Razer Huntsman Tournament Edition Keyboards with light-activated optical switches

Over the years, Razer has greatly evolved the switches at the base of its keyboards. Until 2014, Razer used switches supplied by Cherry, the German company that historically holds the record in the switch sector, but from that moment on it felt the need to devote itself to developing its own proprietary switches, to improve them differently than to the solutions identified by Cherry and optimize them from a gaming perspective.

This opportunity, moreover, was also given by the fact that Cherry’s patent on its mechanical switches ceased to have validity, which led to a proliferation of switches with characteristics similar (or equal) to the Cherry MX coming from various manufacturers of headboards and peripherals of a similar nature.

In 2016, Razer introduced a switch halfway between mechanical setup and classic membrane setup, so as to offer users at the same time the precision of mechanical switches and the sensation of softness typical of mechanical keyboards.

Then the Razer Yellow switches were introduced, with completely linear excursion switches, but the most important introduction is that of the Opto-Mechanical switches last year with the Razer Huntsman Elite keyboard.

The latter derive from the Razer Linear Optical switches found inside Razer Huntsman Tournament Edition, which guarantee high levels of responsiveness with particularly low actuation point and actuation force. Razer wanted to promote responsiveness without sacrificing the pleasure of pressure, and the tactile feedback received from the player.

In the case of the new Linear Optical Switch, an infrared light beam is used to detect the pressure on a key (actuation), guaranteeing a precision much higher than traditional mechanical switches. The result is that the new Razer Linear Optical Switch offers smooth operation without tactile jolts and is activated at a millimeter: this is the same switch that we recently examined in the case of Razer Viper.

On the side of the button, there is a metal stabilizer bar which, combined with the optical actuation technology, makes it possible to use fewer moving components inside the button.

The new variant of Razer Huntsman also adopts the so-called Double-shot TBT keycaps, that is double-layered key covers designed to withstand viscosity and to last over time thanks to a specific texture. For the new Huntsman Tournament Edition, Razer devised proprietary tools for the production of robust custom-made PBT key covers with the thinnest font available.

The keyboard includes onboard memory so as to keep the settings saved and find them when switching from one PC to another. The cable is detachable so as to improve the transport possibilities and to make the keyboard as minimalistic as possible.

It is a USB-C type cable as far as the connection part to the keyboard is concerned and USB 2.0 as regards the connection to the PC. From this point of view, just to make the peripheral as much as possible suited to the needs of the players, Razer gave up the numeric keypad.

We are talking about a keyboard with Razer Chroma support for RGB backlight management. In the part of Synapse dedicated to advanced lighting effects, you can choose various presets and color cycles, which can also be synchronized between the various devices with Chroma support.

Everything can be applied with Chroma Studio, which can be defined almost like a drawing editor, in which it is possible to draw stripes of colors on the keys of the Razer Huntsman Tournament Edition.

You can draw freehand or fill a given selection with a certain nuance or effect and recreate your game setup inside the simulated environment, positioning the peripherals in such a way as to reproduce their arrangement on the supporting surface.

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