Razer today announced the first optical keyboard designed for laptops.

Razer was the first to introduce a low-profile mechanical laptop keyboard in 2016 and has now brought next-generation optical switches to the Razer Blade 15 gaming laptop.

The new optical laptop switch harnesses the power of light to instantly capture key actuations. Under every key, an infrared light beam is used to detect when a key is pressed (actuation), allowing for precision and speed. The result is a keyboard with an actuation point of only 1mm at 55g of actuation force with 50% more travel.

The new keyboard also features a mechanical tactile click. The tactile feedback helps users know when an input has been registered.

The Razer Blade 15 optical keyboard also features N-Key Rollover (NKRO) with anti-ghosting. As the optical keyboard utilizes light to register inputs instead of a traditional physical contact, the optical keyboard features zero debounce to ensure that only one stroke is registered instantly without any delay.

Each keycap is individually backlit with Razer Chroma RGB lighting, offering 16.8 million colors to play with. Ranging from pre-programmed designs to custom patterns available only in the Razer Chroma Workshop, users have countless lighting options to choose from.

The Razer Blade 15 design also includes an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 GPU, an Intel Core i7-9750H 6-Core CPU, 16GB DDR4 RAM, and a 512GB SSD storage.

Nestled front and center is a 15.6” Full HD 240Hz display, flanked by ultra-slim bezels and custom calibrated. Lining the sides are the I/O ports - an HDMI port, a mini display port, one Thunderbolt 3 USB Type-C port, one USB Type-C port, and two USB Type-A 3.1 Gen 2 ports.

The new optical laptop keyboard from Razer is currently available only in the Razer Blade 15 Advanced for $2,649 USD with more models to follow in 2020. The Razer Blade 15 with optical keyboard will be available today from Razer.com and select retailers in United States, Canada, and China and will be coming soon to Australia, Hong Kong, and Singapore.