Razer Anansi Keyboard Review Performance
Razer Anansi MMO Gaming Keyboard
Best Buy: $86.24
(19 customer reviews)
24 used & new available from $80.05
Designed and engineered especially for the MMO gamer, the Razer Anansi is the world’s first keyboard that raises your level of gameplay by giving you the power to instantly use up to 7x more commands and abilities over the current ?12 ability keys you now have. Its seven thumb modifier keys located below the space bar allow you to actuate every possible combination of modifier key (shift, ctrl, alt) in total accuracy and comfort using a single key stroke, exponentially expanding the repertoire of spells, abilities and macros you have at your command. From the casual MMO gamer to the serious hardcore raider, the Razer Anansi will take you to the head of the pack in both PVE and PVP action. Combine it with the Razer Naga MMOG mouse to use the Razer Anansi’s 7 thumb modifier keys seamlessly with the 12-button mouse keypad, giving you an unprecedented level of battle control while dual-wielding the world’s most phenomenal weapons for dragon slaying dominance.
The Razer Anansi I received was the Windows version of the keyboard, and I used it on both a Windows and a Mac machine. The great thing about it was my user experience was consistent on both with the exception that I was using the alt and windows button for my command and options keys. The 5 macro enabled keys on the left hand side still worked perfectly, as did the 7 modifier keys at the bottom, and the driver didn’t suffer any sort of glitches either. This was sort of a concern for me as the Blackwidow Mac driver is sort of buggy on the Windows version of the keyboard. Razer has corrected that problem and the user experience no matter which operating system you are using will work perfectly fine on either version of the keyboard.
The Razer Anansi 7 thumb grid modifier keys reacted responsively and aside from needing to get used to them were effective in lightening the load of my hot key configuration. I think it would take some practice with the keyboard before you could truly master using all 7 modifier keys, but I dont think Razer intended the Anansi’s additional 7 keys to be the primary keys you are using within your game.
On button profile switching for me is capable and you can use the M1 – M5 keys over on the side in order to achieve this. Whats even greater is that the Razer Anansi can recognizance what game or application you are currently using and switch your profile based just on what window you have the foreground. So say I open a game like World of Warcraft and have Photoshop open behind it. I can easily alt+tab out of wow and my keyboard will recognize that I am in a new application appropriately switching my driver profile immediately. This is a great feature which allows you to have an unlimited number of profiles and the ability to switch profiles within your application or game immediatelyw ithout ever having to leave the application. Can anyone say alt configurations for PvP, PvE, FPS, MMO, WoW, CoD, application workflow you name it!
Razer Anansi Keyboard Driver
Click to enlarge
The Razer Anansi Driver can be downloaded from the Razer Support site or is compatible with the new Synapse 2.0 released by Razer in 2012. If you have the Razer Synapse 2.0 already installed on your computer it will automatically read that the Razer Anansi is connected and retrieve the correct driver for you to download. Their is a driver for both Windows and Mac meaning that yes the Razer Anansi is completely Mac compatible. The driver is really detailed and easy to use, after just a few minutes reviewing its capability I had already started programming the on the fly profile switching for use in multiple games and application. When I used the two drivers and the Synapse 2.0 I had a consistent experience with absolutely no bugs or glitches.
Yet the awesomeness of the Razer Anansi does not stop there. The keyboard its self has been slightly rearranged pushing the F-keys slightly to the side in order to grant you easier access to them in the game and to hopefully squeeze out 1 or 2 more effective hot-keys. You can turn on a gaming by pressing Fn+F11 in order to lock yourself within the game and avoid unintentionally pressing Alt+Tab in the middle of a very heated battle. These are just a few of the other standard Razer trademarks which come with all of their packages to make their product line the premium standard of quality in the gaming hardware market today.
Razer Anansi Performance – 10
