What you need to know
- Razer announced the "world's first optical laptop keyboard."
- The keyboard brings the speed and precision brought by optical switches to a traditional laptop.
- The keyboard is available on the Razer Blade 15, which starts at $2,649.
Razer announced the "world's first optical laptop keyboard" according to Razer. The new keyboard delivers fast keystrokes without requiring much force by users. The keyboard is available on select models of the Razer Blade 15 Advanced, starting at $2,649. It will be available on more devices in 2020.
Optical switches utilize light to capture keystrokes instantly. Each key has an infrared light beam that detects when an actuation occurs, providing a fast and precise keystroke. Razer highlights that this new optical keyboard has an actuation point of only 1mm and only requires 55g of actuation force. Optical switches are often preferred by gamers that want a quick keyboard experience.
Razer Blade 15 Advanced (2019) review
The Razer Blade 15's optical keyboard also has N-Key Rollover with anti-ghosting. Thanks to its optical design, the keyboard also has zero debounce, which makes sure that only one keystroke is registered at a time.
The keyboard features Razer Chroma lighting on each individual key. There are 16.8 million colors to choose from through Razer Chroma RGB.
In our recent review of the Blade 15 Advanced we criticized the keyboard as being below our expectations. It'll be interesting to see if this optical one addresses our complaint.
The Razer Blade 15 is available starting today for $2,649. The laptop has a 15.6-inch 240Hz display and several ports, including an HDMI port, Mini DisplayPort, a Thunderbolt 3 USB-C port, a USB-C port, and two USB-A 3.1 Gen 2 ports. It's available for purchase in the U.S., Canada, and China. In the future, it will be available in select countries in the Asia-Pacific region.
Now available with an optical keyboard, the Razer Blade 15 packs tons of gaming power across several different configurations.
