Razer's PC accessories aren't impressive, but I'll keep buying just for this reason

I’m not particularly impressed with the quality or feature set of Razer products. I don’t think they’re bad, but they’re not the very best either. There’s also the brand tax, which is very real and often not worth paying. If you’re on a budget, there are simply better alternatives.

I’ve been tempted many times to try out cooler keyboards, nicer mice, or just something different. But every time I get close to clicking “purchase,” I end up talking myself out of it.

I can’t stand another peripheral dashboard app

Even “lightweight” adds up

For context, above is what my Razer Synapse dashboard looks like. I’ve got the headset, the mouse, the keyboard, the mouse mat, and the webcam. That said, the idea of having Razer Synapse, Logitech G Hub, MSI Dragon, and whatelse on my computer at the same time terrifies me. Even without hard benchmarks or proof, I genuinely believe my computer would slow down if I started mixing accessories from multiple brands. Every extra background service is another small tax on responsiveness, and those taxes add up.

If you own Razer gear and have Chroma lighting enabled, open Task Manager and search for “Chroma.” You’ll find at least four background processes running just to keep the lights alive. My system isn’t underpowered by any stretch, but I catch myself shaking my head when File Explorer takes moments to load. It should just load. How hard can that be? If this is the experience on a machine with 64GB of RAM, what does this look like on a low-end system?

I don’t particularly dislike the Razer Synapse app. I think the interface is cool, and I actually enjoy the Chroma Studio. I’ve customized my setup extensively over the years. About three years ago, I used to play around with the lighting much more frequently; I’d find new inspiration and apply it immediately. Since then, I’ve settled on a specific profile and stuck with it.

That said, Chroma lighting isn’t something I seek out in a product. I’m not “locked in” to the Razer ecosystem the way someone might be locked into Apple. I don’t buy more Razer gear because I want to sync Chroma effects or because the devices work particularly well together. I buy Razer not because I want Razer, but rather because I don’t want anything else. I don’t want to add another service to my Windows device. I don’t want to be forced to open three different apps just to customize my mouse, my keyboard, and my headset.

Hardware and software should be built together

(and why Apple feels lighter)

One of the reasons Apple devices feel smoother than Windows machines is the unison between hardware and software. Apple made my laptop. Apple made the operating system. Apple wrote the drivers for the components inside it. When I link my iPhone, it’s Apple hardware talking to Apple hardware through Apple software.

Now compare that to my Windows PC. The OS comes from Microsoft. The motherboard is from ASUS. The CPU is from Intel. The GPU is from AMD. The RAM is from Samsung. The mouse is from Razer. The audio card is from Creative. Every single one of these components brings along its own services and background processes. Different manufacturers, different coding practices, different levels of efficiency.

The result is what we’ve all come to accept as “Windows bloat.” There are countless things talking to each other in different languages, and Windows has to translate all of it just to function.

I’m still talking about the bare minimum here: software that’s required just to keep your hardware running. Even then, the amount of overhead is absurd. If you’ve ever checked your startup entries using Autoruns, you know what I mean. If you haven’t, be my guest and take a look; my own list had hundreds of entries. Every developer thinks their app is quintessential to your computer, so they sneak in a way to preload it.

The downstream effect of this is everywhere. A simple right-click context menu takes noticeably longer to load, because Windows has to enumerate and inject every junk entry that registered itself there. And again, this is before we even start talking about optional software.

Windows Dynamic Lighting was supposed to fix this

It mostly didn’t

I know Microsoft has made some attempts at fixing this fragmentation with Dynamic Lighting settings. But has anyone actually had any luck with it? I tried to use it to sync my motherboard and GPU lights with my Razer accessories, but it was a total failure. And even if it worked, that’s just for lighting. Even if I turned off Chroma entirely and gave up on the RGB aesthetic, the macros on my keyboard, the DPI settings on my mouse, and the EQ on my headset would still require their respective proprietary apps.

The solution would be a way to unify all of this, similar to how we handle hard drives. It doesn’t matter what brand of SSD you buy; you can format it, partition it, rename it, and change its icon directly from Windows. Can you imagine if you had to install a “Samsung Pro App” just to format a drive?

That is the reality we are currently living in for peripherals. Ideally, Windows would provide a unified platform that allows all these accessories to speak the same language and be customizable directly from the Windows Settings menu. Of course, considering the Windows Settings app is currently a disaster in its own right, that’s wishful thinking.