The Belkin Nostromo’s lineage continues with this, the Razer Tartarus V2 Pro, an all-out top-tier dedicated gamepad that is close to being what I imagine is the ideal, perfect, design. Seeing as how I’ve been using this sort of gamepad since I bought the Nostromo maybe fifteen years ago, I hope I’m at least somewhat qualified to talk you through this much more impressive example! Let’s start with a brief tour, then we’ll get into using it, and the frustrating problems I have with this – some are firmware fixable though so there’s hope!

So, a tour. The pad itself is a 27 key keyboard, paired with three side buttons (one is a nice tactile microswitch while the smaller two are a bit mushy) and a full analog TMR joystick. This is the biggest change as previous versions have all had D-Pads here (with an optional joystick hat you can add to make it feel more like a joystick even if it is still just a d-pad), and for this to go straight to TMR is pretty sick. The pad is connected with a removable USB C cable – although the port is deeply recessed so you’ll need to use Razer’s cable for it to actually fit. The entire bottom surface is a sticky rubber pad so it doesn’t slip around, and the wrist rest… Oh man that’s nice. That’s what honestly feels like real leather, it feels amazing, and is fully adjustable. You can lengthen or shorten it to fit your hand size, and even swivel it to fit your preferred wrist angle. This is nice. I would note that my size large hands are pretty happy with this in its shortest position so I’m not entirely sure who the larger settings are for, at least when using the default keybindings. 

As for the keys, those are Razer’s latest Gen 2 analog optical switches. These, much like the now more common hall effect analog switches, can detect how far down the stroke you are, meaning all the usual analog features are present here – and some extras too. You have adjustable actuation point control, rapid trigger and snap tap, dual keypress priority, dynamic keystroke and now Snap Flex. In order those mean: you can control how far you have to press the switch to trigger an action; auto-resetting the actuation point to just below where you are as you lift up so you can hit it again faster; instantly snap between left/right movement; better polling WASD; up to four actions per keystroke; and dual actions per stroke (one action on down, another on up). These also come with a 40 gram actuation force, are linear, and honestly feel pretty nice. They are smooth, and some of the most responsive analog switches I’ve used. Because they use an infrared beam that is gradually revealed to the sensor instead of a magnet getting closer to the sensor, the accuracy of the actuation point up at the top is phenomenal. That means while the latency at the default 2 millimetres of actuation is pretty good – up there with the best 8,000 hertz keyboards I’ve tested, the 0.1mm travel latency is literally twice as fast as the now second fastest board I’ve ever tested. Everything else PALES in comparison to this thing. Impressive.

As for outright feel, well the key caps are actually really nice. They are a textured finish which makes them feel proper premium. The palm rest, as mentioned, feels incredibly premium. It’s soft yet firm, textured and styled, and a remarkably ergonomic shape too. It supports your palm perfectly – I genuinely have no complaints about this, I can’t think of a way for it to be better. The only thing about the ergonomics here is the key positioning and angle. By default this is the bottom left of a standard keyboard – like key 1 here is `, key 7 is tab, 13 is caps lock, 19 is shift and 24 is control. Space is 27. Except hitting anything in that bottom row is ROUGH. Trying to reach practically under the palm rest is tough, but, like, so is hitting anything in the top row too? On a regular keyboard, even with a wrist rest, you have the freedom to slide your hand up and down the height of the board a little so it’s easy to reach, say F5, then CTRL+S, or whatever. And when gaming I find myself sliding my thumb under my hand if I need to hit ALT, for example. That isn’t possible here, because your thumb is blocked by the side controls. For space you really want to map the ‘hypershift’ button to space, that makes life much easier here, but still it’s a bit of a faff to hit a good third of the keys here. At least for regular usage it’s damn comfortable!

The other, to me anyway, major usability issue is with this damn joystick. First is game compatibility – of the admittedly few games I tried, Siege being the most frustrating – many games don’t support input from a controller AND keyboard and mouse simultaneously. Siege lets you switch on the fly, but not simultaneously. If I start using the stick to move, mouse input gets disabled until I use the keyboard keys instead and it switches back. To me being able to use a joystick for movement but a mouse for aim seems like the best of both worlds, but many games struggle to work with that. The other issue is the mappings – on two fronts. First, the direction. The joystick is mapped to the literal up/down/left/right state it’s in, but I hate that. Based on your thumb’s position, I’d want to push away from my hand for up, move my thumb down for right, and so on. Basically how my thumb sits on a regular joystick but twisted sideways. Sadly, at this point anyway, Razer’s Synapse software does not support axis remapping. That makes the stick incredibly difficult to use for me, and that sucks. The other mapping issue is that for some utterly insane reason this is mapped to the RIGHT STICK – you know the one that’s used for AIMING! Why would I ever use a joystick for aiming – one that’s mapped wrong no less – when I have a mouse in my other hand? Let me swap what stick the thing is mapped to Razer! Please! 

Using it as a keyboard in games though works great. It’s unarguably more comfortable than a regular keyboard, and is absolutely premium feeling – I mean for £200 it bloody well should be! This is absolutely for people that play one or two very specific games and so can create custom profiles that perfectly fit your games on this thing, and basically have a dedicated keypad for them. Add to that the impressive ergonomics, and the in-theory major advantage of having a joystick AND a keyboard AND a mouse all at hand and this seems like a killer choice. I do wish Razer would add more control, especially for the joystick, and I’m not sure what the solution for the hard to reach keys are, but overall this is really cool and with a few minor tweaks this could be perfect.