Razer Huntsman V2 Analog Review
It’s no surprise I like optical keyboards – I’ve reviewed a number of them from the insanely expensive Corsair K100 to the truly innovative Wooting Two – and it’s the latter that Razer’s new Huntsman, the V2 Analog, takes after rather closely. Adjustable actuation points, dual step keys, and full xbox controller analog input are all in this new board, as is the K100 matching £250 price tag. Yeah. So, is it worth over £100 more than the Wooting? Lets find out. But first, if you haven’t already, consider subscribing for more videos like this one every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Lets start by showing you around the board. It’s a standard full size keyboard, and mine is the UK layout as I prefer, but comes in the usual layouts for your region. It comes with a rather fancy wrist rest that uses the five contact pads on the edge of the board to power the RGB lighting inside the rest. It magnetically attaches too which while that’s nice, I personally have my wrist rest separated from my keyboard as when its attached it supports my palm rather than my wrist. You do get USB 3 passthrough on the left hand side which is a nice addition, although it uses a USB C cable to connect the keyboard – then a USB A for the passthrough. Don’t worry they include a type C to type A adapter in the box, just seems a little strange they aren’t both type C – or type A. As for the layout, the only ‘extra’ keys you get are three media keys up at the top right, and a notched dial for controlling volume with a mute button in the centre – otherwise nothing extra like macro keys.
No, the magic all comes from these. Razer’s own analog optical switches. These aren’t the same as the Flaretech switches Wooting uses in their One and Two boards, instead an interesting cut through design that looks like it deflects a portion of the beam to differentiate how far down the travel you are. It’s effective travel range is between 1.5mm and 3.6mm which is plenty, including to have multiple actions assigned per keystroke, as we’ll get onto in a second. The switches also have a stabiliser bar through them, much like their original huntsman switches.
In terms of features these new analog switches offer you get adjustable actuation points, full analog input and the dual step action. Lets start with the adjustable actuation point. Razer does this in a rather strange way although once you wrap your head around why it sort of makes sense. You can adjust the actuation point – the point at which the key press is triggered on the travel – per key by clicking on a key in synapse and dragging the slider. You can set the level for every key by clicking the “sync” button, but I really would have liked to see a global slider on the main page that you can quickly get to, rather than having to open a sub menu. Either way, being able to set it low for a nice typing experience, then switching profiles to a high mode for snappy gaming is great. Also having it be customisable per key is nice so if you regularly fat finger ‘T’ when going to reload, you can set the T key to actuate right at the bottom helping you not die in game so much.
Then there is the analog input. This basically tracks your motion on the keys fully and turns your key level into Xbox controller inputs, so holding W down half way is like pushing your analog stick forward half way on an Xbox controller. This can sometimes be useful in games for a bit more granular control – in the games that support it. In CSGO it’s nice for sniping as you can gently move around without losing accuracy in your shot, or in a racing game like Project Cars 2 you can do a better (if still terrible) job of controlling the car around the track. The trouble with this is controlling how far down you are on a key press – and having a 1.5mm dead zone at the top – makes it almost impossible to make use of that to any reasonable effect. You do sort of get a feel for it, but in my testing with CSGO I’d rather just hold shift to move slowly, and in Project Cars 2 I would much, much prefer using a racing wheel, or even a controller.
Finally, there is the dual step actuation. This is where you can map on action to the top of a keys travel, and a second action to the bottom. The best example I can give for this is mapping the W key to the top of W as normal, then SHIFT + W to the bottom, meaning when you half press it, you walk normally, but a full press lets you run in game with a single key. There are some other ways of using it too, like planting the bomb in CSGO you could map a key so right as you press it it presses ‘5’, then at the bottom it’s ‘E’ to plant it, all in one key press. This is the truly useful feature for me, one I think I would actually use in games regularly.
Unfortunately for Razer, the way you set it up is a nightmare. Instead of adding a new “Dual step” or “multi action” mode, or even let you directly customise keys from the “Default” option, say you want to just add SHIFT + W to the bottom of your W key, you have to click on ‘W’, then click ‘Keyboard Function’, then hit ‘W’ on your keyboard to rebind the existing key, then click “Add Secondary action”, then hit ‘SHIFT + W’, then hit save. Also if you bind them in the wrong order by accident, you have to manually rebind them rather than having a button to simply swap them. They also decided to limit what you can use as the second action. If you bind a normal keyboard function, then hit secondary action, you can then choose a mouse function or controller input, it has to be a keyboard action or a keyboard brightness change.. Why just those two Razer?
The end result is you get some pretty cool, if difficult to set up, features. So that’s the fancy stuff, what about actually just gaming on it? Well that’s a decent experience. Even without any of the new features it plays well, feels pretty good and since the switches are all linear it’s nice and smooth for gaming. Even with a super high actuation point, I still had a decent time with it and did feel a tad more agile in game than I am used to.
As for typing, that’s pretty good too. The linear switches don’t quite work for me personally, I prefer a tactile bump to mine, but there is one thing that might put you off this.. The sound. Its SO DAMN LOUD. Seriously, have a listen.
If you can get past the noise, this is a decent board to use – both for gaming and for work. It’s analog feature set may be lifted straight from the Wooting boards, but that doesn’t make it any less interesting. The trouble comes from the price tag. Wooting sells their boards for around £140 – or their soon to be released Lekker switched version which uses magnets and hall effect sensors like the Steelseries Apex Pro for around £150 – and offers essentially the same feature set as the Huntsman V2. But, for £100 less. And their software is easier to use. Do you get the fancy RGB wrist rest? No, in fact you don’t get any wrist rest included, or a USB 3 passthrough port, but you do get dedicated profile keys which make it super simple to switch between profiles for gaming, work and analog, rather than the huntsman where you have to map that yourself onto existing keys, and their mutli-action feature is more advanced than Razer’s with control over what keys get pressed on the way back up the travel too.
What I’m getting at here is what Razer is offering is pretty comparable to the Wooting boards, but for £100 more meaning I’d personally buy a Wooting Two and a nice plush wrist rest, and pocket the £80 difference. Beyond the badge, I can’t see much of a reason to get this over a Wooting. Of course those are my thoughts but I’d love to hear yours in the comments down below!
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