Razer has launched two Razer Huntsman V3 HE keyboards that move its competitive-gaming features into cheaper wired models: the $120 Huntsman V3 HE Magnetic Mini and the $140 Huntsman V3 HE Magnetic Tenkeyless. According to Razer, they are the company’s first keyboards built around Hall effect magnetic switches, rather than the optical switches it has long promoted for esports play.
The pricing is the practical news. Razer’s optical Huntsman Pro line starts at $220, while these new magnetic boards carry much of the same gaming feature set at a lower entry point. The Verge’s Antonio G. Di Benedetto, who briefly tested both models, said the keyboards feel fast enough for quick inputs, though their value depends heavily on whether buyers actually want Razer’s more obsessive movement and actuation tools.
What is the Razer Huntsman V3 HE?
The Huntsman V3 HE is Razer’s new magnetic-switch version of its Huntsman gaming keyboard line. The Mini is a 65-percent layout, while the Tenkeyless model drops the number pad but keeps a larger navigation cluster than the smaller board.
Both are wired-only keyboards with 8KHz polling, programmable actuation points and Rapid Trigger, which lets a key reset faster after release. Razer says the linear switches have an average latency of 0.6ms. That is slightly slower than the 0.48ms figure attached to optical Huntsman boards such as the Huntsman V3 Pro, which lets Razer keep claiming optical is faster, even if the practical gap is tiny on paper.
The boards also include Razer’s more contentious input features. Snap Tap prioritizes the most recent movement command on the A or W keys, a setup meant to make counter-strafing easier in shooters. The feature has been treated as cheating by some players, and Valve has banned it in Counter-Strike 2.
Razer is also adding Snap Flex, which can assign actions to key release, and Dual-Keypress Priority, which is designed to stop an unintended movement input from overriding two held movement keys, such as a diagonal input. Those two features are also on the midrange optical Huntsman V3 Tenkeyless 8KHz, and Razer plans to bring them to Huntsman V3 Pro models through a firmware update.
Who are these keyboards competing with?
Razer is chasing the same small but noisy corner of the keyboard market as Wooting, Asus and SteelSeries: players who tune movement behavior and key response for competitive shooters. The Verge notes that Wooting’s 80HE and 60HE v2 are among the better-regarded gaming keyboards in this category, while Razer’s new HE models undercut them by roughly $60.
That lower price does come with some visible cost control. Di Benedetto said the plastic base under the aluminum top case makes the keyboards light and portable, but less premium than full-metal alternatives. The boards also skip extras found on Huntsman Pro models, including a volume knob, wrist rest and status screen.
The keycaps are doubleshot PBT with a coarse texture, according to the hands-on testing, though Di Benedetto criticized the shine-through legends for uneven-looking symbols and lettering. He also described Razer’s Synapse software as burdensome, while noting that Razer offers a web version for users who do not want the desktop app running all the time.
Sound may be one area where the cheaper boards come out ahead. Di Benedetto said the magnetic Huntsman models have a cleaner clacky tone than the louder Huntsman V3 Pro, though he also said other wired 8K Hall effect keyboards he has tested sound better. In other words: the new Huntsmans look like Razer boards, behave like tournament tools and finally cost less like specialist gear.
This story draws on original reporting from The Verge.
