Razer Ornata V3 Review

Razer’s budget-friendly low profile gaming keyboards offer a great solution to the pricey, premium offerings that can burn holes in your wallet – and the Razer Ornata V3 is no exception, albeit with a few setbacks that makes it a strong recommend above other, slightly less costly counterparts. The Ornata sings with its gorgeous, appealing design and comfy extended wrist rest that should comfortably cater to those looking for a brand-name keyboard for casual gaming.

The Razer Ornata V3 boasts a striking design that catches your eye, largely thanks to the Chroma RGB lighting that rhythmically dances across the keys. Usually I find RGB can be a bit excessive and showy for no reason, but it feels right at home on the Ornata V3 and stands out in a mesmerising way. With Chroma RGB, you can pretty much tailor the flashiness to your liking with countless dynamic lighting effects. It will certainly make your gaming set-up more vibrant, especially if you’re looking for a keyboard with solid Chroma integration on games and some eye-candy to go along with it.

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The Razer Ornata V3 is also a wired keyboard so that might be a slight setback for wireless seekers, but the cable extends far enough to game at a cozy distance. Out of the box, you’ll also get the detachable magnetic soft-touch wrist rest that extends from the bottom of the keyboard. Typically this would eat up space on your table but I strongly recommend having it nonetheless as the rest is incredibly comfortable on your wrists and was perfectly made for long gaming hours. The keyboard’s size also incredibly slim at just 27mm, which is always a plus.

The UV-coated keycaps ensure a scratch-free surface on the keys with the promise of preventing wear and tear after frequent use. I can’t really comment on the longevity of the coating given my brief time with the review unit, but sadly, it does give the keyboard this oddly “cheap” quality to it. Luckily everything else about the keyboard’s build is solid enough to still live up to Razer’s quality.

The Ornata V3 comes with backlit dedicated media keys on the top right side of the keyboard layout to adjust and control volume, brightness and other settings as well as pause, play and skip media. While it’s not exactly a new feature on most gaming keyboards today, the inclusion of it is welcomed since it gives you a few more quick-access options to tinker with your experience, be it for gaming or other entertainment uses.

The Razer Ornata V3 keys sport mecha-membrane switches which are meant to be a middle-ground for the clicky feel of mechanical switches and the familiar feel of a conventional keyboard. The best way to test latency was through a variety of games, both casual and competitive, which yielded some interesting results.

Playing God of War on the keyboard felt fairly quick and responsive though not nearly as snappy as I would’ve liked. I switched to something a bit more relaxing with Forza Horizon 5 and had a perfectly fine time with it, giving me the response times I needed with its low latency. For casual gaming, you shouldn’t find any problems with the Razer Ornata V3 as it’s well-suited for lengthy hours thanks to the wrist rest and soft, clicky switches that aren’t too taxing on your fingertips.

Things get a bit underwhelming when it comes to competitive gaming, though. Keypresses don’t feel very instantaneous and the latency isn’t fast enough to keep up with games like Overwatch 2, Fortnite or Call of Duty. I wouldn’t recommend getting the Ornata V3 if your purpose is to use it for competitive multiplayer or online games since it just falls short of performing well under pressure with games that require faster reaction times.

The noise of the keyboard also became a grating issue after a while. For business or personal use – especially involving typing out articles like I am right now – the space bar makes a loud rattling sound that, on a few ocassions, began to annoy my friend in the other room. The keys themselves are also incredibly noisy, with the mecha-membrane switches doing seemingly little to mitigate noise despite the soft touch of the keys. Naturally, you wouldn’t really hear this with a good pair of headphones on during gaming but it might creep up on you.

For all the negatives I’ve mentioned, I do actually like the Razer Ornata V3. It’s moderately priced at R1400 upwards for what it offers but it’s worth noting that the Razer Cynosa series delivers similar, if not slightly better, features at the same price point. It’s better prepped for lengthy casual gaming than competitive gaming due to the aforementioned latency issues too. On the other hand, it’s a pretty good gaming keyboard with a pleasantly comfy magnetic wrist rest, a gorgeous design and fully customisable RGB lighting. Just be warned of its noisy presence.