Steelseries APEX Keyboard - LOVE!

NightBl1d3

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Jun 17, 2013
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Hey guys, just thought I would throw this up here for anyone that's thinking of buying a new keyboard. I was using an Azio Levetron Mech 5 keyboard, it was a great keyboard, but I found it sat high and made the angle of your wrist quite akward, so you were either holding your wrist up off of the desk, or you had an aching wrist throughout the game. That's why I had switched from keyboard/mouse to a 360 controller, thinking "fuck this, if this is what WASD has turned into, I'm using a controller". The keyboard has lots of mechanical accessories, including a removable number pad, and a removable set of programmable keys. However the keys were very tall and VERY noisy. It got to the point that my typing was waking up our baby in the next room. So I had to make a change.

I opted to go with a Steelseries APEX (Raw) Gaming Keyboard from NCIX.com. I have to tell you that this thing comes better than advertised and most reviews don't do it justice. It is very sleek, and the front edge is low enough that my wrist sits almost perfectly flat when playing. It has a "Steelseries Button" which acts similar to a "CTRL" or "ALT" button to modify the function of a current key. But it does two very useful things, it allows you to disable the Windows button that occasionally gets hit during gameplay and minimizes your window (which I'm sure is the cause of death for many monitors :p ) and it also allows you to change the brightness of the white LED backlit keys (they have 8 settings, mind you the brightest setting isn't THAT bright, it's very nice). For raising/lowering the angle of the keyboard, it comes with rubber feet that you can pop in and out of the back to change your angle from perfectly flat to approximately 20 degrees of incline. I have the inclined feet on and it is VERY comfortable, the rubber feet make it so the keyboard doesn't jump around, and they don't have the ability to fold up on you if you get a little over-eager during gameplay.

The keys, as I said, are backlit with white LED's and it's very easy on the eyes. They're low profile keys, so they have a nice short key stroke and they are nice and quiet. The one key that makes the most noise (as is the case with most keyboards) is the space bar, and other than that it's almost dead silent. It has 19 macro keys all placed nicely around the border of the keyboard, and the ones on the left are easily accessible, with 12 lined up on top to coincide with your "F#" keys, which makes for a plethora of new key combos (very useful or RPG's and MMO's).

I really do give this keyboard a strong 9.5/10 and the only reason I don't give it a 10/10 is because I think the space bar should be made to be silent to coordinate better with the function of the rest of the keyboard. Outside of that, I don't have a single flaw/problem with this board and it is HIGHLY recommended.

Check it out here:
<a href="http://www.ncix.com/products/?sku=79967&promoid=1360">NCIX - Steelseries APEX RAW</a>
 
Trust a canadian company to make a site so broken you can't actually open their links lol. Clicking on it asks which store (Canada or US) you click on it takes you back to the main page. Okay fair enough the item number isn't passed along to the new site. US user goes back to the original link, clicks on it and is.... directed back to the main page directly?
 
I am looking for a keyboard. And I am totally lost as to what to get. Reviews always have negatives.
I was thinking about this one but it is not mechanical.

Do you know what the 'response time' is and what the 'polling speed' is for this Steelseries Raw?

Also how noisy is the space bar?
 
I am looking for a keyboard. And I am totally lost as to what to get. Reviews always have negatives.?

Honestly, do what I did if you can. Go to Microcenter/Best Buy and play with Demo Units. How I fell in love with my Deathstalker.
 
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