Razer designed a $250 wireless keyboard and mouse combo for Xbox One, and it's perfect for living room gaming
The Razer Turret fits squarely in my lap, and it's heavy enough to feel stable.
The Razer Turret is comfortable to use and feels rather secure with its four pounds of weight.
It's a tenkeyless keyboard, which means it doesn't have a number pad on the right hand side — instead, it has an expandable tray to hold the Turret mouse. The keyboard is just under two feet wide with the tray expanded, and a bit over 15 inches wide with the tray pulled in.
The keyboard also has a built-in wrist support that makes it a bit larger from top to bottom, at 7.64 inches.
You can customize the color and lighting of each individual key on the Turret keyboard.
The keyboard uses Razer's gaming-specific mechanical switches, which the company says are durable enough for up to 80-million keystrokes. It includes a dedicated Xbox key that pulls up the Xbox One dashboard for easy navigation, but the layout is standard otherwise.
Using Razer's Synapyse and Chroma software, gamers can customize the color of each individual key on the keyboard with nearly 17 million possible color combinations and lighting effects.
The keyboard battery lasts for 11 hours with the lights full enabled, but turning them off will help it last for up to 43 hours. The keyboard charges using a USB-C cable, and includes a charging port to charge the Turret mouse.
The Turret mouse is based on Razer's popular Mamba design.
The Turret mouse is based on the wireless version of Razer's Mamba gaming mouse. The mouse has seven buttons in total and each one can be customized using the Synapse software. For those interested in comparing it to other gaming mice, the Turret has 16,000 DPI and can adjust the DPI at the press of a button. Razer says the mouse switches are good for up to 50 million clicks as well.
Like the Turret keyboard, the color and lighting effects of the mouse are fully customizable. They come at a much lower cost to the battery, too; the Turret mouse is good for 30 hours with lighting enabled, and 50 hours with lights disabled. The mouse uses a USB Mini-B charging cable, and can be charged through the keyboard.
Using my familiar PC controls on Xbox One felt incredibly satisfying,
Even holding the Razer Turret on my lap, being able to use my familiar PC settings when playing games like "Fortnite" on Xbox One felt incredibly satisfying. It took me some time to get used to the ergonomic lip at the base of the keyboard, but the wrist support feels necessary if you're using the Turret for more than a few minutes.
Like just about any mechanical keyboard, the keys can get rather noisy in the middle of a play session, so keep that in mind if the people around you can't stand the constant click-clack of a loud keyboard.
The Turret mouse feels swift and responsive; you can use Razor's software to fine tune it to your personal taste. If you're using it with a large, HDTV, you may want to make sure that its on Game Mode to ensure you don't have any extra delay when trying to point and click with the mouse.
The Turret also supports Windows 10, so you can use it for PC gaming, too.
As someone who does most of my gaming on PC, it was important to me that the Turret experience feels the same on Windows 10 as it does on Xbox One.
I'm happy to report that I had no issues moving between my PC and Xbox One using the Turret's wireless USB dongle. The package also includes two six-foot charging cables that can be used to connect the keyboard and mouse directly to your PC and minimize any wireless latency.
At $250, the Turret isn't a bad investment for PC gamers who want a wireless gaming keyboard and mouse with premium features and the Xbox One compatibility as an added bonus.
There are 18 games that work with keyboard and mouse on Xbox One, and the list is slowly increasing.
Unfortunately, the Turret will have limited utility on Xbox One until Microsoft and other developers add keyboard and mouse support to more games. While it's been about six months since the Xbox One adopted keyboard and mouse, there are still just 18 games that are compatible.
Some of Microsoft's most popular games already support keyboard and mouse on Windows 10, so hopefully the Xbox One versions of games like "Forza Horizon 4" and "State of Decay 2" will make it onto the list soon.
Here's the full list of keyboard compatible games on Xbox One:
- “Fortnite”
- “Warframe”
- “Minecraft”
- “X-Morph: Defense”
- “Vermintide 2”
- “Bomber Crew”
- “Children of Morta”
- “DayZ”
- “Deep Rock Galactic”
- “Minion Masters”
- “Moonlighter”
- “Roblox”
- “Strange Brigade”
- “Vigor”
- “Warface”
- “Wargroove”
- “War Thunder”
- “Gears of War 5”
The Turret might complete your home entertainment system, but it's a costly investment.
As someone who has both an Xbox One and gaming PC in my living room, being able to use the Turret for both from my couch has been an awesome change of pace. (I previously used an Xbox controller to control the PC!)
But at $250, the Razer Turret is still a costly investment, especially if you're only buying it to play Xbox One games. For now, the Turret might be best left for gamers who want to maximize control over their home entertainment system.
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