In what seems to be a rather out of the box design decision on Razer’s part, the Razer Ornata Chroma mechanical membrane keyboard is certainly something else.
One of Razer’s more unique keyboards, the Ornata Chroma is one keyboard that has stepped away from the usual just “insert colour -MX switches” and going for something rather different.
At its core, it is both a mechanical and membrane keyboard all at once. The result is a keyboard that does sounds and feels quite different from your usual mechanical keyboard. Combined with shorter keys, and a unique tactile feedback, it certainly makes for a different experience.
As far as the key travel is concerned, its pretty much a bog standard full-sized keyboard, complete with number pad. It doesn’t have any of the dedicated media keys or macros that you’ll find on one of Razer’s BlackWidow keyboards, but it gets the job done.
The tactile feedback for the Ornata, I can only describe as “springy”. It doesn’t take too much effort to hammer out your keys (it does have a degree of softness), but it is also quite clicky and said clickiness might be a bit annoying to some, but generally, I find it quite nice to use especially since the keys aren’t as tall as that of their more standard keyboards.
The chroma effects, of course, are quite nice, and they’re programmable via Razer’s Synapse app like all of Razer’s other Chroma products.
However, I’m not a big fan of the wrist rest, and I ended up taking it out. Of course, some would appreciate it, but I personally find it a bit too large for my tastes, but it is not nearly as large as some others I’ve seen on the market. If you do wind up using it, it sticks on neatly via magnets hidden in the wrist rest and it is padded with soft pleather.
All in, I think the Ornata Chroma is a nice marriage of functional keyboard you’d use for work and one for gaming, coming in nicely in the middle. It’s a shame that there aren’t any macros or dedicated media keys, but given the price tag of the keyboard (about RM419 after conversion, still cheaper than most of Razer’s gaming keyboards) it’s not too bad a trade-off.
If you want an even cheaper version of the Ornata Chroma, you can go for the basic variant which goes for about RM338.
Check out more shots of the Razer Ornata below!
