Hardware SteelSeries Apex M800 Review

I hate it - the spacebar is far too small!

On a more serious note, it's a bit steep for unproven switches and no USB 3.

 

Arggh, £160 for a plastic-cased keyboard? Nah...
What I'm looking for is this:

Tenkeyless design: Otherwise my mouse bashes in to the keypad and costs me a few cheap deaths in FPS games.
Back-lighting: Nothing fancy required,just red with variable intensity.
Proper UK keyboard layout - big Enter key, backslash that works and everything in the right place, please. I game a lot more than type, but it's got to be usable!
Media keys: well at least some volume controls, preferably by a dial rather than keys.
Tilt: I like my keyboard to be strongly tilted.

Notice I've not specified case material, key types or anything else... I can cope with any types of key (except mechanical clicky keys), and I assume a plastic case will be 'good enough'.

I've had a whole slew of different keyboards.... from your box-standard 102 key PC office keyboard, through a cheapo Trust compact, a Logitech G15 (too wide), MS SIdewinder X6 (almost perfect except for US keyboard), Roccat Arvo (no media controls, no backlight)

Is there anything that matches my needs? I have just found the Roccat Ryos TKL Pro, but that's a pricey beast (£100) - is there anything a bit more reasonably priced?

 

I agree, i don't see the point of the small spacebar. If I want a small footprint I will go 10 keyless (preferably with backlighting)

 

160£ for a keyboard lol

 

That is ugly ugly ugly. Steelseries stuff is looking worse and worse as other companies up their game.

 

I want to know if this can correctly display ALL COLORS unlike the current APEX which has hardware flaws preventing it from displaying some colors correctly on parts of the keyboard. Their support people admitted this to me, yet wont replace my apex unless I pay to send it back. Also, macros lock the KB while running. I will NEVER buy another one of their crappy products.

 

Oh the horror. It looks like something you'd see on eBay starting at £10, with 4 minutes left to go, no bids and free delivery within 6-8 weeks from mainland China.

I don't foresee stellar sales.

Ugh.

Ducky Shine Zero if you can find one in the combo you desire. It's pricey but you won't regret it.

 

Riiiiidiculous price, but nice to see more gaming orientated mech switches.

I've been stating for years that cherry MX are categorically NOT meant for gaming - they wobble under continual actuation, far too much travel and make way too much noise, but the forces of marketing are strong.

Scissor switches are very ideal - they are very quiet, very stable, durable enough (also very cheap in comparison) and actuate much quicker than any mechanical - they are measurably and provably superior to cherry MX of any colour, and we are going to see a migration towards a hybrid of this tech in the future - plate mounted scissors would be stunning.

 

Bingo! It's on sale in the UK for £90 at Novatech

The Cherry Brown keys do sound rather loudly clicky, if I can get Blue switches are they the quieter ones?

Edit: never mind, plenty of videos out there showing the difference

Edit2: Ooh, the Cherry Red version, which is perhaps the best for FPS gaming, is even cheaper at £80!

I've just tried all my different keyboards, they all have a subtle activation bump (at the top of the travel, like an initial resistance which gives way)... so I'm torn whether the brown or red will be better... shame I can't see these in a real shop to try them

One more question about the Ducky keyboards - does the '80% layout' refer to the TKL design or are the rest of the keys at 80% size?

 

Browns are tactile but not clicky. Blues are clicky and much louder than Browns.