New keyboard hype! I was lucky enough to be able to get an early copy of the brand spankin’ new Razer Huntsman Mini to test out and let you folks know what I think and that’s what I’m here to do.
I’m going to break this review into a couple categories, but will keep it relatively to the point based on my experience, to help you all understand whether or not this keyboard is for you and I’m thinking it very well could be.
Who is it made for?
So first of all, let me say this keyboard is made and marketed for competitive gamers. This is not your typical keyboard, not even your 80% or 10-keyless keyboard, this is a 60% keyboard which means things are different.
With that being said, if you have a job such as mine (ie. writing articles) where I type a lot and make use of some of the keys not necessarily needed for gaming, it definitely could take some getting used to. It requires you to utilize the “fn” key and hit more than one button to do some of the things you’d be able to do much easier with a 10-keyless or full-size keyboard.
This keyboard was designed in order simplify the keyboard for just the pieces needed for gaming while giving more space for other necessities such as mouse space. We’ve all hit our mouse on the side of our keyboards before and this is MUCH less likely with a 60% keyboard.
You can also set up 5 customizable profiles from within Razer Synapse and store them on the keyboard so you can remove Synapse after should you desire to given its high memory usage. A nice touch!
How does it feel?
It’s clicky. Nice and clicky. I love how the click feels and sounds and it’s definitely receptive and quick – however – for the price point ($119.99) the case does feel a little plasticky.
On the flip side, I love the texture of the keys in that they seem to be a bit more sweat resistant compared to lets say the HyperX FPS Alloy I used before which may actually be a perk of the material used in their PBT keycaps.
My experience using the Huntsman Mini:
Overall it was pleasant. As I stated before, I really liked the feel of the keyboard along with the oil resistant feel of the keys. My only issues really stemmed from learning which keys correlated with buttons that had been removed from the keyboard and added as a second “fn option” on another key. This can be easily circumvented by looking at the manual, however, sometimes habit just kicks in and you’re hitting the wrongs keys.
I played several hours of first person shooters like VALORANT and CS:GO and outside of needing to press two keys (fn+esc) to access console in Counter-Strike, it was seamless and felt great.
I’ll admit I had to rebind some keys as I’d utilized things like “page down” to toggle mute in discord and other applications and with this new keyboard that would require “fn+;”. I say this not to dissuade you, but to let you know there may be a need to reconfigure some of the things you’ve gotten used to.
While playing World of Warcraft it was very similar. It definitely required a bit more adjusting given how many different keys you can utilize for different panels, windows, abilities, etc. but in terms of feel it was fine.
Final thoughts:
If you’ve used a 60% keyboard before then by all means, grab the Razer Hunstman Mini. It’s a solid keyboard that should have everything you need along with some nice RGB effects and customizable profiles.
If you haven’t used one before but want to get in on the wave, just be aware that at first you may miss some of the buttons or have a few miss clicks or moments of confusion on how to access them. You can find where they keys have been moved to either on the side of the keys (facing the user) or in the manual. Outside of that, it’s great for gaming and its compactness is wonderful.
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