HARDWARE REVIEW

Razer Ornata Review

by Kieron Davies, December 29th, 2016

Razer have a history of challenging the norm of what we expect from our gaming peripherals, from the number buttons on the side of a mouse on the Razer Naga, to standalone keypads which act as the left side of a keyboard by itself with the Orbweaver, Razer always look for new ways to improve or innovate gaming peripherals.

So, what have Razer done this time? Well most competitive gamers will tell you that membrane keyboards are trash for gaming and mechanical is the master race. This has now been challenged with the Razer Ornata Chroma, a mechanical/membrane hybrid keyboard. So, is it a match made in heaven, or water and oil?

The first thing I noticed when setting up the keyboard is the cable management system. On the underside of the keyboard are small grooves with notches to hold the cable, meaning you can choose which direction you want the cable to leave the keyboard. This may sound like a small feature but it honestly helps a lot when you want to keep your desk clean and tidy.

Wrist rests are either small pieces of angled plastic that clip onto your keyboard or they don’t come with your keyboard at all. Razer have mixed it up with the Ornata and packaged it with a magnetic foamy leather wrist rest which is by far the most comfortable wrist support device I’ve ever used. Seriously you could fall asleep at your desk and be comfortable using it as a pillow. The magnets aren’t that strong though so it can be easy to unconnected it with the slightest knock. If there was one improvement that could be made, it is the current strength of the magnets.

Build of the keyboard is made of high quality plastic, and the wrist rest is faux leather on plastic, giving a very comfortable and sturdy feel as a whole. The Ornata is also very light weight, without the rest attached it comes to under a kilo at 0.95kg. Keyboard weight doesn’t really matter too much as you don’t move it around like a mouse, but it means the keyboard is event ready and won’t weigh you down at a LAN. At 18 inches long the keyboard is a pretty standard length, the width of the keyboard is also a standard size, only made bigger if you opt to use the wrist rest provided. At 6 inches with the rest, it does have a slightly bigger footprint than other keyboards, but it is worth the comfort that the rest provides.

Razer have obviously designed the Ornata to bridge the gap between membrane and mechanical keyboards, and they’ve done it oh so well. The actuation depth is quicker than membrane keyboards, but granted not as quick as pure bread mechanical keys, but users of the Cherry MX blues will feel right at home with the clicky feedback of the Ornata. Razer have managed to make a switch that feels like a “soft click”, and using shallower keys helps make up for the membrane travel distance of each key.

Anti-ghosting is a standard feature in gaming keyboards in this day and age and the Ornata is no different, with anti-ghosting on up to 10 keys at once. In game this means that you can be an uber-micro-pro in Star Craft and still have all your key strokes register, however for gamers who prefer FPS games, the feature is still good, but not as highly demanded.

Razer have been having issues recently with the Synapse software for their products, it is probably their biggest downfall of their new hardware, but luckily unless you are adamant that you want to use the on-the-fly macro recording, then the Synapse software is not essential and the keyboard performs perfectly without it. Even without the software the Ornata defaults into its Chroma colour cycling so you can enjoy all the colours it has to offer.

Synapse, if you do opt to use it, can let you customize your Chroma patterns or colours, allow you to create on-the-fly macros, which would be particularly useful for MMO or RTS players, and also allows you to set and save profiles for your key bindings for different games. One great thing is the ability to save your settings to a cloud server, so if you’re at a LAN event or have to format your PC, your settings will still be available exactly how you like them.

The keyboard connects to 1 USB 2.0 or above port, unlike the Black Widow which has a USB port on the keyboard and requires 2 ports, so this helps with your cable management and port saving. Ready to work out of the box, the Ornata is a plug and play keyboard, plug it in, magnetise your wrist rest to it, and get gaming. No mess, no fuss, just gaming.

So who is this keyboard for? It’s certainly not for mechanical users, the key strokes will feel too soft and squishy for those who demand pure-bread Cherry Red keys. However, this keyboard can be a very attractive prospect to those who are still using membrane keyboards as their main keyboard but wants to move up a technical notch. The Ornata also sits within the same price range as Razer’s full membrane keyboards, so it would certainly be a better purchase for anyone who is adamant they like membrane keyboards but wish they have a more responsive and fast keystroke.

All in all the Ornata is very comfortable to use, the wrist rest helps with this a lot and the mecha-membrane keys means you fingers can glide across the keyboard and you won’t miss a stroke. Mechanical purists probably won’t appreciate the membrane feel to the keyboard, but membrane users may find this to be their perfect midground. A solid keyboard all around for gamers of all different backgrounds.