The Razer Ornata Chroma is an excellent gaming keyboard with proprietary hybrid switches. They have the soft feel of a membrane switch as well as the clicky and tactile feedback of a mechanical switch. The board is well-made and has attractive RGB lighting. It also includes a nice and plush wrist rest, which improves the overall typing experience. This keyboard is an improvement over the Razer Cynosa Chroma, which is very similar.
What’s the deal with Razer’s Ornata Chroma? Switches that combine the, uh, key features of the consumer keyboard market’s dominant typing technologies. Razer refers to the technology as “Mecha-Membrane,” and it is exactly what it sounds like: a combination of its own proprietary mechanical switch and a silicone dome. The mechanical switch depresses the dome to register the stroke when you press a key. This eliminates the need for a full version of either type of switch while still providing some of the alleged benefits of both.
But it all happens under the hood. The updated keycaps, which are roughly half the height of traditional keycaps, are one thing you’re more likely to notice. In addition to requiring you to move less weight with each press, Razer claims that the shorter cap “reduce[s] the time it takes for your actions to register,” allowing you to type faster and land more hits in games that require quick reaction.
Razer also includes a large padded wrist rest (almost 3.5 inches deep) that connects to the magnetized front of the keyboard, providing a place to rest your hands when the action slows. Despite this, the keyboard supports 10-key rollover and 10-key anti-ghosting.
Nonetheless, that lighting is about all you get that is even remotely fancy. There is no USB or audio pass-through to connect other devices or headphones. There are no dedicated media keys, either; to access volume, playback, macro recording, and lighting controls, press the Fn key (which replaces the right Windows key) and the appropriate function key in the top row. All of the other critical keyboard configuration functions, such as creating macros and enabling the dedicated Gaming mode, are accessible via Synapse.
The Ornata Chroma feels strange at first, as one would expect from a product that combines two disparate technologies. Though Razer claims that the Mecha-Membrane design provides a “crisp tactile click” similar to mechanical switches while retaining the “soft cushioned touch” of a silicone dome keyboard, this was not the case for me.
