Saitek Gamers' Keyboard

[Duff]

Product: Gamers' Keyboard
Manufacturer: Saitek
Price: $67 - $78 CDN
Reviewer: Curt "Sordid" Sovak
Editor: Matt "Bubba" Lowe

A Little History of Saitek
Saitek was originally founded in 1979, but they entered the gaming market in 1993 and have never looked back. Since then, they've become one of the biggest names in gaming peripherals, no doubt a testament to making affordable and reliable products that cater to an enthusiast market craving affordable and reliable products.

Product Information
Saiteks description of the Gamers' Keyboard:
ULTIMATE GAME CONTROL & PERFORMANCE AT YOUR FINGERTIPS
+ Backlit
+ Sleek contemporary design
+ Programmable command pad
+ Adjustable LED backlighting
+ Compatible with any pc environment
+ Smart technology software
+ Programmable command pad adds extended functionality
in all game genres
Command Pad Features
+ Programmable pad for left- or right-handers adds
extended functionality to keyboard game play in all game types
+ 9 Easy-access buttons
+ Shift buttons provide up to 27 programmable commands
+ Backlighting enhances keyboard for play in low light environments

Keyboard
Let me start off this review by giving my first impressions of this keyboard. When I first saw it unpackaged and sitting on the desk, I was enthralled by its simple and refined appearance. The colours they chose are a silver for the base with black keys topped by white lettering, and went so far as to include subtle touches such as the Alan-key screws on the opposing corners to give it a slightly industrial look. Overall, it is a very visually pleasing piece of peripheral hardware. It employs the standard 104-key layout, and Saitek included 4 control buttons on the top right hand corner – volume up, volume down, and mute. I'll let you know what the last one is for later. Saitek has opted out the suite of multimedia keys that appear on other keyboards. This keeps the physical size of the keyboard down to a minimum while maintaining a sleek design. Once I figured out that WinAmp has a “Global Hotkey” ability, I quickly forgot about the only multimedia keys I used on my previous keyboard. The lock LEDs are blue and are situated at the top of the keyboard.




Saitek also included a detachable wrist rest, which I find to be enormously helpful. It can be extended by an inch for those with long reaches in the fingers. The bottom view depicts how the wrist wrest physically attaches to the keyboard. It also pivots when you have the keyboard at an incline using the angle adjustment feet. The Gamers’ keyboard also employs the ability to have it at “zero slope”, which minimizes impact to the wrist and fingers. They apparently do this by minimizing the amount of height differentiation of the keys itself.

Now, I’ve been using a “Natural”-type keyboard for many years, after I replaced a previous straight-form keyboard. At the time, I just found the impact to be too painful with that old thing, so I am very accustomed to having a certain amount of split-ness of my typing apparatus. Originally, I did not think that the transition would go very well, as I never was a fan of straight keyboards. I have even endured the pain of a laptop keyboard for the past year even though it was a full-size. Saitek has managed to change my mind. There was very little to no transitional phase between the two, which surprised me to no end, and I found the keys actually easier to type with than a keyboard I was once quite fond of. The keys themselves have a very positive “click” feel to them, are not overly stiff, and it is an overall quiet keyboard. It is much quieter than any other I have witnessed, which is a lot if you find yourselves at as many LANs as I do.
The real kicker to this keyboard, and what makes it a real “Gamers” keyboard, is the same thing that sets it off from the rest of the crowd. This keyboard is backlit, people. I’ve seen mods out there where these very creative folk managed to embed Electro-Luminescent wire under the keys to give a nice diffused glow, but Saitek has taken this feature and raised it to the Nth degree.




For the last good couple of years, blue has been a synonymous theme to modification of ones PC, so I suppose it’s only natural that retail products continue this theme. Needless to say, the Saitek Gamers’ keyboard has caught the blue bug as well. The entire keyboard is backlit blue with 10 ultra-bright LEDs, and the lock LEDs follow the same suit. While I find the lock LEDs to be a bit on the bright side, lighting up a fair portion of a bedroom at night, they are directed entirely away from anyone’s face and are not visually intrusive. I am very impressed with the backlighting that they designed for this keyboard. There are no dim or patchy spots across the surface, as the light is very evenly distributed. How distributed you may ask? The keys may be hiding something, or the camera may be camouflaging grey areas? Well, we had 3 avid enthusiasts and modders around this keyboard when some of these pictures were being taken, so it’s only natural that we wanted to pull the keyboard completely apart to give you an inside view of the entire show.




The top of the keyboard was removed by unscrewing 8 screws on the bottom as well as the 4 Alan- keyed screws on the top. After carefully prying out of a few tabs, the top came off without a problem. The top shell of the keyboard is in no way attached to the bottom of the keyboard, and this makes cleaning the entire keyboard very simple with either a damp towel or compressed air. If you’ve ever tried to take apart a Natural keyboard, you know what I’m talking about. Saitek has made this task into a marvel of simplicity. At the same time, the conductor traces are shielded, so if you spill a bit of something on this keyboard, it’s easy to wipe with a lightly dampened cloth.
As can be seen, the blue LEDs enter at the edge of an acrylic sheet and are diffused across the entire surface. What cannot be seen, however, is how they do it. The plastic is pitted with small round polished divots that handle the task of spreading the light in all directions very well. The result of this is an even amount of light everywhere and just oozes quality construction. The amount of light can be controlled by the last control button in the top right hand corner that I was talking about earlier. It has 3 settings: High, Low, and Off. Since LEDs have an average life in the tens of thousands of hours, you could very well leave this keyboard on full-bright at all times. However, depending on the distance from your monitor that you sit, you may want to scale it back to Low so that you’re eyes are not always distracted by the lighting. I sit at a distance of about 2 feet from my LCD, and I have it on bright. When I sit about 1 foot (say, at a LAN), I dim it down to Low unless I want to show it off. It’s a nice touch.

Command Keypad
The command keypad is a novel addition to this particular keyboard. It is an 11 button (9 primary buttons, 2 mode shift buttons) optional device that allows up to 27 extra keys to be defined for whatever you can think of. They are mapped by the programming software (described below), and can be used to control functionality in Microsoft Windows, games, or any other application under the sun. Like the keyboard itself, the keypad is backlit.




Unfortunately, the mode buttons themselves are not backlit, so it may take a bit of thumbing to find them during the “getting acquainted” stage. However, after an hours use, I no longer required to thumb a whole lot and usually found the button within a second. The command pad, however, may not be suited for die-hard fans of First Person Shooters, where all your most important keys are usually within distance to WSAD. Games that require an abnormally large number of bindings will find themselves well suited to the command pad, as will those that the gamer does not want to clutter the keyboard with.
My biggest gripe about this device is that it uses a RJ45 connection to the Gamers’ Keyboard rather than USB. It’s a shame, as USB is the standard for pretty much all external peripherals. Having it use a proprietary system rather than a universal system makes the keypad rely on the same controller inside the keyboard itself. This has the unfortunate side effect of making it succumb to the “multiple key presses at once” bug that keyboards still suffer from to this day. Certain key presses all at once don’t register, so if you have a few being pressed on the keyboard and a few on the command pad, something may not click.

Saiteks Programming Software
Now this particular piece of the package I am no stranger to. I used this software when I had a X35/X36 combo many years ago, and I was very impressed with it. This software will allow you to fully, and I mean fully, program the command pad. It won't let you reprogram any keys on the main keyboard itself, but that is a non-issue; that's what in-game binds are for. This software is not required for the keyboard, but it is required for the command pad.




Each button on the keypad can be remapped to either a single key press, a macro (which involves many key presses that can be time-delayed as well), or an “advanced command”. An advanced command takes into account depressed and released states as well as macroing. Additionally, the 2 mode shift buttons add another 18 possible button mappings to the set, bringing the total to 27. Excessive amounts of in-game radio commands? Want to bind spell layouts in a favourite MMORPG? Want every game command under the sun organized into a neat 3x3 layout? Not a problem with this programming utility. My hats go off to Saitek’s software development team because this is truly a descriptive, capable, and well designed piece of software engineering. All of Saitek’s programmable devices use the very same software. I just imagine what kind of destruction could be had with an X52 combo and the Gamers’ Keyboard.

Final Thoughts
It’s no doubt that my main use for a keyboard has been for programming. This requires a lot of key punching for hours on end, and finger/wrist strain will make themselves quite apparent after only an hours work. At the same time, I am an avid PC modifier, and recognize the immense value of visual impact. Add to this a lot of LAN gaming and gaming in general, and you have a view of this keyboard from all 3 sides of the market. So how can I best summarize this keyboard?
The Saitek Gamers’ Keyboard is a very well designed piece of peripheral goodness that not only has quality and flawless function down in spades, but also will appeal to those looking for a lot of extra added visual “oomph” for their PC. Saitek has done an exceptional job of making a keyboard combo that really sets itself apart from all the bland beige and wireless sets out there.

Editor's Thoughts
Just a little more on the Comfort level of this keyboard. Of the three staff members who've had a chance to use this keyboard (or its brother) for extended periods of time, a whopping 100% of them used Natural keyboards. Myself, I've been using a Natural keyboard for as long as I can remember (Read: since 5-Din connectors were all the rage), and I have yet to experience any discomfort whatsoever.
Now, this isn't the only keyboard Saitek makes. The Gamer's Keyboard's "little" brother is the Eclipse, which we also have in house for testing. There's also a Special Edition of the Eclipse, which uses red LEDs. Yes! You heard us! Red! You'll just have to stay posted for more on those two goodies.

I'd like to extend a huge thank you to Saitek for sending us these review samples, as well as the other neat schwag we've been giving away at our Bronx LANs, and the upcomming GO:8. We're very glad to have found a company so dedicated to the community we serve.


Rating
Form: 9/10
+ Beautifully distributed backlighting
+ Great colour scheme
Function: 8/10
+ The keys are quiet and have a very solid positive feel to them
+ Programmable keypad has limitless possibilities
- No media keys
- Command keypad uses proprietary connection to keyboard
Quality: 10/10
+ Programming hours on end leaves me with little to no strain
+ Extremely easy to clean
Bang for Buck: 8/10
While basic keyboards sell for cheaper, if your big into LAN'ing and want a high quality and visually pleasing keyboard that wont have you running for the nearest physiotherapist, this keyboard is for you. You won’t be sorry!
Overall: 9/10