Razer 2020 Year in Review

Dec 29, 2020

Featured in this video:

  • Systems
    • Tomahawk Gaming Chassis
    • Tomahawk Gaming Computer
    • Book 13
    • Blade Stealth (Late 2020)
    • Blade 15 (Late 2020)
    • Blade 15 Studio Edition
    • Blade 17 Pro
  • Mice
    • DeathAdder V2
    • DeathAdder V2 Mini
    • DeathAdder V2 Pro
    • Basilisk V2
    • Viper Mini
    • Viper Ultimate Mercury & Quartz
    • Viper Ultimate CyberPunk 2077
    • Naga Left Handed
    • Naga Pro
    • Pro Click
  • Keyboards
    • Ornata V2
    • Cynosa V2
    • Huntsman Elite
    • Huntsman Mini
    • Pro Type
    • BlackWidow V3
    • BlackWidow V3 TKL
    • BlackWidow V3 Pro
  • Audio
    • BlackShark V2
    • BlackShark V2 X
    • BlackShark V2 Pro
    • Kaira
    • Kaira Pro
    • Opus
    • HammerHead True Wireless Pro
    • Seiren Mini
  • Controllers
    • Wolverine V2
    • Kishi for iOS
    • Kishi for Android
    • Kishi for Xbox
  • MouseMats
    • Gigantus V2
    • Acari
    • Pro Glide
  • Other
    • Iskur
    • THS case
    • Arctech Pro

Alright, so I’ve been thinking about making a video like this for a few months. The reason is every time I review a razor product just this year I’ve been thinking another great razor product. Another great razor product. Now this isn’t a sponsored video in the sense I’m not being paid to produce this. This was my idea. I want to Razor and I said just send me a list. A definitive list. 

Of everything that you guys released this year, so just this year’s products. 

Not necessarily products that I reviewed this year, like the Hyper Speed Basilisk, but the actual products that released this year so they sent me the list. I have a handful of these devices so I can show you what they look like, but otherwise we’re going to go through some images. So here is a definitive list of everything that Razer released in 2020 and kind of a year in review, so not going to review every single product. 

Of course, that would be a good five hour video, but I’m just going to tell you my thoughts and opinions on the products I’ve actually tested and used and just some ideas about the things I didn’t get a chance to review personally. So let’s start with systems now. 

Razors known very well for their laptops, but they actually release some desktop chassis’s this year. The Tomahawk gaming series. So there’s a mini itx, an ITX case ATX rather, so it looks like a razor case. I don’t know who the actual manufacturer is, but they’re effectively rebranded with a little bit of tweaks to be more razor like and. 

They look really cool, but I didn’t get my hands on these. They also released the Tomahawk Gaming computer. This is a pre configured system that looks a lot like their core external GPUs which I have reviewed a whole bunch of times so be sure to check those out. 

Anyhow, I think that you’ll find those really interesting. If you have the budget for them, they’re not cheap by any means whatsoever. But yeah, Razer Tomahawk looks awesome. OK now the razor book 13 is the one product this year that I have so many I wish I wish I got my hands on this. So this is a 16 by 10 aspect ratio productivity laptop. 

This looks a lot like the razor blade stealth. It’s actually about 10% smaller. It’s a little bit lighter. It’s thinner by the 10% margin. 

And overall it’s designed more for productivity and business use than it is for gaming. So if you think of the razor blade stealth that has a GP unit, a discrete GPU, this does not has the Intel XE graphics, which are fine, but this display is not even greater than 60 Hertz, so it’s not designed for gaming. Is designed for productivity, and it looks awesome. It really is just starting to come out. People are getting their hands on it and reviews are coming out. 

So if you’re interested, you probably won’t see review for me unless I fork over the money to get one. They do start at $1200, but that’s for the 8 gigabyte of RAM modeled in I5. 

I would suggest you go up to the I7 with 16 gigs of RAM, in which case it’s $1600. And yeah, maybe if we had like 10,000 Subs that would do it, but we don’t so. 

It’s a pipe dream for me right now. OK, the blade stealth was updated in late 2020 with the 11th Gen Intel I7 processor. It looks great. It is a bit of experiment, expensive device. 

But it does have a discrete GPU. It’s the GTX 1650TI. I haven’t got my hands on this myself, but I’ve used a blade stealth and number of times actually have owned a 2017 model, an 18 model. Thought they were really good, but ultimately the keyboards were killing me and on the later ones the earlier one it was the reflectivity of the display. 

All that is corrected now, so if you’re interested in Blade Stealth, another Goodyear for Razor on that now. 

The the flagship, the Blade 15 that if I said everybody knows Razor for that was also updated this year with an 11th Gen Model and I haven’t gotten my hands on this. I know you’re hearing that a lot, but trust me I’ve got a bunch of products here. I’m going to show you hands on, but I do have a 2018 blade 15 that’s still rockin and it’s definitely showing its age. 

But it’s a really. It’s the laptop most people recommend, particularly if you have the budget. 

The cool thing about the blade 15 is not only is it the laptop that I think a lot of manufacturers are striving to mimic, but it’s also on sale often, and that’s really cool to see in Razer products because they generally launch at a higher price point, although other manufacturers are starting to launch those price points as well, the Blade 15 had a studio edition. 

Also, productivity aimed. I don’t know a whole lot about this device other than what I’ve already said, so we’ll go ahead and move on. 

There’s also the Blade 17 Pro. I did get a chance to review last year’s model, and I mean it is just a beast. It weighs something like four and a half, 5 pounds, actually kind of more than £5 anyway. And yeah, it’s a glorious device. It’s but it’s very expensive. It’s 17 inches more room for airflow, better cooling big old GPUs, but I think it’s really designed for the hardcores who can spend 3 grand on a laptop. 

OK, mice. Now this is my chance to show you some stuff. So Razer released a bunch of V2 and V3’s of their products this year the V2 deathadder. 

It’s it’s an update to the age old deathadder that’s been amazing year after year four in like a decade or something. They also released in mini version that I have right here. So finally some product to show you. Now I did a full review on this mouse and I really like it a lot now I don’t have small hands I have. I guess you’d call ’em average sized hands. 

But I did find this fine to use, but. 

I wish it were a little bit bigger and that’s what the regular deathadder is for. So if you’re somebody who wants a portable deathadder, this is a good way to go. You’ll notice some rubber on here these were included with the device little stickers, so I pasted them on to give them a try. I haven’t removed them ’cause I think it’s actually pretty comfortable to use with these grips. An it helps with those long sessions of gaming when your hands can get sweaty. 

Alright, so moving on to one of my favorite favorite. 

Products this year. 

The Death Adder V2 Pro. 

Oh man, OK. I actually just recently got my hands on this. Something like a month ago and I started doing my videos in my reviews and so you’ll see those on my channel. But this is again an update. The age old deathadder, but this time it is wireless and the battery life is not horrible. 

And it doesn’t come with those rubberized grips, but it does have that kind of printed onto it, so I found it to be very comfortable. I don’t do long gaming sessions, just be honest as kids, but I don’t really have time, but I did some, you know, solid gaming sessions with it. And yeah, never really slipped. 

The wheel is awesome. Get DPI sensor or buttons on the top. It also supports the charging cradle that Razer ships with its ultimate line. So the ultimate Viper, the ultimate basilisk. 

Or you can buy it separately. It’s like $30, but it’s compatible with all of those. So I happen to have, uh, a Viper ultimate line around. Test it out. Works perfectly. This also can communicate over Bluetooth, so if you’re not comfortable with going wired ’cause you want the space, you don’t want the dongles, you know the deal, then you could go Bluetooth. So and I ran it Bluetooth and I did my review and it was actually really good, but I don’t do competitive gaming, so if there is some kind of like. 

I don’t know superhuman lag and supposed to have noticed I didn’t OK, so moving on to the Basilisk V2, which is right here? This is a wired FPS centric gaming mouse with a thumb thumb rest, so I’m a big fan of thumb. Rest, I think thumb rests are they’re awesome, so if you’re looking for a gaming mouse and you want a little place to rest your thumb. 

It’s also really helpful for doing work, so my I’ll show you my day-to-day mouse in a moment, but that mouse also has a thumb rest. I can’t work without a thumb rest, it’s just the way that I am, but this is a good mouse and I love the way it feels. Of course it’s a lot like the. 

Well, there’s a competitor out there that has a similar design, but I don’t see the big deal. I mean it, it works great and it looks good. So there you go. It does have resistance as well, so you can change the scroll wheels resistance, which is awesome. I’m a big fan of assault scroll plus this comes with razors. Awesome braided cables. OK, the Viper mini. I don’t have this one. 

But you can imagine it is a mini version of the Viper. The Viper is also an FPS centric mouse, although it doesn’t have the thumb rest because ambidextrous in design I nailed it into text areas in design. 

OK, so there’s also a Mercury white version, the Viper Ultimate Viper Ultimate is the wireless mouse. I don’t have that one, but you know we’re going to take a look at a Mercury white mouse here. In a moment, there was also a cyber punk addition of the Viper Ultimate that was released. This looks super cool. I haven’t really played much sadder punk yet. Just created my character and. 

And you know, finish the first objective. But yeah, I’m playing Immortals Phoenix rising. It’s awesome. Let me finish that first, then I’ll get the cyber punk. 

OK, now some lettsome not a, so the left handed not a was released. This is great for MMO’s because of all the macro assignable buttons on the side. And then there’s also a not a Pro which looks to have a thumb rest. This is left handed in its orientation, so keep that in mind. If you are writing. Finally. Oh man, my favorite mouse of the year, the Razor Pro click. 

This is a productivity centric mouse. I use it day-to-day. I freaking love it. Has a USB C port for charging most of the mice I’ve shown you thus far have been USB micro USB, but all the version three products from Razer this year they all use USB C. So I think USB is coming is going to be with us in 2021. That’s just my opinion. I don’t know for sure, but this mouse was designed. 

In collaboration with a company called Human Scale, the entire focus is on productivity ergonomics, so this is a competitor. Something like the Logitech MX Master 3. 

I don’t know why I just said logic and I felt like I couldn’t say launch deck earlier when I was talking about the basilisks, but anyway, so this is a sweet mouse. I love it. It’s got the nice grippy sides in case you do get sweaty, it has the thumb rest, which is important to me, has all the buttons I need. The two left ones, and then the two left ones. The buttons on the side, the two primaries, and then the scroll wheels clickable. And it does connect. 

Only over Bluetooth or 2.4 GHz or wired. I said only. I don’t know what the fourth option would be OK, I should try Bluetooth. Oh no, you know what I did? Try it Bluetooth when it first came out. I had it in Bluetooth. I put this in my review. 

I had a lot of trouble with connectivity, so I switched it to the 2.4 Hertz and it works great. So unless they’ve done a firmware release, I can’t recommend Bluetooth. 

OK keyboards, I have keyboards to show you. So. First of all the OR nada V2 we just gave away my ornata V2 to a member of our community so I don’t have it with me anymore. But this was was my favorite keyboard from Razer for this year. I’m a big fan of the ornata with the Mecca membrane keyboard design. 

But I don’t have it so I can’t show it to you. Also that rest that wrist rest is magnetic. So just clips right in. This is a great keyboard if you just want to fly and type quickly. For me it took very little effort to actually the keys. The travel was not as deep as some other keyboards so that I’ll show you today and I was able to fly on this keyboard which of course can have its problems. ’cause if you’re too fast. 

It you know, of course, errors increase as you go faster. So yeah, you gotta be really accurate. It’s a great great keyboard. There’s also the cyanos, a cynosa V2. I did not get my hands on this. This looks like a nice middle minimalistic design. Of course you get the chroma RGB lighting is a big year for keyboards with razor, so let’s just fly through them. Another one I didn’t get to use is the Huntsman. 

Elite, I also didn’t get to use the Huntsman Mini, but oh, that’s not true. I have it right here. OK, for a second there I thought this had a different name so the Huntsman Mini. I’ve just started testing this and my first reaction is. 

OK, it’s tiny of course, but also it’s kind of without a wrist rest and you know, I’m a bit. I do a lot of work on my PC and most of my time is spent working, not gaming, so I can’t quite get my wrists at the right level unless I force them. But it is a really beautiful keyboard. You better look at it here here. Here’s how it sounds like. 

Right, it’s not loud. Here’s another keyboard, I’ll show you in a moment. 

Uh, huh, yeah, OK, so this if you’re looking for something quieter and then of course if you’re more professional so you don’t want to have a professional gamer or a competitive gamer, meaning you don’t want to have all the extra keys like the Arrow keys, the home keys, the number pad, all you need is the core keys to do your work or do your gaming. This is a good way to go. Razer does have some. 

Other competitive gaming keyboards out there, but I like the look of this. I like the idea that it’s small. I wish it were white, but it only comes in black, but it’s super cool. I like it. It’s nice and lightweight. It connects Wired only so there’s no wireless on this which would have really nailed it for me if it were wireless, because then you’d have. 

Even less like if you’re going for minimalism, then you’d have one less thing, right? The wire in the cable. But anyway, this is super cool so Razer also released another ergonomic device. This is the pro type keyboard. I don’t have this one yet. It’s on my wish list and I’ll try to pick it up. The thing about this one though, just at first glance I like the white, I think just the way the chroma shines through the keys on their white or Mercury white devices. Even going back to the. 

Razer Blade Stealth, which was when the first laptops get Mercury white. I love the way that razors RGB works. An looks against white backgrounds, but for me it’s not about the color. It’s not about the keys that are available. 

It’s the shape, so if you’re looking for an ergonomic approach, productivity approach and ergonomics are important to you on the mouse, they should be important to you on the keyboard, but for whatever reason Razer did not opt for an ergonomic keyboard layout. They went for a flat design. We’ll see if this continues if they find further productivity or sorry momentum with their productivity line. 

Then I could see them going with a more ergonomic approach, in which case I think they’re going to start to crush it with their productivity peripherals. For now, it’s just a white keyboard, I think, but I haven’t got my hands on it. I can’t be too critical, but as somebody with tons of tendonitis in my wrists 

I need something that is curved if I’m going to use it for a long period of time, not just for a review. OK, the keyboard that was making all the clicky sounds. 

Is right not right here? No, this isn’t it? OK so this is the Black Widow version three. OK, I have something else to show you in a moment. I’ve haven’t got my hands on this. I know I keep saying that, but it’s just how do I keep up with all this stuff? How do you keep up with all this stuff? It’s impossible and this is sort of my point. I mean this year that razors had I’m like 10 minutes into this video and. 

We’re not even halfway. We’re more than halfway actually. Yeah, we’re getting through the slides, but there’s a lot of products I didn’t get my hands on this. 

ETC etc etc. 

But hey, it’s a Razer keyboard. It looks awesome. It’s a version 3. 

I can give you some insights, but. 

Not yet, you’ll see why. 

OK, there is also a tenkeyless model of the Black Widow version three. This one is wired only, but. 

Here it is the Black Widow V3. OK so this is what I’ve been trying to talk about without getting to it quite yet. So this is the third version of the Black Widow and this is the Pro model. This is wireless compatible. The battery lasts about two 2 1/2 days for me with the chroma backlighting on and it maximum which I thought was the best way to text it. Test it because. 

I like the chroma and yeah, this connects over Bluetooth as well as 2.4 Hertz and you can connect it over USB C. Remember earlier I mentioned that Razer’s products are all USB C and the V3 line, so that’s good CV3 pros. 

And yeah, I love the way this works. I love the way it looks. Here’s a sense of what the backlighting looks like. I love the way the keys light up and hit the transparency that you have. The visibility that you have. It’s a really comfortable keyboard for typing. Now it is a bit on the loud side, but that’s what you can expect with a mechanical keyboard. Here’s a test. 

All right? 

$20 if you can figure out what I take. OK, it also has this super cool spinny. 

Media key here so you can adjust your volume is also clickable so you can mute immediately. If you want to. There are media keys here. The Media keys light up around them, but not the keys themselves, so I shouldn’t say that way so not the icons. 

So you know what these are overtime playing, pause, previous track, next track, but you can’t see them like you can see the word NUM here on the number key so they didn’t light that up for whatever reason, but it doesn’t take too much time to figure out what they are. Memorize them. I just wish that those were lit up. I think just for consistency would look really good. So I’m a huge fan of the Black Widow. V3 is one of my favorite keyboards for the year. 

But because of the ergonomics, I can’t use it too much. Kind of sparingly. But yeah, I got plenty of desk space so I can make that work OK Now audio. So Razer also released a bunch of audio products, so starting with the blackshark V2 this is a wired. 

Gaming oriented, but not exclusively. Gaming headset. It’s extremely comfortable. So if you’re familiar with razors cracking line from several years ago, I’ve reviewed a few of those here on the channel. Those are big little heavier to me. They’re not as comfortable as this. Those used leather. This uses some kind of like cloth. 

It’s really in. There’s some type of memory foam underneath the cloth. It’s very comfortable to wear for long periods of time, and it’s very minimalistic. Like you just have a couple of buttons, you have your dial here for the volume. 

The microphone is detachable, so if you don’t want the microphone, you don’t have to more on that in a moment. And yeah, it does also have. 

This. 

This adapter, which if I can remember correctly, I think what this does? What does this do? Oh, this is the. This is simple. OK, all this is an adapter to go from your standard headphone Jack to USB. OK, for some reason I thought this was a controller with. 

Volume controls, but it’s not so. Anyway, that’s an awesome headset, but you can tell I haven’t used it too much. After we review. There’s also the blackshark V2 X. This one I didn’t get my hands on so I don’t know too much about what makes it different from the regular V2. If you happen to drop it in the comments, OK, there’s two headsets this year that from Razor that I definitely want to talk about the most. 

So this is one of ’em now I mentioned a second ago about this little microphone, right? So I don’t use the microphone because I have an external microphone. The Yeti from the company called Blue. 

So I have this. This is the Blackshark V2 Pro and I use it completely just independently to wireless. There’s the slot for the microphone if you want to use it. It does come in the box, but I don’t use it and it’s just a nice lightweight comfortable headset. Very minimal. You have your volume dial. 

You can mute with the Press of a button, and then there’s your power button which the other one doesn’t have. ’cause that one’s not wireless and you put these on and they’re just, ah, you get some. 

You get some active or rather passive noise cancelling because of the ear cups. There is also active noise cancelling. If you want to turn that on. They sound great with 7.1 surround and these are. I mean I don’t know the price offhand. Maybe 1:30 or 160 there so they could be a bit expensive I suppose, but I just I love the way that you feel these are on my desk. 

Every day, all day. I love using these for conference calls for work and for gaming. They sound great. Two plus you can use an external microphone. It’s no big deal. 

It also has this fall back thing, so if you you can set it up in the Razer Chroma software to fall back to another audio device if you turn those off and they’ll turn off after 15 minutes or whatever period you choose thing between 15 an hour. If there’s no audio coming through so they have really good power management and I’ve only had to charge them once in like 2 weeks, so those are awesome. I’m a big fan of those. 

OK, there is also the Kira which is an Xbox oriented gaming headset. It looks really similar to the blackshark. It’s kind of different hinges on the ear cups, but I haven’t gotten my hands on this. Same with the pro, but I imagine this would be the wireless version and if anything you’ve noticed today is there’s a pro for just about everything. 1 headset that doesn’t have a pro, the other one I’m really excited to talk to you guys about. 

Is this this? 

Is the razor Opus. This is a competitor to something like the Bose QC 700. These are THX certified course Razer owns THX, THX, certified noise cancelling headphones. So this you can totally use them with your PC if you wanted to say connect over Bluetooth. 

But it’s really for mobile phones, so if you want to connect this to your phone and then you know go for a jog. May be a little bit careful where you’re running because of the you know noise cancelling. We get hit by car or something. But yeah, I use these mostly for conference calls. If I’m on my phone versus something like zoom, and you know I’m not going to be my PC, I also use them when I’m running on my treadmill. 

They do get a little sweaty, so you gotta kind of monitor what you’re doing there. 

But yeah, if I were traveling on a plane, this would be the headset that I use for a long time. I use the Bose QC 25 which are wired and that good noise cancelling. Not great. These are worlds apart. I mean, that’s an older headset. This is brand new release this year. Of course an I really, really like them, they’re comfortable, etc. I haven’t done my full review yet ’cause I just got these last week. 

But I will be doing my full review soon. Big fan of what Razer is doing with all their non gaming peripherals as well as their gaming peripherals. 

OK, few more things we’re getting there and there’s so much that came out this year. Razer Hammerhead true wireless pro, so these look a lot like air pods, but I haven’t got my hands on him. In fact, we’ve almost exhaustive list. Everything I’ve got my hands on, so we’ll we’ll get through this without too much more demo, but the Hammerhead true Wireless Pro another. 

Headset, or rather, your ear pods, what do? 

You call ’em anyway. 

They go in your ear and using with your phone earbuds. That’s the word I was looking for, so this would be a competitor to the air pods or competitive like the Samsung Galaxy Buds Live. They go in your ears, etc. Great for sound, but that’s what they do. OK, God should edit that whole thing out. OK, this is exhausting. OK, there’s so much that came out this year. The last audio device. 

Is a microphone the razor siren mini? These look adorable. They come in a variety of colors. Definitely oriented towards streamers, but hey, for me I get that Mercury one. 

OK gaming controllers, so I’ve been using the Razer Wolverine Tournament Edition, which is the V1. The first one that came out I think 2018 ish. Really great. Great controller. It doesn’t come in wireless so it’s wired only, which is my only gripe, but it’s an excellent excellent controller. This is the version 2 so it looks. 

Quite a bit different. They made some changes to the knobs and to the button selection and the orientation looks a lot less like an Xbox controller, but you can use it with your Xbox your PC. So if you’re looking for a great gaming controller I can recommend this since I’ve used the previous version, I thought, which I still use today. It’s very good. 

OK, so the last live demo I have for you is the razor kiti, so the kids she comes in an iOS Android, an Xbox trend. This is the Android one so it’s really easy to use. You pop this back cover and then it stretches out. So connecting through USB C for Android you can stretch it to a big phone. Even my note 20. 

Which I ruled for a couple of weeks that worked just fine with this, but just, you know, be careful. It doesn’t fit every phone doesn’t fix fit my Galaxy fold so anyway, and then you connect it in and now you’ve got a full on controller. 

It’s really easy to use. You see how quickly I can, I can undo it and put it back together. Very simple. The buttons feel great. This is an awesome accessory if you have something like Google Stadia on your phone so you can use a stadia controller, but or you can spare the $60.00 and just get your mind towards this. ’cause this also works natively with a lot of Android games. 

So that’s an awesome controller and that does it for controllers. Now onto Mousemats, I mean really. Razer didn’t miss very much this year. So first of all, there’s the gigantis V2, so giant. 

Giant giant maspeth. There’s also the Akari which another mouse pad and then finally the proglide. So this was $10 and my daughter did spill something on it. So there’s a bit of a stain but otherwise this is held up really well. So just ignore this area and look at the rest. I’ve had this now maybe 3 months and it’s one of the better mouse pads that I’ve used. I mean. 

It is starting to have you know it’s it’s kind of rubbing off a little bit, but it’s still intact, which is important and the back is a really nice grippy sort of. 

Rubber and it’s. 

I’m not sure what the material is precisely, but this has been working well for me and I’ve gone through a lot of mousepads in my life, probably 50. I mean, if I had to guess, probably 50 mousepads. 

And this one’s been really good holding up very well is only $10. 

It’s probably the least expensive razor product ever, and yeah, I like it. OK now there are other things that came out this year, including gaming chairs. So for the first time ever, Razer released a gaming chair. I’m just going to call this quarter iskur. I’m not sure how to pronounce it, but reviews are starting to come out for this and I’m hearing good things, so that’s awesome. And there’s also the THS case which fits the iPhone 11. 

And there’s also a case for the airpod pros, so there you go. There’s the Arctech Pro, which is another case for iPad or sorry, the iPhone 11. I think there is. I think this is for other devices too. In architecture, maybe Samsung Phone or two? I’m not positive. 

But yeah, Razor seems to be backing away from making their own phones and how they have this. So that’s the year in review for Razor one amazing 2020. It’s been for Razor. I just blown away by everything they’ve released and that was exhausting. How long been recording 26 minutes? The longest video game? OK, that’s not true. But anyway, yeah so thanks for watching this, hopefully. 

You found it helpful. Hat tip to razor one amazing year that they’ve had big celebration popping balloons, popping wine, what a year go. Put your feet up, Razor team and we’re looking forward to a delightful 2021. Thanks a lot. 

 

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