Customer Reviews

SteelSeries Merc Stealth Gaming Keyboard

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

This is review is based on my experience playing World of Warcraft only (raiding, at the moment, ICC 25m weekly including 7-8 hard modes) running on Vista. Since there are more bad comments that I would expect, as I believe this is the best gaming keyboard I ever used (at least, for WoW).

Starting with Con's:

- Learning curve is there and you will not get used to the placement of the keys over night. Took me well over 2 weeks to really "map" the key disposition in my head. However, once i got used to it, it's just amazing. A few highlights of this learning process: getting used to the 2 rows of buttons (1-6, 7-12), learning where's the 3 and where's the 4, you'll mostly likely miss the CTRL/ALT keys available at your thumb (which you will more than likely use only to hit space). With that said, since this is a new approach (at least, new to me) to gaming keyboard, the learning curve was expected.
- The "E" key (something already described on other comments) feels weird during the initial days of use, sometimes it seems to get stuck, sometimes it just doesn't depress as expected. After 1-2 weeks of game play, i believe the internal parts wear off and it starts to feel normal

Pro's:

- On WoW any bind beyond 6 is mostly useless due to the distance to "WASD" (movement keys). This keyboard make them all available to you on a great location. This means that you will use a LOT less "ALT" binds, and, depending on your class, perhaps none.
- Keys that i used to bind to avoid "Alt" binds, such as F, G, C, etc. are all there as well (meaning around 14-16 direct keybindings).
- Since it only remap the standard keyboard keys, it works out of the box, no addons needed.
- Sorry to Logitech on this one, but there's no useless LCD screen to display your stats/clock/whatever (i had a g15 and NEVER EVER managed to use the LCD)
- Cool colors to choose from, or none if you need/prefer

All in all, this is the best keyboard for World of Warcraft that i have ever used.

I highly recommend the Merc Stealth to any gamer. First construction. This board is very substantial. Manufacturing quality is high and does in no way feel "cheap". The manufacturer claims it is designed for 10,000,000 keystrokes. Much better than the average 1,000,000-2,000,000 keystroke lifetime of a typical keyboard. And with the feel and heft of this board I belive their claim isn't exagerrated. The game pad on the left side is intuitive in its feel, and with the Z-Engine capability, very versitile. I use my board for both MMORPG's and FPS' and find it to work very well in both of those styles. The long USB cord (6') also has plugs for your sound card and allows you to plug a mic and headset directly into the back of the keyboard. There are also 2 additional USB ports built in. While wider than a standard keyboard due to the gaming pad, they have compacted it by moving the contol keys between the QWERTY pad and the number pad to the number pad itself. This does take a bit of getting used to, but worth the change to keep the overall size of the board manageable. If you are looking for a keyboard for your office, the Merc Stealth is not what you need. But, if you are serious about gaming and want to improve your play, this is the board you need. Your game play will improve, I know mine certainly has.

The Merc Steelseries keyboard worked fantastic right out of the box. It is awesome having the 2 extra USB ports right behind the keyboard. The keys all light up perfectly and have great sensitivity. The side controls work fantastic for MMO's. The only problem with this keyboard is it's configuration. The Zboard system seems to take forever to save a control set. It does have a few games that you can download preloaded sets for, but the customization should be a bit more polished if you want to change keys. It's really a minor annoyance and just takes some fiddling with to get right, but it may confuse basic users. It shouldn't deter anyone from buying this keyboard however. Having the backlit keys should be a "Must Have" for anyone who works/plays at night. Being able to change the color and intensity if I want is great. If you are looking for a gaming keyboard (specifically for Rift, or World of Warcraft or ANY first person shooter) this is the keyboard for you.

Although the Zengine software is advertised by [...] as working for Window 7 64-bit, it is quite buggy. The options to save and rename custom layouts didn't work. In fact, any function that required opening up a dialogue window (importing/exporting/saving/renaming/browsing) does not work with the standard Zengine software. When I contacted steelseries.com customer support about this, I received the following response:
"Mike S, Jul-24 22:48 (CDT):

Hey Cynthia,

Unfortunately there is an issue with the skinning engine in ZEngine that causes these issues.

First please take the following step. This will allow you to edit game/exe
Access your Z-Engine -> Tools -> Skins
Select "Do not use skins"

The only workaround right now for renaming mods, basically is to make sure the cursor is off of the actual text box when selecting rename.
1) Start off by putting the ZEngine into windowed mode - not fullscreen (so you can see a part of your desktop).

2) Right click on the mod name, which you want to rename - this should bring up a selection box. Now before you click on anything, simply move your cursor outside of the ZEngine window - onto your desktop

3) With that selection box still active, press the 'r' key on your keyboard. This is the hotkey which will activate 'rename' when that menu is active

4) Type your mod name in and hit enter.

Sorry for the inconvenience. It is a known bug and we are looking into a solution to fix it that does not require the removal of the skinning engine.

Regards,
Mike S
SteelSeries Support"

The latest software is dated 2/22/2011. They've apparently been encouraging users to use this ridiculous multi-step workaround for more than 5 months as of this writing.

Also, the shift button on the main typing portion of the keyboard I received often fails to respond until it's been depressed for almost a full second. This makes missing a capital at the beginning of a sentence fairly common, and wastes a lot of time in backstepping, deleting the lower case letter, then holding down the shift button firmly to ensure that it engages before hitting the letter I want capitalized...again.

Oh, and don't think that you're going to be able to simply reprogram the number pad and move the keys to solve the annoyance of having the arrow keys at the bottom of the number pad; they've cut the notches in the "5" key so it will only fit in its original factory placement on the board. You CAN move the others around and program them to respond as a normal number pad would, but you're always going to be looking at the 5 key above the 8 key on your number pad if you attempt to change the layout to something more traditional.

This is such a great keyboard. For gaming in particular. The back lighting/ illumination is the best I have seen. The ergonomics are great. The key reaction is great. I just love this keyboard. I will be getting a new computer soon and also will be getting another stealth keyboard. I went through numerous keyboards. Logitech gaming ones, Microsoft and a couple other misc ones that claimed greatness. Some were good, some were OK and some were lousy. But none of them were great until I got this board. I have owned this one now for several years and it is amazing to me how well it has held up. It is still in great shape after heavy use and has never failed me once in any way.

The only negative I have about it is the combination 10 key pad. Instead of having separate keys for numbers and command keys, it combines them and you have to change function from one to another depending on your needs. It took a little getting use to and still I have really never completely adjusted to it. I don't like this feature and causes the only frustration I have of the keyboard.

I would highly recommend this keyboard and hope they never stop making them! Took me long enough to finally find that almost perfect keyboard, maybe I should stock up and buy reserves! :)

I was usng the Merc gaming keyboard back when they were still owned by Ideazon and haven't regretted my devotion to their geming keyboards. The Steelseries Merc Stealth expands upon its predecessor by adding a backlit keyboard (which us gamers love). The juicy bits stay the same though. Basically, you're taking the numbers 7 to "-" and putting them on top of 1-6. It also makes buttons like r, f, g, b, t and the ke modifiers (ALT, CTRL, SHFT) in an easier to reach location. This gives you amazing amounts of keybinds. In MMO's such as WoW, this is an absolute game-changer. There are equally helpful scenarios with FPS's and RTS's.

I will give this disclaimer though, it TAKES TIME TO LEARN. I was an all-star in WoW the week prior to using this. I switched to this keyboard and I wa getting slaughtered all-day. A week later, I was better than I was before getting this keyboard. I can whole-heartedly say that I wouldn't be the gamer I am today if it wasn't for this keyboard. I will continue to buy this series of gaming merchandise.

How many years have PC gamers been using normal keyboards? It's been about 20 years since Doom. Many of us PC gamers have been doing it WASD-style for about that long. So, suffice it to say that the only keyboard many of us would want to replace a WASD configuration with needs to look and feel much like what we're used to.

The SteelSeries Merc Stealth makes a worthy attempt, but fails to do this. Here's why:

Take note of these keys on the left-sided "gaming terrain":

- ALT -
The ALT key got a major facelift, and is now ABOVE the Shift key. For veteran gamers, that's like using CAPS LOCK.

- Z -
The Z key. Where is it? I need this to drop the flag in Tribes: Ascend, to recruit nearby gang members in Saints Row the Third. A very important key missing? Seriously?

- X -
Also missing. Face, meet palm. Palm, face.

- Esc -
The Esc key is a surprisingly often-used key in games. Menus especially. It's nice knowing where it is on a normal keyboard. On this one, if I'm using the gamer terrain, I have to look for it.

- C -
Normally the C key is an index-finger tap away. Now it's used by the thumb, RIGHT beside a much smaller space bar, making it very easy to hit C instead of Space.

- The NUMPAD -
The IDEA of the Numpad is genious. Combine the arrow keys with the numbers, and the HOME/INS/DEL/etc keys, and you have yourself a space-saving design. However, for those of us who use the Numpad very often for calculations or for work (I run Linux gaming servers), needing to switch back and forth between Num Lock ON and Num Lock OFF is tedious. I also need to re-learn the Numpad, since instead of hitting the 0, I hit the UP arrow.

On the upside, this keyboard is moving in the right direction. It has the idea down - the slight tilt for more comfort, and the ability to "feel" a key's purpose rather than needing to look down at your keyboard. Unfortunately, with the above shortcomings, I will be looking for a different keyboard.

Hopefully this review will give some people a little insight into this keyboard and the G15.

I did days and days of researching, reading countless reviews of the Merc Stealth. Some can't praise it enough, some claim its not that good.
I decided to get this because I wanted backlights, marcos, and a gamepad.
Ultimately I returned the Merc Stealth and got the G15, but here is why and here is a little comparison.

I decided to buy it from Amazon because of there amazing return policy. I read that other people had missing lights so even if I didn't like the keyboard I could still probably return it if one of my lights were out. Turns out I was right. I had three out. They were all on the side gaming pad area. The lights are bright though and the keys that were out were still half illuminated. This wasn't a deal breaker for me because the keys that were out were still semi lit and not too important of keys (10, 11, and 6 maybe? I forgot).
So I read that it will take a long time to retrain your hands to work with the gaming pad. My response to this is yes and no. It took me about 2 hours of playing Counter-Strike:Source before I got the hang of the gamepad. 30 minutes of that was playing with some marcos and rearranging the key layout. However, the whole time I just wanted to move to the keyboard and use WASD, but resisted to try and learn the gamepad. After, those two hours I was playing well but some of the buttons are just too small, too close, and too far.
The reload or "r" key is small, and rounded like a button on a xbox controller, awkward but manageable. The "g" key is far from the "f" key which is a pain and hard to reach, but at the same time the numbers above the butterfly layout are too close and too small. I understand you need to make them small to fit alot and I liked that it was easy to stretch to a 2nd row of numbers as opposed to a standard keyboard but here is the problem. They put 6 keys on the bottom and 5 on the top, so every time I stretch up to press the number keys I press the wrong one. On a normal key layout 3 is slightly up to the right of W, but on the gamepad its to the left. And the keys are small and spacing is too close, 5 keys on the bottom row and 6 on the top would have easily solved this. None the less over time you probably could retrain your fingers but this would take much longer than the 2 hours of gametime.

The other reason I returned this is because a a buzzing noise coming out of the headphone jacks. However, it was only on the low, or medium backlight settings. On high and off, the buzzing stopped. I tried headphones and speakers and same buzzing. Ultimately these two things, buzzing and 3 LED's out, made me return the keyboard try the G15.

I chose the G15 because it is almost the same price as the G110, but has a LCD screen. Also, I don't think I will like Razor keyboards because they have laptop like keys (I've heard, and I didn't go microsoft sidewinder because the most keys you can't hit at the same time is 5. Lastly, I didn't chose Saitek because the Eclipse I and II lack of marcos (Eclipse III has macros but really its just the Cyborg II)and Cyborg because I tried it in Best Buy and the space bar and some of the keys just felt too loose and like cheap plastic.


Now lets compare the two.
The Breakdown.
1. Packaging. Tie. Both were well packaged.

2. Size. G15 wins here. Merc Stealth is much bigger than the G15, but both I felt weren't too big. I can see where someone would think the Merc might be too big. I don't use a keyboard tray so it didn't effect me much.

3. The backlights. Hands down Merc wins this. Even with 3 lights out (see above) The light comes out from the keys AND around the keys, where the G15 only has it come out of the letters. The lights on the Merc were FAR brighter, not just because of the "around the keys" lighting either. Lastly, the Merc has 3 colors and the G15 has 1. I actually thought it was much easier to read the keys with purple, then red, and then blue. All the lighting was bright and solid though. The G15 has decent lighting, and is definitely sufficient for nighttime gaming. I did hear that the G15 lights matched the lights on the G500 mouse (which I have). It doesn't. Close but noticeably different. One's more red than orange. Not a big deal to me but I know it is for some people.

4. The Keys. I can't tell a difference in speed, but I can tell you my preference on feel. G15 wins here but not by much. The actual keyboard of the Merc felt better than the gamepad or the keyboard of the G15. This is more personal preference area, but I liked it more because it was a little more spongy and solid feeling, just barely, but still slightly better. But the gamepad isn't as good as the keyboard and not as easy to use (see above) than I have 8 inches or so of wasted space on the left and a cramped and combined number pad/home, delete, etc. keys on the right. If you don't know about this read other reviews they are pretty accurate on the whole. Its just not user friendly, not a huge of an issue as some make it out to be though.
Lastly, I did like that you could use macros on any of the keys on the Merc but the G15 is much more macro user friendly, and I'm fairly new macro's.

5. The extras. G15 easily wins here. Neither have powered USB ports, so you can't charge devices like Ipod's. Merc has USB 2.0 and G15 has 1.1. To me I didn't care that much because I don't really want that many things plugged into them because of too many cords on the desktop. Plus I have a ton on my computer anyway. The G15 did have a groove to hide the cord for your mouse which is a nice bonus though.
But the Merc has a place for headphones. Hurray! but wait... you could be getting a buzzing noise. (See above)
Both have decent software. Nothing blowing me out of the water though. Logitech tries to recognize games where Merc lets you pick a layout from a set list. The problem here is the G15 didn't recognize games in Steam, seriously Logitech, seriously. I'm was guessing there would be a lot more support from Logitech than SteelSeries especially since SS doesn't even have Windows 7 drivers yet. I emailed them and they said probably at the beginning of the year. Its almost February, no word yet.
Lastly, the LCD screen. I'm still tinkering with this. It is nice, somewhat gimicky, and somewhat useful. Unfortunately Logitech doesn't give much support themselves for this but the Mod-ing community has come up with some decent mods. They just aren't the easiest to install and use. Looks like you can get lots of stats updated while in game, and a clock, countdown, RSS feed, email, control sound, and media, and probably much more. I was skeptical that it would be more or less useless to me, but surprisingly it is getting more use than I thought.

All in all they are both solid keyboards. 4 stars for Merc and 4 1/2 for G15. I could easily see how someone could really love the Merc Stealth though. I'd recommend both, but the G15 over the Merc, unless maybe you are new to gaming and your fingers aren't trained, or your fingers are already trained for a gamepad, or you want sweet backlights.

Everything i could of hoped for. Upgraded from Razer Lycosa and this is far superior. There is slight learning curve with the design (having playing WoW for 6 years change does not come easy)

The gaming pad on the left is pretty cool. The qweasd keys are big and easy to hit accurately again and again. There is a location bump on the S pad which is helpful, and the numerous additional buttons are convenient and have commonly enough used keys that extensive remapping is probably not needed. Even though this is a membrane keyboard, the keys have a good feel to them - there is a wide and long cylinder that each key has a 'piston' for with ample travel distance. This is as opposed to scissor switches or cheaper keyboard with thinner cylinders more likely to bind. On top of that, they are lubricated to provide a very smooth feel to the keys.

Having a key remapped to alt-tab and being able to box without my hand leaving useful keys and at the same time having all the functions I use literally at my finger tips is something that has to be experienced to be fully appreciated. It's like being a the controls of a massive star ship.

Unfortunately there are a number of issues I found with the keyboard, starting with quality issues. As received, the 3 key on the number pad would not register unless pressed hard, or pressed on the side. I opened the keyboard up and made sure the membrane was centered correctly and the '3' key started to work normally.

The numbered gaming pad keys above the qweasd do not all have the same feel to them. On mine, the 8-9-10-11 buttons are much stiffer than the other buttons, and will even press on barely being touched - something that can lead to multiple unintended presses. I found that slightly loosening the screws near the gaming pad will lessen this - at the expense of the side of the keyboard looking funny as it separates.

The number pad has the home/insert/etc keys built in via alternate selection through num lock. This is really hard to get used to, and while they may be relatively infrequently used keys, being able to rely on muscle memory to find them is a big plus - something you don't get here. The integrated arrow keys on the other hand are not too much of a bother provided they're used infrequently.

The remapping software for the keyboard works without much trouble, but some obvious things like selecting a button to edit require clicking the button to remap while holding down escape. What ever happened to double click or right clicking?

For the price of the keyboard and the fact that it is programmable, I expected to find stickers that I could put on top of the specifically labeled game pad keys (like t, b, control, alt, shift, etc...) to make my own key tops. This would have been a very nice touch even if it required some compromises with regards to the back lighting.

This keyboard seems to be rather unique, which aside from its features is a decided disadvantage because there are no similarly designed alternatives. I would weakly recommend the keyboard if the gaming pad is a big plus. Had I known everything I do now about the keyboard, I would have definitely looked harder for an alternative but there's a good chance I would have purchased it.