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Category: Input Devices
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Published: Tuesday, 13 June 2017 19:06
When it comes to keyboards, just about everyone makes them but only a few companies have been able to really get things rolling. Cooler Master is one of those companies, they bridge the gap between the high-end expensive enthusiast brands and gaming products with simple keyboards at decent prices from a brand most people know. Over the years more often than not I personally have been using them on my own computer and that is with a huge stack of other keyboards available to use. So any time Cooler Master introduces a new model they have earned my attention. They reached out a few months ago about an upcoming keyboard, well really a new variation on their current lineup, the Masterkeys PBT. They sent out the S model, or what most call their TKL version. Today I’m going to check it out.
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Category: Input Devices
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Published: Friday, 12 May 2017 20:17
Just last week Corsair introduced their latest gaming mouse, the Glaive RGB. We were originally going to cover it at launch but our sample was a little late coming in and I still needed time to test it out. Well, today that waits is over. The Glaive packs in all of the normal features of a modern mouse including RGB, rubber grips, and a DPI higher than anyone would ever have any use for. What caught my eye though were the swappable thumb grips. So today I’m going to take a closer look at the shape and features of the Glaive RGB then check out how well it has performed for me so far.
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Category: Input Devices
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Published: Wednesday, 10 May 2017 19:52
All the way back in 2015 I had the chance to take a look at the Castor mouse from Mionix and I loved it. It had a great shape, used a quality sensor and switches and was a big step forward in the market. Over the last few years the Castor has continued to be a great mouse for Mionix and recently they announced a few new variations on the Castor that keep the same features I loved with the original. The new models are just recolors but in the world of matching everything to fit your personality or style, it is cool to see a company not just using RGB for colors. I reached out to Mionix and today I’m going to take a quick look at the new color options, especially the “Castor Frosting” model that they sent over to check out.
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Category: Input Devices
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Published: Friday, 07 April 2017 10:40
Back in 2012 Rosewill introduced their RK-9000 mechanical keyboards and while they didn’t look fancy or have a lot of the features that a lot of the other boards had, they were extremely popular. They were popular because they were inexpensive mostly, but people also really liked the simple styling. Rosewill went on to bring out a few other variations including models with backlighting but they recently caught my eye with a new RK-9300 model that was still simple but brought along with it a floating key design. I thought it might be a good time to break up all of the RGB gaming keyboards with Rosewill’s new board so today I’m going to take a look and see what it’s all about.
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Category: Input Devices
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Published: Friday, 17 March 2017 12:48
So I recently had the chance to check out the G533 wireless headset from Logitech and I was impressed with its performance. While testing it, I have also been checking out Logitech’s newest wireless gaming mouse, the G900 Chaos Spectrum. While some people may prefer to stay wired for performance reasons, the gap between wired and wireless is getting smaller. With that, there are a lot more people looking at wireless devices for the added convenience. For me, I’ve been using wireless headsets for my Coms for a while now just because it is easier than getting tangled in the cord. The G900 has a great optical sensor and it shares a lot of features with Logitech’s mice so I’m excited to put it to the test today and see what it is all about.
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Category: Input Devices
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Published: Monday, 13 February 2017 10:28
Just about everyone has jumped into the mechanical keyboard market at this point but rarely do you see companies take their time in tweaking and tuning their products like I have seen with EpicGear. All the way back in 2015 I took a look at their Dezimator X, a pre-release keyboard that they were considering sending to the USB market. Well, my review wasn’t the most promising. They took that information along with a lot of feedback from the mechanical communities and Massdrop and designed a new keyboard. Well the EpicGear DeFiant was released and it has a whole list of customization options, well they have been working on a new set based around the DeFiant with a carrying case and some of the customization options, today I’m going to check it out and see how things have changed.
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Category: Input Devices
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Published: Monday, 23 January 2017 08:33
This year at CES Corsair introduced their new K95 Platinum RGB. Some of you may remember that the original K95 from Corsairs first line of RGB keyboards. It was based on the K90 that I reviewed all the way back in 2012 as part of the launch of their Vengeance lineup, so it was due for a refresh. Well the new K95 Platinum RGB brings back the macro keys in a smaller amount and then adds features like RGB lighting and the new light edge that is also RGB. They also brought back the USB passthrough port after a lot of people requested it. So today I’m going to check out the new keyboard and see if it is as exciting as Corsair has made it out to be.
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Category: Input Devices
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Published: Friday, 20 January 2017 09:46
So have you ever heard of Func? What about Fnatic? Func was a mousepad manufacturer that later went on to make a few nice peripherals. Fnatic, on the other hand, is one of if not the biggest brand in eSports. Well about a year and a half ago Func closed its doors and Fnatic picked them up. Given all of the branded products that the eSports teams work with others on it wasn’t a huge shock to see one of them go into the market themselves. Fatal1ty did it solo and at this point, the Fnatic brand is a lot bigger, especially to the younger eSports fan. So a while back (frankly far too long ago, I'm just now catching up) Fnatic sent over their Clutch G1 for me to check out. I’ve spent some time with the Clutch G1 and now I can finally sit down and talk a little about its performance.
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Category: Input Devices
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Published: Friday, 30 December 2016 19:46
It’s hard to believe it, but Razer launched the original Deathadder just over 10 years ago. At that time if you built a new PC you might be sporting a newly launched Intel Core 2 Duo or an AMD Athlon 64 FX CPU with your new GTX 7900 GTX or Radeon X1900. It’s crazy how much things have changed while at the same time the Deathadder in its different variations is still one of the go-to mice on the market. The newest Deathadder is the Deathadder Elite. It has the same shape that everyone loves but has a new 5g optical sensor and for the first time, Razers own mechanical mouse switches. Razer sent over the Elite for me to check out and slipped in the Firefly RGB mousepad. I’ve been testing them out and today I’m going to see what they are all about and how they perform.
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Category: Input Devices
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Published: Wednesday, 30 November 2016 13:27
Over the past few years the market for mechanical keyboards with RGB backlighting has gone crazy. The problem though is all of those RGB keyboards have had Cherry switches, knock off cherry switches, or a few custom switches designed by companies like Logitech and SteelSeries. One of my favorite mechanical switch types is Topre, but with the exception of a few knockoffs you haven’t been able to get Topre keyboards with any backlighting, let alone full RGB backlighting. So when Realforce introduced their upcoming keyboard, the Realforce RGB I had to check it out. Of all of the keyboards I have my Realforce 87u is one of my favorites to type on, but the lack of backlighting or even easy to read legends in the light forced me to keep it put up. So it will be exciting to see how Realforce’s new keyboard performs to see how it compares.
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Category: Input Devices
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Published: Wednesday, 09 November 2016 15:00
There are so many different reasons why people upgrade to mechanical keyboards. For some people, it is about durability. But for a lot of people, there is a bit of nostalgia involved. Some of us grew up with clicky buckling spring keyboards and just want a little of that back. With that in mind, Azio has introduced a new keyboard that is all about going old school, even beyond those buckling spring keyboards, back to typewriters. They aren’t the first company to do it, Datamancer a company we have worked with in the past had a few typewriter style keyboards and even sold keycaps. But Azio has actually taken the next step and gone into mass production and dropped the costs considerably. So today I’m going to take a look at their MK Retro and see if it is actually a usable keyboard, or if it is just going to be a novelty.
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Category: Input Devices
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Published: Friday, 14 October 2016 14:31
With us being a few years into the whole RGB movement with mechanical keyboards, we are still seeing some companies finally moving their keyboards over to RGB and others have been refining their original designs. At this point, I have tested and covered just about everything and I think almost every day I’m turning down companies who want to send more and more of the same. I nearly did the same with the Gram Spectrum from Tesoro but the fact it was available in an all white design caught my eye. With everyone else only selling them in black, it is nice to see something a little different. On top of that, the Gram Spectrum also has Tesoro’s new switch called the Tesoro Agile with a short throw and short actuation point. So today I’m going to check out the Gram Spectrum and see what it is all about in all of its pale glory and find out how the new switches compare to the rest of the market.
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Category: Input Devices
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Published: Friday, 22 July 2016 20:14
I honestly can’t think of the last time I took a look at a mouse that wasn’t directly marketed towards gaming. That mostly has to do with the companies we work with, but with Logitech, I’ve been trying to get an MX Master in my hands all the way back from its launch. This is because even just checking out the feature list I was impressed with what they were doing with the MX Master. Well recently they finally sent one out and I’ve been spending time using it on my main PC. So today I’m going to run through its features and find out if the MX Master lives up to the hype that I had built up in my head.
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Category: Input Devices
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Published: Saturday, 16 July 2016 03:58
For a while there I was covering a new RGB keyboard every two weeks but I haven’t covered any in over a month now. This is partially due to all of the video card launches, but also I’ve been turning away a lot of companies as well. Frankly, everyone in their mom is making their new RGB mechanical keyboards and there just isn’t much separating them. I would prefer to keep things fresh and check out a variety. So to change things up today I’m taking a look at the new Vortex Pok3r RGB. Those of you who see me and my wife out at LANs has most likely seen both of us gaming using Vortex Poker keyboards (she has a Poker 2 and I have a Pok3r), so I’m excited to finally be able to talk a little about one of my favorite keyboards. On top of this one having RGB backlighting, it also sports Cherry’s new Nature White keyswitches, so this is my first experience with them as well.
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Category: Input Devices
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Published: Wednesday, 08 June 2016 18:08
Its hard to believe but the Razer Blackwidow design has been around for a really long time compared to other peripherals. Every year they have reintroduced it with small changes, new backlighting colors, their new switches, and later on RGB with the Chroma line. They have also had a few different variations with tournament editions and ultimate editions. Well for the first time in a long time, this year, Razer introduced a heavily changed called the Blackwidow X. They have it in a Chroma model as well as an Ultimate model but the main goal with the X was to change things up and little and offer a slightly cheaper offering. Oddly enough the lower priced option actually drops some of the plastic and has an open aluminum frame. So today I’m going to check out that and see what else the Blackwidow X Chroma has to offer.
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Category: Input Devices
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Published: Friday, 27 May 2016 09:34
Returning readers are sure to know that I have a bit of a thing for keyboards, especially smaller 60% keyboards. In the past we have covered them multiple times including a few custom made products made specifically for the keyboard enthusiast market like custom leather wrist rests and an all oak Poker case. What I’ve learned is that when there is a gap in the market from the bigger companies people from all over step up and start selling products that they originally designed for themselves. A great example of this is 1UP Keyboards. A year ago I reached out to them about us covering their sleeves because I had been following them and because keyboard sleeves are a perfect way to protect your expensive keyboards when taking them to and from LANs or work. Well they declined at the time but recently reached back out to us about it. Given we are in the middle of the LAN season I couldn’t turn down a chance to protect my Pok3r like my wife’s Poker 2 is protected.
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Category: Input Devices
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Published: Friday, 13 May 2016 19:55
Some of you might have seen Gamdias as a sponsor at our last event or maybe at a few of the other events as well. While I’ve seen their name around I haven’t had the chance to personally check out and of their products. So when they offered to slip in their Hermes RGB keyboard in with our LanOC V18 box I took them up on the offer. We have had a LOT of RGB keyboards in the office at this point so that itself isn’t unique but I was excited to see what Gamdias has going on. So for the last 3 weeks I have been testing and using the Hermes RGB for all of my writing and gaming to find out how it performs in both situations. Read on as I take a closer look at its features and then dive into its performance.
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Category: Input Devices
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Published: Wednesday, 20 April 2016 11:03
For the last year to year and a half I’ve been running a tiny 60% keyboard with my LAN rigs to help cut down on how much I carry to and from events and also to open up more space on the small table space you get at events. Its worked so well that I wanted to swap my wife’s keyboard to a 60% as well. To prevent damage to the keyboard in transport I tossed around the idea of getting a sleeve to put it in but then I came across the Oaken 60% keyboard case from Datamancer. The case replaces the case on my wife’s Poker 2 with a custom machined wooden case and it has a matching second half that encloses the entire keyboard for transport. After taking it to a few events over the past few months I wanted to talk a little about the case and its pros and cons. So check it out.
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Category: Input Devices
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Published: Wednesday, 06 April 2016 09:06
Just a few weeks ago Cooler Master introduced their new Masterkeys Pro L and S keyboards. I spent a bunch of time with the L aka the full sized model but at that time I didn’t have the chance to check out the Masterkeys Pro S. Well after our review they were quick to get an S out to me. A lot of the features of the Pro L are the same on the smaller S but there are a few differences. So today I’m going to take a look at the Masterkeys pro S and show you guys what is different. This won’t be as in depth of a review as the original, but if you check out our original review HERE and then check this out you should have a good idea of what the new Masterkeys Pro’s are all about and if they are for you.
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Category: Input Devices
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Published: Tuesday, 15 March 2016 16:27
As most of you guys have most likely noticed, I get a wide variety of keyboards coming into the office. Especially now that everyone and their mom has gotten into the mechanical keyboard market. With that the list of keyboards that make it into heavy use as a keyboard my wife and I take to events, test rigs, or my main PC is actually much smaller. Cooler Master has been one of the main brands you would find on that list and that is because from the day they introduced the original QuickFire Rapid I have loved their keyboards. They keep their keyboards simple with nothing flashy but the quality for the most part has been there. When they moved on to the Rapid-I I really started to get excited about the features they were introducing but with the XTI I was a little disappointed. Not because it was a bad keyboard, in fact it’s a great keyboard, I just really wanted it to be full RGB or have white backlighting like the Rapid-I. Well all of the waiting is finally over. For the past few weeks I’ve been using their new MasterKeys Pro L full RGB keyboard and today I’m finally allowed to unzip my lips and talk about it. So I’m going to run down through its features, talk about how it performed, then break down where it fits in the market. All of that will hopefully help you find out if this is the keyboard for you, check it out!
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