A couple of weeks ago I bought a Razer Nostromo. So its about time to do a review on it.
The razer Nostromo is (mainly) a Game pad replacing the left side of your keyboard, or for working in programs (like editors). It makes certain tasks easier by binding shortcuts or macros to 1 key connecting a whole chain of keys into 1 keystroke.
Current Firmware version (1st of Aug 2011): 1.02 Driver Version: 2.02 UPDATE (21 sep 2011): Mac version available now! (see more information at the bottom)
One small note before we begin: the brand is called razer, and not razor. I see a lot of typos with the name so I just wanted to clarify that.
Lets have a look
Features
- 16 programmable buttons (14 keys, the round button on the side and the ‘spacebar’)
- A scroll (programmable, scroll up, scroll down and click action.)
- an 8-way D-pad (forwards backwards left right, and the diagonals)
- Note: The diagonals do not work very well for movement so it’s a good idea to disable them)
- Note 2: The D-pad “knob” is removable to reveal the 4-way button
- A space bar (also programmable)
- Back-light adjustable (brightness in software) hardware button for on/off
- Adjustable arm-rest (in 2 fixed settings)
- Up to 20 profiles
- Macros (unlimited recording length)
- 1.5M Cable length (5 ft)
History
The razer Nostromo use to be the Belkin N52TE until razer bought up the whole production line. They didn’t change a whole lot to the hardware of the device. They did, however, change the software. Razer added a lot more functionality to the software. One of the most noteworthy features: a LOT more profiles, they went from 3 (or 4 not sure) profiles to 20 profiles. On the bottom of the Nostromo there is a sticker with your Serial Number on it and stuff, there you will see: Developed With Belkin.
First impression
The device looks well made. The edges are all nice and refined with the exception of 1 – between the round button on the side and the scroll there is a curved edge that’s a little bit too sharp on my device. This is not a spot where you would move your finger (thumb) past (a lot/ …at all) so it’s not really an issue, but I would have liked to see it more rounded.
The Cable
The cable is nylon woven and therefor very strong, durable but still flexible. The connector on the cable is gold-plated as is standard with razer (as far as I know?). The length of the cable is about 1,5 M (just under 5 ft) witch is a very decent length.
The keys
All of the keys on the pad are programmable, including the scroll up and scroll down actions. The keys have a good solid feel when you press down on them (so you won’t easily double tab something when you don’t mean to). The positioning of the scroll can be a bit hard to reach. Due to its placement you can’t use your thumb so you will need to use your index finger. This is fine if your scrolling down but up is a bit more difficult. You will notice this mainly during game play where you have to use multiple keys at a time.
The pad is usable for right-handed, HOWEVER: you will loose the ability to use the spacebar, the round button and the D-pad (they will be out of range). The palm-rest isn’t made for right-handed users either but it doesn’t feel too bad. I haven’t tried to do this long term and I wouldn’t recommend getting this pad for right-handed use.
The bottom row of keys (nr 11 to 14) are placed at slightly different angle, so when you bend you finger to get to them the keys line up with your fingers.
Lighting
The lighting on the keys is adjustable in the software, not the color like you can with the Logitech G13. Just the brightness. The background lighting can be completely turned off with a hardware switch at the bottom of the device.
Razer Nostromo profile lights
The 3 lights at the base left side of the device indicate what profile the Razer is on. Each profile will have a different color scheme on these lights. The schemes range from no lights to all 3 lights and all combinations in between.
Macro
The macro system works rather nicely. Once you have recorded a macro you can bind it to a key in 3 different modes:
- Single run
- This will run the macro once after the button is pressed.
- N – run
- The macro will run for the specified amount of times after you press the button.
- Toggle
- This will keep the macro running until you press the button again.
The recording length of macros is unlimited. Once recorded you can alter the keys, edit the delays or insert new delays.
Razer Nostromo Macro window
This is a example macro, you can see the basic recording options that will allow you to record a macro. On the right-hand side we have 3 options (boxes) the first one is to insert a new delay. The second one lets you insert some basic operational commands
Basic functions
Then in the additional commands menu contains the following:
Additional commands menu
This allows the pad to not only be used in games but also in windows itself or programs like photo editors or movie editors. All of this make the macro system quite versatile and useful.
Profiles
Different profiles for different situations. As I explained before the device can contain a large number of profiles. A neat function with these profiles is the option to auto switch. So let’s say you have 2 games that you use with the pad. For these games you don’t have the same key layout on your pad. In the manage profiles you can set an application. Once this application is started the proper profile will automatically be selected. This of course is adjustable, so you can have profiles with and without auto loading on it. All you have to do is create the profile, right click it, select your application (ether the game launcher, or the game .exe itself) and then check the option behind the profile called: Auto Switch. That’s it! Your pad will now automatically switch to the proper profile when you start the game.
Downsides
Spacebar
The spacebar is a bit low on the pad, because of this you will have to make a stretching move with your thumb to reach it. How I solved it is to put a piece of foam on it about 4 MM thick. However, this still doesn’t seem to be enough so I’m going to redo it.
What I’m going to do is this: on the side of your hand (so the left side of the button) I’m going to place a piece of foam that’s about 1CM (0.39 inch) high (I’ll have to test out what a good height is) and see how that works. That way you wouldn’t have to bend your thumb down as much. It seems like, if I use the pad for a while, my hand will start to hurt a bit. It might be because of that (because the rest of the pad is nice on the hands). This might be different for people with different hand sizes, and I guess it would be very hard to make it perfect for every hand, but in my opinion, the space button is too low.
Small update: While writing this I figured what the hell.. and made the adjustment. It works! The problem with a full button wide pad was that it interfered with the D-pad. I now have a little roll on the side of the palm rest that is about 1CM high and it works very well! It doubles as a thumb-rest (since the button does require a bit of force to trigger (what is nice! that way you don’t twitch-trigger it by mistake!).
D-pad
It will depend on how you use the D-pad. If you use it for walking, you might want to disable the diagonals, although I saw a fix in the latest software for it. I personally don’t use it to walk. I use it as extra keys, so I don’t have any issues with it. However, from the reviews I have read before I bought it, there were people who had issues with it. If you want to use the actual keys or the ‘joystick’ (it’s a removable knob on top of the buttons) is entirely up to you. Again, people said they had issues with the knob and slipping off it. I actually have no issues with this at all, but I guess if you really do have issues there’s a lot of easy ways to fix it. Get a piece of sandpaper (fine grain) and make some groves in it (probably in the vertical direction when you look at it when its on the pad so you don’t slip off it since your finger is on it horizontally).
WASD
The ‘walking’ keys on the pad are not very well marked. On the Logitech G13 for instance those keys are slightly indented so you can find them just by touch. The Down key (S(key nr 8)) has a little raised bar on it but its on the bottom of the key. When you have your hands on the device as intended you won’t notice this bar (since your fingers will rest on the WAD keys and not on the back (S(key nr 8)) key. I have fixed this by putting a small piece of tape on the W/forward (key nr 3).
Conclusion
I’ve had this pad for 2 months now? Overall I’m very happy with it. It works well, feels great on the wrist. and the 3 downsides are fixable things in multiple ways. The macro system is easy to understand and flexible enough to work with whatever you want to do with it. It can work as a key-shortcut replacement or replace a whole sequence of keys. The automatic profile switcher is a nice feature that makes the pad even that much more user friendly.
More information
Firmware/software
link for Drivers and firmware: Razer Support » Razer Nostromo
Razer Nostromo PC Driver v2.02
1. Fix the driver issue where the D-pad keys are not registered randomly.
2. Fix the application issue where the profile list are not sorted.
Razer Nostromo Full Mac Driver v1.0
Mac OS X v10.5 to 10.6 1.00
- Supports Key Assignment
- Supports Profiles
- Supports Macros
- Supports Lighting brightness customization
- Supports Keymaps
Limitation:
- Supports up to 5 profiles.
Important Note The driver will have full functionality with OS X 10.7, but has not been fully qualified for use with Apple’s newest OS. Users might experience slight issues with keymap switching in rare cases. We are working to get OS X10.7 qualification with the Nostromo Mac driver with the next release.
Razer Nostromo Firmware Updater v1.02
Optimized power consumption
:cool:
good review :)
i ordered it on monday so im waiting to get it :)
Good! I enjoy mine a lot, still use it daily. Let me know if you have any questions about it, I might be able to help you with it.
Have you used it much for non-gaming applications, like spreadsheets, copying and pasting, etc? Can the d-pad be used sort of like a mouse to move the cursor?
I don’t use it for a lot of other things then games. However you can do lots with it (copy things with 1 push of a button, or paste). The only problem with this is that its application bound. With this I mean that it automatically switches profiles depending on your current active application (if you set it up like that! you don’t have to). But that would mean that windows/ mac tasks on your desktop (folder copy pasting or whatever) wont activate a profile. But you can solve this by manual profile switching (you can put a button on your pad to do that) .
Can you directly control the mouse with it, no. I justed looked at the software if you can emulate mouse movement and you cant. (It does have a scroll wheel tho) However, you could turn on accessibility in windows, with it you can (at least could!) control your PC with the numpad (8 is up 6 is right and so on) so what you could do is turn that on, and then remap the Dpad to those numpad keys, its a bit of a work-around but it should be possible.