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Razer Anansi
Razer Anansi Review
MMO Keyboard
The Razer Anansi and its companion the Razer Naga mouse are both built to be an MMO design. The Anansi is somewhat similar to the Black Widow Ultimate as both have rebind able keys. There are five additional macro keys that line the left side of the board and all the keys are back lit with an on the fly Macro recording. One of the drawbacks to this keyboard is the fact that it does not use mechanical keys but uses more traditional dome style keys. The dome key style is not as responsive as the mechanical type they but are at the top of the line in the dome style.
You might be asking, why use an MMO type of keyboard or for that matter an MMO mouse. Some games that people play require a string of complicated sequences of actions which is what MMO devices enable you to do, by programming macros into the extra keys that the Razer Anansi offers.
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So you say, there a lot of keyboards on the market that offer these macro keys. Yes there are but the Anansi has something the other keyboards do not. That is the placement of 7 thumb keys modifiers right below the space bar. This set of additional keys become even more powerful when used with the Razer Naga mouse as the two work together. The 7 buttons act like shift keys to change the behavior of the 12 buttons on the side of the Naga. That changes the available actions from 12 to 96. I get confused on my G110 with 3 macros programmed as I can never remember what each key does. Oh well.
In addition to those keys there are 5 gaming keys on the left hand side of the keyboard, a standard keyboard layout which offers over 100 programmable keys. You can also use the on board memory to define multiple profiles for each key for each of your games. The levels of customizations for this keyboard are virtually endless.
One of the drawbacks to the Anansi is an odd design feature that requires two USB ports for the 2 plugs on the end of the cable. The reason is one plug is to power the keyboard and the other is to power the led lighting. But maybe it is worth it, as cycling through the colors shows an amazing spectrum of colors, 16 million to be exact. Usually a keyboard is a hub for power and signal connections but not the Anansi.
Getting back to a good thing is that the Anansi has included in its profile a gaming mode switch which allows you to disable the windows key when in game so as not to put into Windows while playing. I just keep mine turned on all the time as I never use the Windows keys anyways.
The Anansi is a good keyboard but I would not put in the elite class of boards as it does not improve much over previous boards it replaces. But lets be honest here, with all of the customization available on this board mere mortals could never take advantage of it all.