The Razer Ornata Chroma gaming keyboard is very good. It has special buttons that feel like a mix of membrane and clicky mechanical buttons. But the pre-travel distance is a bit deeper than on some other switches, which might make it feel like it takes a bit longer to turn on. On the plus side, the board is built pretty well and has full RGB lighting that can be changed through the software.
The keyboard is put together well enough. The board bends a fair amount and can stay twisted, but we don’t think most people will bend their boards. All of the parts are made of plastic that doesn’t feel very high-end. On the plus side, it comes with a very nice and comfortable wrist rest, and the switches and keycaps feel better than on the Razer Cynosa Chroma. You can also look at the Razer BlackWidow Elite and the Huntsman for better-built Razer keyboards.
Specifications
- Hybrid Mechanical Key Switches
- Customizable Chroma RGB Lighting
- Individually Backlit Keys
- Detachable Plush Wrist Rest
- Programmable Macro Functionality
Where to get Razer Ornata Chroma gaming keyboard?
When you plug in the Razer Ornata Chroma for the first time, you’ll be asked to install the Razer Synapse software. This is required if you want to record macros and set up the Chroma lighting. The visual guides and animations in the software make it easy to use, but they also make it slow to switch between some tabs. The installation size of 250MB also seems too big, but at least storage is cheap now.
Let’s start by looking at the switches on this keyboard. The Ornata comes with Razer’s new Mecha-membrane switches, which are a “best of both worlds” switch that has the quiet action of a membrane dome and the nice feel of a mechanical switch. Pretty cool. The switches on this keyboard are a great feature because they can be used by both office workers and gamers. In terms of how they feel, these switches are pretty good. I’ve tried a lot of hybrid switches before, and most of them were either good or bad. But Razer’s mecha-membrane switches seem to be just what the doctor ordered. Add the half-height keycaps to the equation as well, and you have a really enjoyable typing experience.
Anti-ghosting and key rollover aren’t new to keyboards, but they’re still very useful features for a gaming keyboard. For those who don’t know what this is, ghosting is when you press several keys at the same time and the keyboard doesn’t register one (or more) of them. To stop this from happening, keyboard makers started putting a feature called “key rollover” on their boards. This lets the keyboard recognize every keypress, no matter how many are pressed at once. So, kind of.