Razer Ornata V3 X Gaming Keyboard: Low Profile Keys - Silent Membrane Switches - Spill Resistant - Chroma RGB Lighting - Ergonomic Wrist Rest Snap Tap

Now I have to say, I tend to have a love/hate relationship with keyboards, especially gaming keyboards. The "good" ones to me tend to be very chunky, big keys, etc. I keep thinking of an IBM Selectric typewriter, and if you don't know what that is then get off my lawn.Now my daily computer is a MacBook Pro. I use the Magic Keyboard when docked and, well, it's a low profile keyboard that I like very much. Going from that to a pro-level mechanical gaming keyboard is really a shift. So here, Razer seems to have solved my dilemma. This is a low profile keyboard but it does have a positive response that is expected from a gaming keyboard. But it also straddles a line between pure gaming and pure general use. In that it works, and works well. Think of this as a keyboard that isn't 100% focused on the gaming.Now then, about the functionality. It does what it's supposed to do, though some things are little absent. Media control buttons are just those...buttons. No scroll wheels or dials. Odd to me. Layout is generally as expected, and I'm old school enough to really want the ten key there. The clicking of the keys is a nice thing to me, as it does provide some positive feedback...the keyboard isn't as mushy as a purely membrane keyboard. It's not quite as positive though as purely mechanical either. Yes, I confirm the ad copy that this is a hybrid, which does require some compromise.So this all said, lighting is in ZONES and not individual keys. This gets me a bit perturbed as I kind of like WASD to be set off from the rest of the keyboard. The zones are mostly decent, in that I mean the two right hand zones follow the format of the keyboard, but after that I'm not seeing a rhyme/reason to the zone borders. And yeah, you have to use Synapse/chroma for the functionality and colors. That is, well, I'm not reviewing Synapse but I'll say I have a love/hate relationship with it.I like the wrist rest, and really recommend keeping it on there especially if you're using this as an everyday keyboard. I like having it there for general use, but in gaming I tend to remove it and rotate the keyboard slightly clockwise to make it more accessible with my left hand. It responds well enough for this amateur gamer. It has great build quality for the application, inasmuch as it's not designed to take a serious pounding but it IS sturdy enough to work well for most anything under that.Responsiveness is similarly appropriate. It's wired only, so take that into account...you'll need a USB port.So I like it. A lot. It's not a pro keyboard, but I'm not a pro. Accounting for the compromises, I don't see anything there that seriously impedes the mission of the product. Yeah, the zone lighting is a bit yuck, and the anti-ghosting...isn't there...but for shall we say motivated amateur use I like it a lot.

This was my third keyboard I believe. I bought this not thinking too much but when it came I was impressed. The keyboard feels great and the keys are super responsive. I wouldn't consider this a gaming keyboard but it's great for typing.

Very good

So after two years I figured I'd do a basic review on this. All keys have held up great, there is some wear on my most used keys (WADS, shift, C, etc). However with about 3 thousand hours of gaming on this particular keyboard (yes, T H R E E thousand), I'm surprised that I can even read those keys. The lighting works well still. Cleaning it is an absolute pain but that's on me for eating crumbly things at my desk.The reason for 4 stars is that I've started to have a issue with the keyboard just being dead randomly. Unplugging it and replugging it in fixes it, but it's starting to get a bit annoying.

Everything about this keyboard is awesome. I love this keyboard, it's low key profile is exactly what I want, it's very easy to use. However, the damn thing has this little glitch that it stops working. The lights are on but nothing else works. No response from any keys. It's really embarrassing to have to stop meeting presentations at, usually, the most inopportune moments to reboot. That's the only way to fix it.I have spent hours scouring the Internet and the Razer website for a solution but NOTHING worked! What good is a keyboard that stops working?! I'd give it zero (0) stars for this little "annoyance" but when it works it is the best keyboard I've ever owned.Razer, PLEASE fix the Windows 11 drivers.As a note, I dual boot my computer between Windows 11 and Linux Mint, which is where I do my "real" work. Windows is my casual and gaming operating system. I never have this issue while using Linux.11/14/2024 updateI grew tired of having to reboot my computer every time this damn keyboard stopped working and went back to my old Ornata v2 keyboard. I'm very disappointed.11/30/2024 Final updateMy Ornata v2 keyboard suffered the same issue, so I went into debugging mode. I figured out what the problem was so I bumped my rating up to 5 stars. After digging through my Windows 11 event logs, I found this:Faulting application name: GameManagerService3.exe, version: 3.7.0.482, time stamp: 0x65310000Faulting module name: KERNELBASE.dll, version: 10.0.22621.4391, time stamp: 0x75ef7fcdException code: 0xe0434352Fault offset: 0x0014b342Faulting process id: 0x0x1750Faulting application start time: 0x0x1DB39D421D5A2B6Faulting application path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Razer\Razer Services\GMS3\GameManagerService3.exeFaulting module path: C:\Windows\System32\KERNELBASE.dllReport Id: d5a22404-ba5f-462e-92b2-f6d3242cc0cfFaulting package full name:Faulting package-relative application ID:I disable the GameManagerService3 service in Services manager and haven't had a problem since.As a note, I just re-enabled the Game Manager Service and immediately received a flurry of Buffer Overflow errors. It is currently disabled and will remain so.