yes it is expensive, but Huntsman Elite does look and feel like a premium product.I can highly recommend this product. :-)

28.7.2018

The Razer Huntsman Elite is a sturdy keyboard with detachable wrist rest. It’s also expensive for a keyboard, so what makes it special? The main advantage for typists or gamers alike, is said to be the speed of response to key presses. Unlike most keyboards which send an electrical signal, the Huntsman uses light to indicate the key press and this is supposedly faster to provide an advantage over your adversary in a game. A lot of that also depends on the comfort and key action of course, and this is a very comfortable keyboard, with the leather padded wrist rest providing support. The keys are full sized rather than low profile and have a light and clicky action that (if you’re of a certain age like me)remind me very much of the IBM keyboards that came with early PCs. It even sounds the same, which might be annoying to anyone else in the vicinity. The action is quick although it may take a little while to adjust of you’ve come from a lower profile keyboard with less of an action. Initially I didn’t think I would be able to type as fast as I could on my previous Microsoft ergonomic keyboard but within a couple of hours I found myself typing away rapidly and accurately.The other main feature that will attract gamers or custom PC builders is the lighting effects. The exterior edge of the keyboard and the wrist rest (which is detachable and links through magnets) light up as do the keys themselves. A number of effects are available through the app, such as Wave which continuously wipes colours from side to side with a ripple effect, or Fire which fades in and out with reds, oranges and yellows to give the effect of burning embers. All of these are impressive for showing your friends but a distraction while using the keyboard so they are completely customisable. Static is the preset I used although I changed it from default green to a paler blue. You can also use a variety of tools to choose any of 16 million colours for each key.Besides standard keyboard functionality, there are dedicated media buttons and a dial on the top right edge that turns to control volume by default but can be configured for other functions. Macros (memorised key sequences) can be recorded and stored and user presets for colour are also stored in the keyboard so if you take it to a friend’s house or gaming convention you won’t have to reconfigure it.I like the fact that the keys sit above the base, leaving room to clean underneath them quite easily (they are removable too if something does get stuck underneath). I also like the weight and sturdiness (it should last for 10 million key presses) plus the non-slip strips underneath to stop movement during frantic gaming. There are only two downsides that I can see:1. The cost, this is a lot to pay for a keyboard. Cherry mechanical keyboards are as good for typing on and a lot cheaper although they don’t have the lighting effects, which leads me to to:2. All this lighting requirement takes a fair amount of power so TWO USB ports are required to power it. Besides using two slots for a single peripheral, they also need to be either from your PC itself or via a powered USB switch - an unpowered USB extension isn’t enough. The cable is also quite chunky and stiff and mine is still not laying flat from where it was coiled in the box.

14.12.2018

I owned the Razer Black Widow Ultimate 2016, and the W, T and A keys were on their way out and though I've enjoyed using it immensely, I had been looking for a keyboard that offered a bit more in the way of comfort while long gaming and work sessions. My desk isn't really roomy and the Huntsman Elite is smaller then the the Black Widow, so I find the wrist rest quite essential. There's a bit to cover in regards to the Huntsman Elite so I'll break it down it.Pros· Sleek modern design, solid build with minimal Razer branding.· If you own other Razer Chroma peripherals, then you're in for a real treat,

15.1.2020

So im gonna write this review for the huntsman TE keyboard...typo's and all. PURPOSELY BECAUSE ITS, ITS BIGGEST FAILING AND COMPLAINT.The reason im writing this review is because i used to have a razer orbweaver which failed and once returned under its 2 year warrenty, razer issued me with a gift voucher over the replacement they originalkly told me i would recieve. My keyboard is currently 3 days old.TBF i wanted out from being reliant on a gamepad because like this very example, when it failed i had to learn a whole new play style for the mmo's i was currently involved with.So i got the huntsman TE...1mm actuation, tournament style keyboard without the numpad?

23.11.2018

Bought this keyboard to replace my razer ornata because I hated that you had to put so much force on the keys to stop yourself from doing simple actions in video games, particularly FPS games. Overall I’m very happy, the keys have a nice feel to them, remind me of my razer blackwidow I owned once with green switches. If I’m being honest I can’t tell any difference in speed from the blackwidow and the ornata that I used to own. I will say however to me this keyboard is quieter than my blackwidow, which is interesting because I’ve seen people say it’s louder. The RGB is nice and bright, brighter than my ornata anyway and In my opinion the ornata would be one of the best in terms of RGB.

28.5.2020

This keyboard is very minimalist in appearance with a very subtle Razer logo. Perfect if you don't want huge logos in your face and just want something that works and does what you need.One thing I found odd at first with the keyboard was the amount of travel required to actuated each key. This is extremely minimal and I often found I'd be jumping in apex without meaning to, simply because my thumb was resting (very gently) against the space bar and triggering it with the weight of my thumb. This is definitely not a deal breaker though as after a day or two I readjusting my hand placement slightly and alleviated the issue entirely.I love the size as I no longer bash my mouse into my keyboard which used to be an issue before.

14.4.2020

I ordered this as an upgrade from my razer blackwidow chroma v2 elite and its definitely a much better keyboard both build wise and performance, it's definitely without question one of the best keywords I've ever used and I've been cleaning up on siege against plat3s so easy I was quite shocked..Unfortunately I'm probably going to return it for a refund due to the angle it's very flat compared to the chroma and using it hurts my wrist after a while and I ordered the elite only to find your paying almost £60 more for 3 extra buttons and a palm rest that glows ho it's also got zero padding and it's quite painful after an hour or two!! Take away the few extra button's play pause, stop,

3.4.2020

Pro's: Best 100% keyboard on the market-Incredibly comfy magnetic wrist rest-Great multi-media controls-Tactile and clicky mechanical switches-Underglow and RGB are addressable through the great razer synapse-Macro's aren't included but any key can be rebound to one via synapse-Synapse allows for your whole razer AND asus aura products to sync up-Extremely easy to activate switches with low pressure needed to activate-Thick Braided cable (Two USB's needed to power board and underglow)-Back feet have three levels (including flat)-Included gaming function and recording function is a good bonus-Easy to clean/

2.9.2018

I am not a gamer myself but my sons are both keen gamers and when they saw this keyboard their eyes lit up. It is something extraordinary. The keyboard itself has the reliable click of a mechanical keyboard although this might irritate some after a while. I personally do not like the layout as much as my non-gaming keyboard as I cannot touch type as fast. I keep hitting "/" when I want " . ". I just need to adjust my hand position over the keyboard.For comfort it has a wrist rest which is comfortable and even this rest has a lighting effect built in. This attaches to the keyboard using a very strong magnetic link to make sure that it has power.

6.5.2020

I've had a few mechanical keyboards in the past but when my most recent decided to become a bit unresponsive i looked around for a while for a new keyboard. I eventually found the Huntsman TE and started to look at reviews. I'd always been a bit hesitant to go for Razer products as I had seen a few bad reviews in the past but everywhere I looked this keyboard was smashing reviews so I placed an order. I can definitely see why, The response and the feel of the keys is fantastic. Theres multiple heights to the adjust the keyboard to so you can feel comfortable during long sessions. I really enjoy the simple design its just the parts of the keyboard I need without any extra so its nice and compact

23.11.2019

My son is a Razer fanboy and has loads of their kit so I thought I would give this a go. I love it.I am at my PC most days and do a lot of typing. I find the keyboard comfortable to use and the wrist pad is soft but supportive. I believe I am making a lot less mistakes because of it.I am also a gamer (FPS) and find the keys to be responsive and they have a satisfying click to them which give a subtle confirmation that the letter has been pressed. It is all down to the individual but I like it. The response times are great.The whole unit exudes quality and coupled with the software on the PC, I have been able to set the lighting to something I am happy with and which add to my enjoyment of the

2.1.2020

Being a gamer myself, I love a good quality keyboard. Razer know quality! I love the customization options for the razer chroma patters and you get a huge spectrum of colours to pick from to make a pattern unique to you. One of the biggest improvements is also comfort, the wrist rest is perfect as it stops your wrists from bruising after long hours of gaming.It can get a bit flimsy plugging the wrist rest into the main keyboard to light up, but its nice when its in sync with your main keyboard. The mechanical keys are a huge improvement over the original chroma keyboard, easy to re-program and satisfying to click.

26.2.2019

I think this is a really good keyboard, it's not flashy or out to show off, but is quietly understated. You can tailor the lighting scheme and colours to suit your needs.It is however quite noisy when typing. Doesn't bother me personally, but worth a consideration if you don't want to keep people awake with your typing.Beyond the slight noise issue, the only other drawback I've found so far is that the media keys aren't particularly good, which is a bit of a shame. I came from a Corsair K70 which had really good media keys. The media keys aren't properly backlit on this, so I am still learning which buttons do what.So all in all I still think it's worth 5 stars,

Razer Huntsman Elite - Reviews

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