Like the previous Tartarus model, the Tartarus Pro is very pretty, somewhat comfortable and accomplishes what it sets out to do. But it's also very niche and much more expensive than its predecessor. I can't recommend against it if you're in the market for a gaming keypad — but I don't think it's going to revolutionize most folks' gaming experience, either.

The Tartarus Pro has an advantage over the V2 in terms of customization options because it has analog optical switches. These switches allow you to adjust the actuation point and actuation force of each key, giving you more control over your gameplay. However, this level of customization may not be necessary for all gamers. While setting up these options requires a lot of time (and a lot of effort, since you'll need to test and optimize your choices in-game), you could theoretically have almost 150 different commands at your fingertips in each game. The only trouble is that, by default, there are no keys assigned to enabling Hypershift or swapping keymaps. Programming them isn't hard, but it seems odd to make one of the Tartarus V2's best aspects an opt-in choice rather than an endemic feature. Performance On the other hand, the Tartarus Pro didn't eliminate the need for a keyboard, either. I still needed a full suite of keys to type in-game messages as well as access the game's myriad menus.The Tartarus Pro has a more premium build quality, with an aluminum faceplate and a magnetic wrist rest that is more comfortable than the V2’s wrist rest. The Tartarus V2 has a plastic body, and its wrist rest is not as comfortable as the Pro’s.

There's clearly a market for the Tartarus V2; after all, fans embraced the first iteration enough to demand a second one. Still, having experimented with it in some of my favorite games (admittedly, at a low competitive level), it seems a bit like a solution in search of a problem. The learning curve is steep, the price is high and the benefits are mild, at best. There's also the question of how well the Tartarus Pro works for non-MMO games. I tried it with Overwatch (after reprogramming a few buttons), where I was actually very pleased with the minimalist interface. Overwatch needs only a few extra buttons to work, so the Tartarus Pro was a great addition. But even though the Tartarus has 20 buttons, I found that games where I needed more than about 10 commands got too unwieldy. For third-person action/adventure games, a controller is still the way to go; for RTS and MOBA titles, I think a keyboard is still a superior input. Bottom line

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At any rate, taken on their own merits, the mecha-membrane keys are fine: While they're not as satisfying as a mechanical switch, they're not as mushy as a membrane model, either. I wasn't able to evaluate them in a typing test, since writing anything out on a keypad would be an interesting challenge (25 keys, 26 letters in the English alphabet, for one thing), but they felt responsive and comfortable. Perhaps Razer's target audience for the Tartarus V2 already has all of those things, but it drives home the idea that the Tartarus V2 is a very, very niche product, even within the already-niche world of gaming accessories.