Tuesday, July 1st 2008
Razer Launches Gaming Keyboard Exclusively for Chinese Gamers
Razer, the world's leading manufacturer of high-end precision gaming and lifestyle electronics peripherals, has announced the launch of Aurantia (China Pro-Gaming Edition) - Razer's first entry level gaming keyboard that will be sold in China only. Physically the keyboard measures 446mm L x 205mm W x 29mm H (with the wrist rest attached) and offers 104 programmable keys with macro capabilities plus an additional three keys for 'gaming mode' (this one disables the Windows key), 'profile switching', and 'mute' functions. Future owners of Aurantia can also store and load up to 10 different keyboard profiles with on-the-fly switching function. A detachable non-slip wrist rest is supplied with the keyboard's package as well. The Aurantia uses red as lables for the keys and will be sold together with the Razer Salmosa mice (China Pro-Gaming Edition) as a bundle, at an MSRP of RMB 399. The public in China will have a chance to test the Razer Aurantia at the Razer booth at ChinaJoy 2008, happening in Shanghai later this month.
Source:
Razer
24 Comments on Razer Launches Gaming Keyboard Exclusively for Chinese Gamers
errrr.....ok Razor Riddle Me This.....
the market your targeting SPECIFICALLY & most EXCLUSIVELY are the Chinese then why the hell is the keyboard layout in QWERTY & not Chinese characters????
you buy a Logitech keyboard n Hong Kong you got both Chinese characters & English QWERTY on it.
you wont get far if ur selling a product that half of the population dont understand....
otherwise I'm thinking that Razor is actually gonna sell this in the U.S 'ALSO' not just China.
it doesnt make sense
why would razor make a keyboard for China that doesn't have CHINESE characters??
I could take them to court over them inciting racism under false assumptions that YES - ENGLISH IS OUR 1ST MAIN LANGUAGE -WE DONT SPEAK OR READ CHINESE!!! xD xD ROFLMAOPMPLOL
P.S
sorrry if ive taken this too far...ive just come back from a hot long trek to the Dentist....
RAZER SUCKS!
this is epic fail, and will probably piss the Chinese off
Is the layout designed for smaller hands? Or the mouse shape designed that way? Can't really see what makes this so special?
They told me that they use standard qwerty keyboards. Was I even stupider that I originally thought?
Its just odd that its an only China thing but there is nothing specific about it that makes it regional/cultural specific.
Hi All,
First time poster, never really felt the need to before, but after I saw this thread with all these "Chinese" people clearing the air, I couldn't help but laugh and point out that only one person here has actually been to CHINA and not Taiwan or Hong Kong.
@lemonadesoda
If you have bothered to read further on the Wiki page, you would have noticed that the keyboard you are referring to is a (Traditional) Chinese keyboard. This is only used in Hong Kong and Taiwan, if you showed it to someone in China, they wouldn't understand why the hell there are so many scribbles on it unless they were 60+ years old.
Evidence here:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyboard_layout#Chinese_.28simpified.29
The reason no one in China would understand the "scribbles" is because China uses (Simplified) Chinese. Long story short, people in China use an input method called Hanyu Pinyin to input Chinese characters on a computer. This uses letters from the Latin alphabet to "phonetically" input Chinese into a computer. I use quotes here because anyone with a Latin-based speaking background would not be able to pronounce Chinese characters correctly as some Latin letters in Pinyin are pronounced differently than in an originally Latin-based language.
Don't believe me? Check out Hanyu Pinyin here:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanyu_pinyin
And for all you "Chinese" speakers, what you are actually learning/learned is Zhuyin Fuhao, the old system that is only predominantly used in Taiwan and Hong Kong, which you can read about here:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhuyin
So before you all go and make presumptions, get your facts straight and get off your high horse and realize that the world is a lot bigger than your parent's basement.
/endrant
PS @bundyrum&coke
This might explain why all your coworkers in China were always laughing at you. A theory that I concocted of why this change happened is because the Chinese government realized that Chinese is actually very hard to learn (many adult Chinese in rural areas are illiterate) and the Zhuyin Fuhao alphabet is incompatible with any other language out in the world today. So, China decided to Romanize the alphabet in order to make it easier for everyone to learn (foreign of Chinese native), and so Chinese nationals could get a leg up on learning English, French, or whatever and not have to relearn a whole new alphabet to do so.
"In the Peoples' Republic of China, most computer users type out their Chinese in transliteration, using the standard Roman alphabet keys on a QWERTY keyboard. To generate a character, you type out its sound according to the same spelling system—called Pinyin—that represents the name of China's capital with the word "Beijing." The computer automatically converts the Pinyin spelling to the correct Chinese characters on the screen."
If YOU bothered to read my post, you will see I made NO COMMENT, just provided two links for further information, for people that wanted to know more.
Get off your rant bandwagon. Stop finger pointing. Look in the mirror.
Yes, as it was said, chinese people type with pin yin (like instead of 谢谢 its xie xie in ENGLISH, with the accenting dictating how you say it), and many schools in china are starting to teach english. Funny how some people in china believe that adopting pin yin instead of the traditional language is better :rolleyes: I disagree.
English in fact in Hong Kong its a compulsary part of the course.
see the chinese letters; thats one old system which WAS used, but its rather unpopular; most people use the IME Pin yin input.
cheers
DS
However, I also realize that not everyone is willing to click through to educate themselves as they are too lazy and they rely on other people's opinions/thoughts to educate themselves. I realize it's ironic that I'm pointing to a Wiki in that regard, but the information is correct, but since you had only linked to the image and not included any of the text, if I had been someone who did not know anything about Chinese, I could have confused the facts and just assumed that all Chinese people everywhere use the keyboard in the Wiki image.
So yes, your image was useful, but at the same time, IMO only useful if someone took the prerogative to click the link and learn the difference between pinyin and zhuyin.
PS- i dont speak chinese. :laugh: but that sounded good to me. :roll:
Ship Lo Mai Din Dong!