Software

Like all Razer products the Blackwidow X uses Razer Synapse 2.0, their all in one across the board drivers and software. Like always I have to mention that when you go to install the software they are going to ask you to sign up for an account to sync your settings across all PCs. The software will also force you to restart your computer after so be ready for that as well. Once setup and logged in the software takes you to the main page with a photo of the Blackwidow X taking up most of the page. Here you can click on any key and reprogram it. You can also flip through your saved profiles and even set a shortcut to flip to that profile on the fly. Down at the bottom the software also lets you flip between any of the Razer products you currently have running.

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The main reason most of you will be getting on the software though is to mess with the Chroma lighting though. This is an area that I think could use some improvement. The lighting tab seems like it is the only page you need to get on to mess with the keyboards lighting. You can select different effects, adjust the brightness, and even set the direction that the effects run. What you can’t do here however is do individual lighting modes. To do that you have to click the Chroma Configurator next to the effects list. I think they should make this a second tab up top where it will be more visible. Opening this up opens up another program all together and it feels added on rather than part of an all in one software solution. That said here you can click on individual keys and set their colors.

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The next tab under the Keyboard tab is the gaming mode page. This is a simple one, here you can turn the gaming mode on and off. You can also individually turn on and off the three things that the gaming mode turns off. This is good if you want to avoid Alt+F4 and the Windows key but you need to be able to Alt Tab.

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The second main tab is the Macros page. Here you can load past macros or if you want record new macros.

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A while back Razer introduced their SDK to allow people to design and program their own lighting effects and people have been jumping all over it. You can click the Chroma Apps tab up top and it opens up a webpage where people have uploaded all of their designs. Each has a video to show the effect as well and if you take a look down at the bottom there are currently 59 pages full of different modes. There are also a few pages of Chroma Apps. This is a little different than the lighting effects, rather than being a static effect, the apps let you play games like Snake on your keyboard, turn your keyboard into a visualization of your music, or even integrate lighting effects into your games. Like the lighting controls I think the software should better integrate this stuff though, rather than opening a browser window. Plus, they could Have a main tab for lighting and integrate the two different lighting tabs we already have along with apps and effects. Macros could be moved into the keyboard section where they belong as well while we are at it.

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The last section is the stats section. Once again this opens up into another program all together, feeling split up from the synapse software. It is however a really cool setup. Here we can dive into different stats from past gaming sessions. For example, you can see heatmaps of where you click on the screen for Razer mice, your mouse movement, and keystroke heatmaps. You can break this down by day, session, ect on top of looking per game.

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garfi3ld's Avatar
garfi3ld replied the topic: #37935 08 Jun 2016 18:12
Today I take a look at Razers new Blackwidow X Chroma with its aluminum design

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