After three months' use, here is why I like this keyboard.
CONSTRUCTION:
This thing is solid. Heavy as it is, I can lift the whole thing by pinching the corner of the wrist rest and it stays rigid. Doesn't slide around or give under my sometimes-heavy typing. The dotted texture hides fingerprints nicely.
KEYS:
The Cherry MX Brown switches can be found on other keyboards, and reviewing those isn't reviewing *this keyboard* per se, but you don’t find Amazon reviews for just Cherry MX Brown, so here's one.
A Brown switch is, essentially- if you slowly press down on a key, then halfway down the key slides past a “bump”. It's like slowly sliding a key into a lock. The bump is silent (unlike Cherry MX Blue or Razer green, which makes a “tick” sound). If you go all the way down, it hits bottom much more crisply than a membrane keyboard. I much enjoy the feel; however, the bump doesn't give anywhere near the feel of the Blue or Razer Green and doesn't itself provide that much a typing advantage. After breaking this in, I got slightly faster, about 5 wpm (up from ~140 wpm on a membrane), but my accuracy improved a ton. This is louder than a membrane keyboard, but not obnoxiously so. You can quiet it down even more by typing only halfway down.
*Update (July 2017)*: Over the last two months this has given me a problem that is almost enough to knock it down a star. That is, the s pace bar activates at random. (yes, it happened just there) I believe I am pressing it and not knowing, but now that the keyboard is broken in after over half a year, it registers phantom spaces because it's too easy to press. Not that much, maybe every two minutes, but it really annoys me. Been a power user for maybe 10 years and have never had this problem, let alone consistently.
*Update (August 2017)*: I tried putting a gas duster/compressed air into it. That seems to have completely fixed the problem; the space bar even feels and sounds different.
LIGHTING:
The lighting is beautiful, but disappointingly dim. It's like those green glowing nightlights; however, I think I’ve read that Cherry MX Brown switches are harder to light than Black or Red. Color resolution is good- you can tell between RGB 0/255/0 and 0/245/0. Dark colors are pretty accurate, but lighter colors are dark- lime green is more like light emerald, cyan is light turquoise, etc. The effects cannot be customized as much as Corsair or Razer (you cannot animate Pac-Man or lightsabers) but is still more than plenty. There are the usual- rainbow, blinking, fading, etc. but also a “heat map” and a working sound bar equalizer. You can set response to events- for instance, every time you hold the J key, E turns orange and R blinks blue. The thumbster keys and toggle (e.g. Num Lock) are a brighter white than the other keys are, and they cannot be color changed.
If you think “who needs lighting, I can just read the keys”, understand this: It's way easier to look for a color than a symbol. I don't have the scroll lock location memorized, and if I'm doing an intense Excel formula that needs lots of focus, then the 5 seconds to find scroll lock will break my concentration (yes, Samuel L. Jackson). Instead I can look for bright yellow out the corner of my eye and quickly hit it.
LAYOUT:
There are five dedicated macro keys, which were much of why I bought this. The three thumbster keys below the space bar don’t work that well with thumbs, they’re stiff like alarm clock buttons. I would have liked media buttons but there are none. The layout's biggest problem is the Esc and F-keys being too far away. I whiffed the Esc a lot at first. F1-F12 are way too far right, making Alt+F4 literally a pain (see picture of my thumb cramping) to type. F4 on this keyboard is where F5 should be.
FUNCTIONALITY:
The Easy Shift (“ES” I’ll call it) is one of the greatest keyboard-related inventions ever!
ES replaces Caps Lock (who uses that anyway) and can be combined with almost any key (A-Z, 0-9, numpad, symbols, specials like Ctrl, Alt, PgUp, and macro keys) to put up a custom function such as a macro of keystrokes or opening or closing a program. Instead of just five macro keys, the ES combo gives you maybe ninety! I set ES+X to close programs instead of that horrible Alt+F4. Macros execute very quickly and without hesitation no matter what the computer's doing, thanks to the keyboard's internal memory. This keyboard takes one (USB 3.0) or two (USB 2.0) ports, and it does not have pass-thru ports. It does have microphone and headphone jacks. It was shipped with a transparent plastic mould covering the keys; you can use it as a keyboard dust cover.
Oh, if you *do* want to seem like a moron on the internet, you *can* still put Caps Lock back on the ES key, though you're taking away one of the best features. (or you can put Caps Lock on the thumbster keys instead)
SOFTWARE INTERFACE:
Needs some work. For instance, if you click a palette color, it won't show its RGB value. You don't select a macro and delete, you must use the check box. To see special animation features for each key, you always have to scroll down. I only really use one profile, so I cannot say with that feature. Overall, it's powerful but very awkward to use.
Overall, this is a great keyboard. The Easy Shift function really takes the cake, but I also love the feel of the switches. Macro keys are good, as is lighting though it is a bit dim.
| Number of USB 2.0 Ports | 2 |
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