Pictures and Features
Sitting back and taking all of the Quickfire XT in there are a few thing that stand out right away. First from the top, this is an extremely clean or basic looking design, there isn’t even a brand or model logo showing and I love that. It almost looks like someone coated it in plastic dip, but this is right from the factory. You are getting a full keyboard layout including the number pad. There aren’t any special macro keys other than a small set of basic media keys up in the F keys. The XT’s biggest feature is its slim bezel that is similar to the Quickfire Rapid, as Cooler Master has mentioned the XT stands for extended. I measured the keyboard to be 3/8th of an inch skinnier than the Max Keyboard X9 Nighthawk we tested a while back.
You really have to look around the board to find any branding on the board at all. It isn’t until you get to the back side that isn’t visible when you are using the Quickfire XT that you can finally see the CMStorm logo in an eye catching red and white. I love that Cooler Master isn’t trying to push their branding in your face; this makes me feel like they know the product will speak for them without any artwork or branding to complicate things.
Speaking of around on the back, check out the USB connection that Cooler Master went with. The smaller Mini-A type connection that they went with in the past on their keyboards has been swapped out with a full sized Type A connection. This is the same connection you would plug into your computer meaning the cable they provide you has two matching ends on it. This is a more durable connection and is a little easier to plug in as well. The change in location from under the keyboard to the back also helps with that. This was one of my major complaints with the Quickfire Rapid and the Quickfire TK, their cord plugin on the bottom was very hard to plug in.
The model of XT that I am testing has blue switches but Cooler Master does have Blue, Red, Brown, and Green switch models available. That should give most people a good variety of options. They do seem to favor tactile and clicky keys with the exclusion of black switches but personally I’m not a big fan of black key switches. My preference is the Cherry MX Browns with the Blues and Green’s both being good options as long as I’m willing to deal with the repercussions of driving my wife nuts with their additional noise. To go with those switches you will also get Costar stabilizers on the wider keys and the spacebar.
Cooler Master also included a set of four red arrow keys to swap out with your WASD keys. With LoL and DOTA 2 becoming so big it would be cool to see them include an option for those gamers as well, or sell an optional set. QWERKeys has a nice set coming out as well (you can find pictures on their facebook). They also provide a key puller for you to swap these key caps out. Also included were the CM Storm and Cooler Master logo keys that we saw on the Quickfire Rapid that you can swap out if you would like to show off your Cooler Master love.
While we are talking key caps, let’s take a quick look at the key caps themselves. Flipping the cap upside down we can see that this isn’t double shot molded. That means our lettering on the top does not go all the way through. The XT has ABS key caps and the lettering is lasered. The font is the same font that some enthusiasts aren’t fans of, but personally I don’t find it obnoxious or hard to read.
On the underside or the XT you will have a small sticker in the middle with all of the important information like serial numbers and all of the necessary certification logos. To keep your keyboard from moving around you have four wide rubber pads, one on each corner. There are also flip up feet on the back to angle the XT if that is that you prefer. The flip out feet do not have rubber on them, the wide pads on the front should be able to do the job but it will push a little easier than if it were on all four of its rubber feet.
