RAZER TARTARUS PRO

PC CONTROLLER.

- REN ALCANTARA

I have been happily playing games on the PC since I started with my first 3D shooters in the mid-90s. This constitutes the majority of my life, and I don’t think that’s going to change. As such, I have accumulated a fair amount of experience, and along with that experience, a fair amount of peripherals. One of the ones that I have grown to love very much is the keyboard controller. I have gone through the core Razer gaming claw lineup, from the first Tartarus, the Orbweaver, and now, the subject of today’s review, the Razer Tartarus Pro.

DESIGN

The Tartarus Pro carries the same core design as the Orbweaver and the first generation Tartarus, in that it’s a small keyboard that’s meant to be used with your left hand. There’s a wrist rest, a palm rest, and the same keys that your lefthand would normally reach on a standard keyboard. There are 19 keys on the main face, a scroll wheel, and on the side, where your thumb can reach, there’s a single key, an eight-way D-pad, and a single clocky button. It’s done in a matte, not quite rubberized finish on the palm and wrist rest, and a matte hard plastic for the frame. There’s also a long USB cable so you can plug it into your computer without any difficulty.

HARDWARE

The device has per-key chroma control, so you can set any combination of colors you want, and with the included software, you can even set it to change depending on the game you’re playing, what the audio is doing, your keystrokes, or a number of other variables.