Razer Huntsman V3 Pro TKL

Verdict

The Razer Huntsman V3 Pro TKL is a class-leading gaming keyboard. It’s especially well made, comes with some of the most powerful and versatile key switches available on a gaming keyboard today, and offers vibrant RGB lighting. While expensive, it provides a lot for your money and makes for an amazing choice for pro gamers.

Introduction

Razer’s reputation for offering stellar gaming keyboards precedes them, but with its latest, the Razer Huntsman V3 Pro TKL, it’s looking to take things to the next level.

It brings together some of the sublime touches of previous models, including one of my favourites, the old Huntsman V2 Analog, as well as some new innovations to offer what may well just be one of the most feature-packed keyboards in recent times, alongside the likes of the SteelSeries Apex Pro TKL (2023) and Asus ROG Azoth.

On paper, the Razer Huntsman V3 Pro TKL looks to be one of the best gaming keyboards out there, but I’ve been testing it to see how it stacks up. Here are my thoughts.

Design

• Incredibly sturdy construction
• TKL layout offers more desk space
• PBT keycaps are a nice touch

The Razer Huntsman V3 Pro TKL is perhaps the brand’s most ‘Razer’-type keyboard yet in terms of its looks. It’s a mean-looking, all-black affair that’s remarkably well made with a plastic chassis and aluminium top plate with no deck flex even under intensive load.

Its TKL (or tenkeyless) layout ditches the number pad in favour of offering more horizontal desk space for mouse movements. It’s for this reason that we’ve also seen slightly smaller layout options such as 75% explode in recent times from manufacturers big and small, including Razer itself with its own BlackWidow V4 75%. A TKL layout arranges the same keys in a more conventional layout and gives you the benefit of a couple more function keys, too.

As well as featuring a more conventional layout, the Razer Huntsman V3 Pro TKL also offers other handy features and doodads including media controls and a multi-functional dial in the corner. The dial is tactile and the respective buttons are nicely clicky, too.

There are also a bevy of secondary functions present on some keys, too, including combinations that allow for macro recording, controlling the brightness of the keyboard’s RGB lighting, and for saving actuation point adjustments to the keyboard’s onboard memory. You can even use the assortment of lights below the navigation cluster as a guide for that on-board adjustment, with each one representing a different height in mm.

In typical Razer fashion, the Huntsman V3 Pro TKL features doubleshot PBT keycaps, which feature a comfortable textured finish under finger, and offer a more durable, longer-lasting alternative to more standard-issue ABS ones. You also get a magnetic wrist rest here, although it isn’t as plush as with some of Razer’s other keyboards, but it does at least attach via strong magnets to stay in place.

On the underside, there are also two-stage adjustable feet for raising the keyboard up for a more comfortable typing angle at either six or nine degrees respectively. Connectivity around the back is simple, as the Huntsman V3 Pro TKL is fully wired, and connects via a USB-C to USB-A detachable cable. The USB-C end is sunk deep into the chassis of the board, and is especially secure. The addition of a braided cable is also a nice touch, and it’s also of a reasonable length if your PC is a little way away.

As for its packaging, Razer’s latest candidate comes in a cardboard box, although the keyboard, cable, and bundled wrist rest all come in thin plastic bags. This is unusual for Razer, given its outward commitment to sustainability, and is arguably compounded by the printing of the hashtag ‘#GoGreenWithRazer’ on a throwaway plastic bag.

Performance

• Seriously powerful switches
• Analog inputs are clever
• Can be quite loud

The Razer Huntsman V3 Pro TKL joins a very small canon of keyboards that offer analog hall effect switches, bringing the benefit of both snappy, near-instant actuation alongside progressive inputs more commonly associated with controllers. This makes it one of the most powerful gaming keyboards available today, and certainly one of the best I’ve ever used.

For this combo, it utilises Razer’s second-gen optical Analog switches, which bring the benefits of rapid trigger with them. In essence, these are hall effect switches that actuate with light gates as opposed to more traditional mechanisms. As there isn’t a physical mechanism with a defined and fixed point where the switch actuates, it can be customised anywhere along the travel from 0.1mm to 4mm.

This allows for snappy inputs given you would only need to push the switch down a minimal amount for it to actuate, but the especially clever thing with these switches is their zero debounce time. In essence, they take no time to spring back up, meaning you can set their reset travel to be as high as their actuation point for rapid inputs. This is known as Rapid Trigger, and represents a new feature for this type of switch. I tested it with movement keys in Counter Strike 2, as well as for weapon switching and for throwing grenades. It makes a difference to how brisk inputs feel, and can provide a competitive edge.

However, this is only one side of these switches, as they are also analog ones, too. This means they can offer controller-like inputs with a more progressive scale, which is handy because you can now use a keyboard in titles where you may normally use a controller.

Razer makes it easy to map inputs in its software, and using the default Racing preset, it maps the WASD keys to left analog stick movement and right and left triggers. I tested it in both BeamNG Drive and in Forza Horizon 5 in races and freeroam, and it felt responsive. There is a little bit of a learning curve in mastering the power of those analog inputs if you’re used to the more standard on/off nature of mechanical keyswitches, but it is seriously clever.

For both gaming and general use, the switches inside the Razer Huntsman V3 Pro TKL felt smooth and light with a 40g force and were a joy to use, although they are quite loud, so it isn’t the best keyboard to use with people around you. It’s better suited for use in a gaming den more so than a louder office.

Software and lighting

• Extensive input customisation
• Lots of presets for RGB lighting
• Chroma RGB is vibrant and bright

I’ve often lauded Razer Synapse, the brand’s companion software, as being one of the most versatile and powerful suites out there, but the marriage between it and the Razer Huntsman V3 Pro TKL may just cement it as the most powerful available today.

It’s separated into specific tabs relating to lighting and actuation, inside which are all of the relevant settings for configuring the Huntsman V3 Pro TKL. You can do everything from enabling a Gaming Mode to prevent accidental keypresses of functions, as well as more complex customisation such as allowing for controller-like inputs with selecting keys for both analog and rapid trigger functions.

There are also a range of presets to choose from if you don’t want to program your own for use with specific types of games including racing and FPS titles, although programming them is as easy as selecting a key and its relevant function and distance.

Configuring the RGB lighting inside Synapse is also as easy as usual with a range of presets, or with Chroma Studio you can create your own. The RGB lighting on the Huntsman V3 Pro TKL is as sharp and as vibrant as I’ve come to expect from Razer, with excellent clarity.

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