Razer has announced new peripherals which it says will be “revolutionise mobile gaming”, but the things being launched are a keyboard and a mouse. Or more specifically, the Joro and the Basilisk Mobile respectively, so maybe the company meant portable rather than mobile.
Starting with the new entry, the brand claims that the Razer Joro is its most portable keyboard, weighing in at 374g and measuring 16.5mm thick. You obviously don’t get a numpad to keep things compact, but you do still get full-sized arrow keys, an aluminium top plate for durability, and a layout that allows it to work with both Windows and Mac. On the subject of compatibility, the Razer Joro can connect to up to three devices at once with Bluetooth 5.0.
Its small size does come with some drawbacks though. For one, to keep its low profile, the Razer Joro comes with the old scissor switches, not mechanical or optical. It also only comes with a single-zone RGB lighting which, if you turn it off completely, gives it a battery life of 1849 hours, or so the company claims. Using it at maximum brightness, on the other hand, drains it completely in about five hours. And with all the aforementioned drawbacks, there’s still a literal price of RM649 to pay if you want one.
Moving on to the Razer Basilisk Mobile, this continues the Basilisk line of ergonomic mice, but with a major size reduction. It still has 10 customisable controls – eight buttons and both wheel scroll directions – with the wheel benefitting from the Hyperscroll tech, letting you choose between free or tactile scrolling.
Unlike the Joro though, the Basilisk Mobile retains more of what makes a Razer product, such as having optical switches and three modes of connectivity. Of course, using Bluetooth is more energy efficient, giving it 180 hours of use time as opposed to 105 hours with the Hyperspeed Wireless dongle. The mouse costs RM419 on the brand’s official online shop, with a company rep telling us that it’s currently unavailable in retail stores in Malaysia.
