 Razer is making some pretty bold claims about their Black Widow Ultimate 2014 when you consider that on the surface it appears to be entirely unchanged from their last generation flagship. Is there really innovation left in mechanical keyboards? I guess we'll find out. Intro Music With its factory tuning and data center DNA, an Intel 730 Series SSD is an amazing choice for gamers and performance enthusiasts. First up is the packaging, which Razer's reviewer's guide informs me is the way to tell the new Black Widow Ultimate from the old one, and that it's great because of the cleaner lines and new artwork. But none of that really matters to me because Razer missed one small, nearly insignificant detail. It doesn't say 2014 Edition anywhere on it. I sure wish whatever product naming school Razer and Apple's iPad team went to would go away. Razer, I've told you guys this already, but come on. I don't care if you ran out of snake, spiders, and mythical creatures, different products need to have different names or at least numbers that clearly indicate the revision or generation of the product to your customers. Anyway, with that out of the way, let's get into the important differences. Razer has done an under-the-hood update that turns the Black Widow Ultimate into a completely different beast. Gone are the Cherry MX Blue and Brown switches we're used to finding on their clicky and stealth versions, and they've been replaced by what Razer is calling Razer Mechanical Switches in Green and Orange variants respectively. So your first reaction to this is probably, what the devil is a Razer Mechanical Switch? And honestly, I said the same thing. The answer is both simple and complicated. The simple version from Razer is that they recognize that the keyswitch designs on the market were optimized for a great typing experience, and while they happened to be superior for gaming to membrane keyswitches, especially if you pre-sorted them or binned them from the factory like Razer's been doing, gaming isn't what they were designed for. That is why they set out to create the first keyswitches made from the ground up for gaming. The complicated version is that in addition to what I just said, Cherry MX switches are expensive and constantly in short supply, and Cherry's patent on their MX keyswitches very recently expired, so now elements of that design can be used by other companies without any legal ramifications, and Razer can move from having their keyswitches made at Cherry Corporation's factories in Germany to less expensive manufacturers in China such as Kail, or even build their own facility if they wanted to. Now, to be clear, I'm not saying that Razer's new keyswitches are a Chinese Cherry clone, because while the design bears many similarities to Cherry MX, it is different, and the changes are positive ones. First up, the actuation point, the exact position where the downward keystroke is registered by the computer, is specced 0.3 millimeters higher. This has the obvious effect of making your key presses register sooner when you press down, and it also moves the actuation point itself 3 millimeters closer to the reset point, or the position when you let go where the key is ready to be activated again. Both of these things are designed to improve the keyboard's responsiveness, which is definitely good. Another effect of this is applicable to Razer's clicky green keyswitch, not to be confused with Cherry MX greens. Totally different. And that is that it moves the actuation point closer to where the tactile bump is felt by the user, meaning it's easier to feel when you've successfully pressed the key without needing to bottom it out, or press the key all the way down to be sure. This has perhaps less relevance for typists, but for gamers, it makes double tapping or any other quick, repetitive actions easier to do by feel. Next up, their design calls for more gold on the contacts, which Razer determined allows an increase in the rated durability on each key from 50 million keystrokes to 60 million keystrokes. And finally, they are improving quality by employing their own QA staff on the factory floor to achieve a 0.4 millimeter variance in pre-travel distance versus Cherry's 0.6 millimeter variance. This should improve the consistency and feeling from one keyboard to another and even across all the keys on a single keyboard. Not being elite hacks or gamer like the eSports players who Razer has had testing the keyboard since last year, I didn't notice the raised actuation point much, but I also really didn't find anything to complain about. The green Razer keyswitch keyboard here definitely felt different from my Ducky Shine 3 with Cherry MX blues, but it didn't feel much different. And in fact, if I didn't know I was using different switches, I would have guessed it was just batch to batch variance between blues rather than a completely different manufacturer. But I really like Cherry MX blues, so if they feel like blues to us regular folks, but they have added benefits for more demanding users, then that's great. Now, Cherry's pitch for their switches is unparalleled quality due to German manufacturing, but if Razer's solution to combat notoriously inconsistent Chinese build quality is to submit their own specifications and put their own staff on the floor for quality control, then I think ultimately the question gamers need to ask themselves is this. Are you buying a keyboard or a key switch? Do you really need to know where the bread came from, you know, at Subway, if the sandwich artisan delivers a delicious and nutritious sandwich to you? Do you need to know where Razer is sourcing each individual component of their keyboard, or do you trust Razer to deliver you an exceptional product as long as they're overseeing the manufacturing? Leave your comments under the video and let me know your thoughts. Speaking of exceptional products, I've spent so much time talking about the key switches that I haven't actually given too much information about the keyboard itself. It's got fully programmable keys and five additional gaming keys with support for on-the-fly macro recording, individual per-key backlighting with 13 levels of brightness, all the way from off to a phenomenally vibrant beautiful green. It's got media keys with the function key to control them on the right, so it takes up less prime gaming real estate on the left side of the keyboard, 10 key rollover so you're not going to have to worry about ghosting, and both USB and audio passthrough ports over here on the right hand side. The build quality of the keyboard is solid as we've come to expect, and the matte black finish is fantastic, a huge improvement over some of their previous designs that used glossy plastic. If I had to point out something I don't like about the design, all I really came up with is that there's no wrist rest included, but that is becoming a more common thing in general, and I guess I don't like this at symbol very much. Seriously Razer, what is that? But anyway, all things considered, those are really minor complaints, and if this product is an indication of the kind of more affordable mechanical keyboards that will be available for gamers with these switches, which are not exclusive to Razer in any way, they're saying well yeah sure, whoever can use them, then I think the future is very exciting. Speaking of exciting, audiobooks at audible.com, head on over to audible.com slash Linus to browse their massive selection of over 150,000 titles. If you're looking for excitement, I saw a familiar author pop up on the bestseller list in the last couple of weeks. Dick Francis, from whom I've read To the Hilt and Long Shot, specializes in fast-paced and exciting crime novels that always relate somehow to the world of horse racing. If that sounds intriguing, then you can sign up for Audible's monthly audiobook service and get the first one for free. If horse racing crime doesn't sound intriguing to you, then you can go back to Nancy Drew, Mr. Intriguing, the word that gets overused in Nancy Drew to, you know, much to my dismay as a child, because I'd sincerely thought that it was pronounced Intrigued, not Intrigued, and it's in like every single Nancy Drew book. Anyway, which incidentally you can also find Nancy Drew books on audible.com, whatever you end up listening to, just make sure you use my URL, audible.com slash Linus. Guys, like and share this video if you liked it, dislike it if you disliked it, and leave a comment on the Linus Tech Tips forum linked in the video description if you want to discuss this product, which is actually a very interesting one, where you have any constructive criticism for me and my team. 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