Whilst I’ve delved more and more into PC gaming over the years, I’ve been a Mac in my day-to-day life for as long as I can and due to being intrenched in the Apple ecosystem, I can’t see that changing anytime soon.
Obviously I have my gaming PC, so I never feel like I’m missing out on games (although more and more AAA games are coming to Mac now), but something that constantly gets to me is compatibility of gaming accessories from the big brands, but in core functionality, and also software, where I’m often robbed of being able to customise my accessory in the same way I can on a Windows PC.
That was the case for Razer accessories, which I could never sync up properly to my Mac, but as of this week, that’s all changed with Razer Synapse being updated to work on Mac and instantly, all of my accessories were recognised.
Speaking to Razer’s Associate Director of Product Marketing, Eva Chia about the recent release of Synapse on Mac, she said: “Razer is not new to the productivity space, with some of our earlier products having their share of diehard fans. We are always listening to the community, and bringing Razer Synapse for Mac is a natural step. The community wants high-performance mice and keyboards to perform tasks, regardless of whether they are using Windows or Mac.”
Razer has also dropped a bunch of new accessories aimed at productivity and portability. I’ve personally been mainlining the Razer Joyo keyboard and Razer Pro Click V2 Vertical Edition mouse, taking them both between home and the office.
RAZER JORO KEYBOARD
The Joro slots straight into my July backpack in the same slot that my MacBook Pro goes into, given how thin it is, and this is probably the most important part of having a portable keyboard. It weighs just 374 grams and is 16.5mm thin so you won’t have any issues when it comes to portability.
It actually doesn’t look too dissimilar to a Mac Magic Keyboard, but it’s a super sleek black and has the signature Razer RGB (that you can also turn off to save battery).
It has ultra low profile switches which are pretty decent to type on given this is a slim and light keyboard, and you can pair it with up to three devices using Bluetooth 5, so if you did have different setups at home or at an office, you can quickly go between productivity and gaming with ease as well.
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As far as battery life goes, it lasts up to 1800 hours with power saving mode or about 11 hours in standard mode with your RGB lighting turned on, so it depends if you want a snazzier looking keyboard or want to make the battery last.
The thing I love about the Joro is that it doesn’t skimp on high-end Razer features including Snap Tap and you can easily go between Windows and Mac layouts with just the tap of a button as well.
RAZER PRO CLICK V2 VERTICAL EDITION MOUSE
Razer also released the Pro Click V2 in both a regular version and a vertical edition as well. I opted to mainly use the vertical edition and whilst it’s taken a bit of adjusting, it’s absolutely going to become my go to.
Again, it has a super sleek black design, with a super slim RGB light along the entire bottom of the mouse complete with 18 zones of customisation, but the beauty of this mouse is in the ergonomics, designed to fit a natural handshake position, and whilst it’s taken a bit of getting used to (and some heckling from co-workers), it does make a difference.
There’s 5 ways that you can connect the Pro Click V2 to devices, with 3 Bluetooth settings, dongle as well as wired as well.
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There’s 6 buttons including your standard left and right clicks, your scroll wheel, two little circular buttons that sit above and below your thumbs and a new AI Prompt Master button which you can setup to take you straight to ChatGPT, or turn it into a macro and you can also customise it on a per-app basis as well.
Speaking about the Pro Click V2 Veritcal, Chia said: “We believe that achieving the “best of both worlds” is entirely possible. Take the Razer Pro Click V2 Vertical Edition—why should s have to choose between precision, high performance, and ergonomics just because they prefer a vertical mouse? With this product, we’ve ensured they don’t have to, offering seamless compatibility with both PC and Mac.”
All-in-all, it’s super exciting to see gaming and Apple coming together in more and more ways, with the likes of Assassin’s Creed: Shadows launching day and date on Mac earlier this year, and Razer focusing on Apple s from a hardware and software point of view, it finally feels cool to be a gamer on Mac.
