The Razer Huntsman Mini Review: A Game-Changing Keyboard Addition

As someone who has been following the Razer keyboard lineup, I was excited to get my hands on the new Huntsman Mini. With its improved linear switches and onboard lighting profiles, this keyboard is sure to please even the most discerning gamers. From what I can tell, like the tournament edition review as well as the Huntsman Elite Keyboard, the optomechanical switches are some of the fastest switches you can buy on the market. Since it's using an infrared light beam on the inside to transfer data to your PC, they're nice and smooth, with only one millimeter actuation force and 40 grams of force.

The linears on this keyboard, however, take center stage. With only one millimeter actuation force and 40 grams of force, these switches are going to be great for gaming. The fact that they can produce a full range of motion without any lag or hesitation makes them ideal for fast-paced games where every millisecond counts. Whether you're a casual gamer or an avid enthusiast, the linears on this keyboard will provide the perfect balance between speed and accuracy.

But what really sets the Huntsman Mini apart from other keyboards is its onboard lighting profiles. Believe it or not, this is actually a pretty new addition to the Razer lineup with the Huntsman Mini. With five onboard lighting profiles that can be customized and changed with function control, users have the flexibility to tailor their keyboard's appearance to suit their preferences. Function control one will turn off all lighting effects, while function control two will bring up a static color; pressing function control two again will allow you to change the color. Function control three is breathing effect, four is spectrum cycling, five is rainbow wave, six is starlight, and seven is reactive.

While this feature may seem like a minor addition, it's actually quite impressive. The fact that users can access these profiles without having to open software or download any additional programs makes it incredibly convenient. However, there is one notable exception: custom lighting effects are still not saved for the onboard storage. This means that if you create your own unique lighting effect using Synapse, you'll lose it when you unplug the keyboard and bring it to a new PC.

Luckily, this feature is cloud-based, which means you can access your macros, keys, and lighting profiles from any device with an internet connection. Simply download Synapse, sign in, and your custom lighting effects will be synced across all of your devices. While it's still a bit inconvenient that these effects aren't saved to the onboard storage, this workaround more than makes up for it.

For those who may not be familiar with keyboard specs, I'd like to take a moment to address some common requests from the community. N key rollovers, which allow users to press multiple keys at once, are available on the Huntsman Mini. The board also features USB-C standard and bottom row PBT keycaps. One notable exception is that the keyboard is still a 60-key layout, making it slightly smaller than some of its competitors.

One thing I'd like to point out is that Razer has listened to community feedback over the years and implemented features that have been commonly requested. The addition of USB-C standard and bottom row PBT keycaps are just two examples of this. Additionally, the Huntsman Mini's compact design makes it an excellent choice for those who prefer a smaller keyboard.

In my time with the Razer Huntsman Mini, I've found that gaming on it has been incredibly smooth. With the improved linear switches and silicone dampeners, the keyboard produces barely any ping or noise when typing. The bar inside the switch is also noticeably quieter than its predecessors, making for an overall more enjoyable typing experience.

Of course, there is one notable downside to using the Huntsman Mini: the price difference between the optomechanical switches with clicky keycaps and the linear switches. While it's not uncommon for keyboards to have different prices based on switch type, I'm still a bit surprised by this particular discrepancy. The optomechanical switches with clicky keycaps are available now at $120, while the linear switches will be available in a few weeks' time for $130.

In conclusion, I'd like to say that I'm thoroughly impressed with the Razer Huntsman Mini. With its improved linear switches, onboard lighting profiles, and compact design, this keyboard is sure to please even the most discerning gamers. While there are a few minor drawbacks, such as the inability to save custom lighting effects to the onboard storage, these do not detract from my overall enthusiasm for the keyboard.

As I mentioned earlier, this exact model will be available in a few weeks' time, with the optomechanical switches with clicky keycaps available now at $120 and the linear switches coming in at $130. Whether you're a seasoned gamer or just starting out, the Razer Huntsman Mini is definitely worth considering.

A Final Word

If you enjoyed this review, I'd like to encourage you to try out the Razer Huntsman Mini for yourself. With its impressive features and compact design, it's an excellent choice for anyone looking for a reliable gaming keyboard. Whether you're a casual gamer or an avid enthusiast, the Huntsman Mini is sure to provide hours of entertainment and satisfaction.

In conclusion, I'd like to say that I'm thoroughly impressed with the Razer Huntsman Mini. With its improved linear switches, onboard lighting profiles, and compact design, this keyboard is sure to please even the most discerning gamers.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwhat's up guys i'm random frank p and today we're going to be checking out the brand new razer huntsman mini their 60 gaming keyboard with brand new improved linear optical mechanical switches so if you're thinking of picking it up but you want to know more got you covered in this review so checking it out we have the new 60 form factor with aluminum top plate and plastic bottom while this is obviously the white version razer is also selling this in a black variant as well now 60 keyboards are definitely more of a hit trend in recent years not only does it save space on your desktop overall but a lot of people prefer this as well because it gives them more room to use your mouse when you're gaming at a lower dpi if you just have a lot of big you know arm swipes going on i also like a 60 layout because it's really simple to customize and make it your own so razer also kept some popular adoptions from their previous huntsman tournament edition keyboard including the detachable usbc cable double shot pbt keycaps and a standard bottom row this is great because like i just said it gives you the option now to switch it up and make it all stand out i swapped their stock included white usb-c cable with a matching white coiled aviator cable that i got from tez cables i'll drop a link for that down below and it may just be a matter of personal opinion but i always think adding a nice coil cable to your keyboard can really elevate the look of it but again that's just me some people like them some people don't but what's also great is razer is also selling their very own color matching pbt keycaps to the rest of their product lineup meaning you can get it in the mercury white like we have here quartz which is the soft pink color black which makes for a nice panda theme going on with the white board here or their neon razor green keycap set and these ppt key caps are oil resistant and have a nice texture to them they're thicker and still allow for that nice rgb shine through they're also only thirty dollars which is really good price for keycaps now with that being said i just use the color keycaps on the modifiers and wasps so if you do deck out the whole keyboard in a brand new set you will lose the included side printed functions that come on the stock keycaps and since this board is 60 and you have less physical keys you still do have access to them with the function key and then the actual functions like media keys brightness arrow keys macro recordings they're all side printed on the keys which helps you identify which is which then on the back side when you flip it over we do have two feet a six degree and a nine degree angle to elevate the back side plus four rubberized pads doesn't slide around and ruin your desktop but also even though you can't see on the bottom i really like the branding typeface here with the four gamers by gamers it's embossed into the bottom you can't see it but it looks nice but next i want to talk about their brand new linear switches because these are a newer version of their optomechanical linear switches these red linear switches were first introduced back with the tournament edition keyboard and while they felt nice and smooth one thing they definitely suffered from was rattle and that nasty pinging resonance it had when typing razer claimed to have completely fixed this with this keyboard using silicone dampeners and factory loop switches so literally the first thing i did when i got this board in was you know crack it open open it up there are 13 screws holding it together on the top plate and when i got them all out and took it apart i was expecting to see some sort of dampening material i just figured they meant maybe some sort of silicone dampening insert something like that so i thought that was going to be on the inside lining it but that wasn't the case and it's actually something they applied to the switches themselves which is pretty interesting so i popped one of the switches out of the pcb to get a closer look at it because i really wanted to see what's going on and these switches do not crack open like a traditional switch does so i did have to sacrifice one for the sake of this video but after a few seconds of breaking it all down i found these silicone dampeners were actually embedded into the stem of the switch it's this red silicone strip as you can see and it does blend in pretty well with the switch which is nice but yeah there's these two strips of silicone implemented on each side of the stem and that's what makes this completely different when typing or gaming and yes we'll do a sound test in a minute to show you don't worry now comparing these to the original linear optomechanical switch again at first glance they look pretty much the same despite the new gray housing here which is just to make it look more in unison with the white keyboard but if you take a closer look you can see that deeper red silicone strip on the side of the new switch that the older ones obviously do not have now razer did say as i mentioned before that they also did factory lube these switches however upon further inspection and just completely taking the switches apart as you see i didn't see any residue anywhere on the stem the spring the inside of the housing and i'm not saying they lied about that or anything because you know why would they but i just didn't see any indication that lube was applied here everything was dry i did reach out to them so if i hear anything i get a follow-up from the time that i'm filming this video i'll definitely pin it as a comment down below but regardless i did want to give you a detailed close look at the new switch construction even though i had to completely break one apart to sacrifice it but hey that's why i'm your favorite tech reviewer right so what we'll do now yes is going to be a sound test of the brand new linear optomechanical switches but i'm also going to do a sound test comparison to the original uh linear switches from the huntsman tournament edition so you can hear these new switches versus how they used to sound you okay so as you heard it is honestly completely night and day from their previous switches so it's funny that something as little as those tiny red uh silicone dampeners can make a world's difference like that and in the end when you think about it yeah it's not like too big of a production process because it's just like you know they make these probably in bulk of hundreds of thousands in a mold so it's pretty easy but they had to completely redesign the stem to implement them in the side so great job on that and it does sound a lot better we no longer have that pinging resonance from the the bar when it would reset and come back up again which was just killing the sound of the previous tournament edition so great job razer and as you also heard stabilizers also aren't too bad the integrated stabilizers are mounted to the pcb they just snap into place and i will say my enter key didn't sound as good as the rest of them but again all together for a mass-produced keyboard like this that doesn't actually you know like band-aid mod and factory lube as far as i could tell like i said uh the stabilizers even further they sound pretty good i'm not going to beat a dead horse talking about the optomechanical switches because i've talked about them in both the tournament edition review as well as the huntsman elite keyboard but they are some of the fastest switches you can buy on the market since it's using an infrared light beam on the inside to transfer the data to your pc so with the linears they're nice and smooth they're quick i want to say they actually have only one millimeter with 40 grams of force so these are going to be good for gaming now transitioning into some of the rgb because believe it or not this is actually a pretty new addition to this lineup here with the huntsman mini we do actually have onboard lighting profiles they can be customized and changed with function control and then one through seven so function control one will turn the lighting effects off function control 2 will bring up you know a static color so it's just one uh lighting effect but then from there if you press function control 2 again you can change the color function control 3 is their breathing effect function control 4 is their spectrum cycling function control 5 is the rainbow wave function control 6 is starlight and function control 7 is reactive so on the board lighting profiles on the fly macro recording and while we do have 5 onboard profiles that you can access which does save like your macros and keys that you reprogram unfortunately custom lighting effects are still not saved for the on-board storage so yes you still have the control function one through seven for the lighting effects but say you go into synapse and you completely create your own crazy lighting effect you unplug it and bring it to a new pc that lighting effect will not transfer and save onto this board which is unfortunate um it's all cloud-based still so you would have to bring your your your keyboard to a new pc download synapse sign in and then it would be there so kind of a bummer i wish they would change that and just to get the boring stuff out of the way you can find on a spec sheet anywhere yes n key rollovers you can press all the keys at once and they'll register 1 000 hertz pulling you guys are pretty familiar with razer keyboards and their specs and honestly for a 60 keyboard if you look at the market in terms of you know companies that mass produce gaming keyboards the popular ones like hyperx corsair seal series which out of them actually give you a 60 keyboard the answer is none razer's the only one so i'm really happy to see that they really listened to community feedback over the years and they started implementing features that have been commonly requested by the community like i said usbc standard bottom row pbt keycaps and now smaller form factors i for one love the board i love the new switches gaming on it has been really great because since we no longer have that pinging from the switches and the bar inside it just sounds so much better and they're smooth linear switches they feel great this has been a killer addition to the razer product lineup so i'm definitely impressed with the brand new razer huntsman mini with the improved linear switches due to those silicone dampeners um and the only real con that i can think of or downside as i just mentioned is the fact that you can't save custom lighting effects and stuff to the actual onboard profiles which is kind of a bummer but it's honestly not a deal breaker at all um going forward this this exact model is going to be available in a few weeks so as of today you can get the huntsman mini in the purple clicky optomechanical switches with the red linears being available in a few weeks they said and what's kind of interesting is there's a price difference there which you don't usually see uh the optomechanical ones with the clicky switches is available right now for 120 and the linear ones are going to be available for a 10 surplus at 130. um kind of strange don't really understand that but again in the grand scheme of things when you look at 60 keyboards like this that are actually quality out there uh 130 or 120 really isn't that bad of a price point yes i'd love to see it you know closer to 100 i think that would be a good sweet spot for it but this will sell no doubt about it definitely a big thumbs up from me and that'll wrap it up guys hope you enjoyed the razer husband mini review if you did also leave a thumbs up down below feel free to hit me up and follow me on twitter at randomfrankp at last if you haven't already hit that subscribe button well hope you enjoyed have a good daywhat's up guys i'm random frank p and today we're going to be checking out the brand new razer huntsman mini their 60 gaming keyboard with brand new improved linear optical mechanical switches so if you're thinking of picking it up but you want to know more got you covered in this review so checking it out we have the new 60 form factor with aluminum top plate and plastic bottom while this is obviously the white version razer is also selling this in a black variant as well now 60 keyboards are definitely more of a hit trend in recent years not only does it save space on your desktop overall but a lot of people prefer this as well because it gives them more room to use your mouse when you're gaming at a lower dpi if you just have a lot of big you know arm swipes going on i also like a 60 layout because it's really simple to customize and make it your own so razer also kept some popular adoptions from their previous huntsman tournament edition keyboard including the detachable usbc cable double shot pbt keycaps and a standard bottom row this is great because like i just said it gives you the option now to switch it up and make it all stand out i swapped their stock included white usb-c cable with a matching white coiled aviator cable that i got from tez cables i'll drop a link for that down below and it may just be a matter of personal opinion but i always think adding a nice coil cable to your keyboard can really elevate the look of it but again that's just me some people like them some people don't but what's also great is razer is also selling their very own color matching pbt keycaps to the rest of their product lineup meaning you can get it in the mercury white like we have here quartz which is the soft pink color black which makes for a nice panda theme going on with the white board here or their neon razor green keycap set and these ppt key caps are oil resistant and have a nice texture to them they're thicker and still allow for that nice rgb shine through they're also only thirty dollars which is really good price for keycaps now with that being said i just use the color keycaps on the modifiers and wasps so if you do deck out the whole keyboard in a brand new set you will lose the included side printed functions that come on the stock keycaps and since this board is 60 and you have less physical keys you still do have access to them with the function key and then the actual functions like media keys brightness arrow keys macro recordings they're all side printed on the keys which helps you identify which is which then on the back side when you flip it over we do have two feet a six degree and a nine degree angle to elevate the back side plus four rubberized pads doesn't slide around and ruin your desktop but also even though you can't see on the bottom i really like the branding typeface here with the four gamers by gamers it's embossed into the bottom you can't see it but it looks nice but next i want to talk about their brand new linear switches because these are a newer version of their optomechanical linear switches these red linear switches were first introduced back with the tournament edition keyboard and while they felt nice and smooth one thing they definitely suffered from was rattle and that nasty pinging resonance it had when typing razer claimed to have completely fixed this with this keyboard using silicone dampeners and factory loop switches so literally the first thing i did when i got this board in was you know crack it open open it up there are 13 screws holding it together on the top plate and when i got them all out and took it apart i was expecting to see some sort of dampening material i just figured they meant maybe some sort of silicone dampening insert something like that so i thought that was going to be on the inside lining it but that wasn't the case and it's actually something they applied to the switches themselves which is pretty interesting so i popped one of the switches out of the pcb to get a closer look at it because i really wanted to see what's going on and these switches do not crack open like a traditional switch does so i did have to sacrifice one for the sake of this video but after a few seconds of breaking it all down i found these silicone dampeners were actually embedded into the stem of the switch it's this red silicone strip as you can see and it does blend in pretty well with the switch which is nice but yeah there's these two strips of silicone implemented on each side of the stem and that's what makes this completely different when typing or gaming and yes we'll do a sound test in a minute to show you don't worry now comparing these to the original linear optomechanical switch again at first glance they look pretty much the same despite the new gray housing here which is just to make it look more in unison with the white keyboard but if you take a closer look you can see that deeper red silicone strip on the side of the new switch that the older ones obviously do not have now razer did say as i mentioned before that they also did factory lube these switches however upon further inspection and just completely taking the switches apart as you see i didn't see any residue anywhere on the stem the spring the inside of the housing and i'm not saying they lied about that or anything because you know why would they but i just didn't see any indication that lube was applied here everything was dry i did reach out to them so if i hear anything i get a follow-up from the time that i'm filming this video i'll definitely pin it as a comment down below but regardless i did want to give you a detailed close look at the new switch construction even though i had to completely break one apart to sacrifice it but hey that's why i'm your favorite tech reviewer right so what we'll do now yes is going to be a sound test of the brand new linear optomechanical switches but i'm also going to do a sound test comparison to the original uh linear switches from the huntsman tournament edition so you can hear these new switches versus how they used to sound you okay so as you heard it is honestly completely night and day from their previous switches so it's funny that something as little as those tiny red uh silicone dampeners can make a world's difference like that and in the end when you think about it yeah it's not like too big of a production process because it's just like you know they make these probably in bulk of hundreds of thousands in a mold so it's pretty easy but they had to completely redesign the stem to implement them in the side so great job on that and it does sound a lot better we no longer have that pinging resonance from the the bar when it would reset and come back up again which was just killing the sound of the previous tournament edition so great job razer and as you also heard stabilizers also aren't too bad the integrated stabilizers are mounted to the pcb they just snap into place and i will say my enter key didn't sound as good as the rest of them but again all together for a mass-produced keyboard like this that doesn't actually you know like band-aid mod and factory lube as far as i could tell like i said uh the stabilizers even further they sound pretty good i'm not going to beat a dead horse talking about the optomechanical switches because i've talked about them in both the tournament edition review as well as the huntsman elite keyboard but they are some of the fastest switches you can buy on the market since it's using an infrared light beam on the inside to transfer the data to your pc so with the linears they're nice and smooth they're quick i want to say they actually have only one millimeter with 40 grams of force so these are going to be good for gaming now transitioning into some of the rgb because believe it or not this is actually a pretty new addition to this lineup here with the huntsman mini we do actually have onboard lighting profiles they can be customized and changed with function control and then one through seven so function control one will turn the lighting effects off function control 2 will bring up you know a static color so it's just one uh lighting effect but then from there if you press function control 2 again you can change the color function control 3 is their breathing effect function control 4 is their spectrum cycling function control 5 is the rainbow wave function control 6 is starlight and function control 7 is reactive so on the board lighting profiles on the fly macro recording and while we do have 5 onboard profiles that you can access which does save like your macros and keys that you reprogram unfortunately custom lighting effects are still not saved for the on-board storage so yes you still have the control function one through seven for the lighting effects but say you go into synapse and you completely create your own crazy lighting effect you unplug it and bring it to a new pc that lighting effect will not transfer and save onto this board which is unfortunate um it's all cloud-based still so you would have to bring your your your keyboard to a new pc download synapse sign in and then it would be there so kind of a bummer i wish they would change that and just to get the boring stuff out of the way you can find on a spec sheet anywhere yes n key rollovers you can press all the keys at once and they'll register 1 000 hertz pulling you guys are pretty familiar with razer keyboards and their specs and honestly for a 60 keyboard if you look at the market in terms of you know companies that mass produce gaming keyboards the popular ones like hyperx corsair seal series which out of them actually give you a 60 keyboard the answer is none razer's the only one so i'm really happy to see that they really listened to community feedback over the years and they started implementing features that have been commonly requested by the community like i said usbc standard bottom row pbt keycaps and now smaller form factors i for one love the board i love the new switches gaming on it has been really great because since we no longer have that pinging from the switches and the bar inside it just sounds so much better and they're smooth linear switches they feel great this has been a killer addition to the razer product lineup so i'm definitely impressed with the brand new razer huntsman mini with the improved linear switches due to those silicone dampeners um and the only real con that i can think of or downside as i just mentioned is the fact that you can't save custom lighting effects and stuff to the actual onboard profiles which is kind of a bummer but it's honestly not a deal breaker at all um going forward this this exact model is going to be available in a few weeks so as of today you can get the huntsman mini in the purple clicky optomechanical switches with the red linears being available in a few weeks they said and what's kind of interesting is there's a price difference there which you don't usually see uh the optomechanical ones with the clicky switches is available right now for 120 and the linear ones are going to be available for a 10 surplus at 130. um kind of strange don't really understand that but again in the grand scheme of things when you look at 60 keyboards like this that are actually quality out there uh 130 or 120 really isn't that bad of a price point yes i'd love to see it you know closer to 100 i think that would be a good sweet spot for it but this will sell no doubt about it definitely a big thumbs up from me and that'll wrap it up guys hope you enjoyed the razer husband mini review if you did also leave a thumbs up down below feel free to hit me up and follow me on twitter at randomfrankp at last if you haven't already hit that subscribe button well hope you enjoyed have a good day\n"