Steel Series Apex Keyboard (My thoughts)

The Joker

The Joker

Thread Killer MKII
So I've been getting to grips with the Steel series apex board for the last 3 weeks or so.
At 1st I wasn't that impressed, I felt the board cost a bit to much bearing in mind it is still a rubber dome keyboard, but after using it for a while and getting into all the features I can honestly say its the best keyboard I have used, in fact I packed away my Black Widow ultimate on Friday night :p
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The board itself is feature rich, I have never used a keyboard that is as well thought out as this, small little changes make all the difference. The space bar being double the height of a "normal" space bar makes a huge difference, Made a instant impact on my personal gaming performance especially in Black Ops II.
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Then we come to the insane Macro keys. The board features 4 layers of macro key bindings, meaning you have an insane amount of key bindings and each can be set for a different game, switching between all the layers is easy, with 4 keys labelled L1-L4. Tried this out with Dota 2 and Black Ops II and it worked flawlessly. Right now there is no board on the market that offers anything like this. The possibilities are endless.
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Software wise, it can get a bit complicated xD and a bit frustrating but other than getting used to it and learning how it functioned I didn't have any software issues, game crashes ect. Which is a really good sign.
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Props to Steel Series for doing something spectacular and different. Also not following the trend of the mechanical race.
Although a Mechanical version would be insane, I can already imagine it costing twice maybe even three times as much. This board might not be Mechanical but I have yet to use a keyboard that is as feature rich and as well designed as this board. The brightness of the backlit keys are also easily adjusted and honestly the range of colour on this board is both amazing and beautiful.


I will say its not as nice to type on as a good mechanical board but for gaming its right up there with the best boards money can buy.

Thanx to Rune @ Rebeltech for sponsoring the board.

If you guys have any questions please feel free to comment or to pm me.
 
Does it cope well with many simultaneous keypresses?

Is it possible to remove keys for cleaning?

The diagonal arrows near arrow keys - how do they work in game? In theory...obviously everyone uses WASD.

Why would a mech board be 2x as expensive? From a technical pov it should only be marginally more expensive imo?
 
HavocXphere said:
Does it cope well with many simultaneous keypresses?

Is it possible to remove keys for cleaning?

The diagonal arrows near arrow keys - how do they work in game? In theory...obviously everyone uses WASD.

Why would a mech board be 2x as expensive? From a technical pov it should only be marginally more expensive imo?
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The keys are removable and easy to clean, so no issue with that at all.

Simultaneous key pressing did cause a few hick ups, mainly while using the shift or Ctrl and Alt key, but again not horrid and honestly It didn't bug me at all.

I used the diagonal arrows for leaning left/right in black ops 2 and it worked fine, although your right most people stick to WASD and so do I, Nifty feature but that's as far as it goes, unless you still play with the arrow keys.

As far as a mech version, Maximizing profit and charging what other peripheral companies charge. A good example would be the Razer Black widow ultimate, which isn't even in the same league as the apex where features are concerned but it costs roughly R1800. Don't get me wrong I love the black widow ultimate, still one of the best boards to type on in my opinion.

A mech apex would be the most amazing keyboard ever built as far as gaming is concerned and because of that they'll be able to charge whatever they want. The normal apex is absolutely stunning and feature rich. A mech one would be omgwtf amazing :cool:
 
HavocXphere said:
Why would a mech board be 2x as expensive? From a technical pov it should only be marginally more expensive imo?
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Well, two reasons, really:

1) Mechanical switches need to be in each individual key and all need to be wired up to the PCB. It can't be replaced like a plastic membrane in a regular keyboard, so the manufacturers need to recoup all their costs in the final selling price.

2) LEDs need to be in each key for proper backlighting. Having both that and several colour zones like the Apex will incur more cost into the design and manufacture of the keyboard. My old G11 had just sixteen LEDs, while a modern keyboard has 107 keys.

So if you have to do twice the amount of work and have a design and quality assurance process that takes twice as long, most companies will hike up the bill to cover that. Mechanical keyboards are still quite expensive to manufacture.
 
Wesley said:
Well, two reasons, really:

1) Mechanical switches need to be in each individual key and all need to be wired up to the PCB. It can't be replaced like a plastic membrane in a regular keyboard, so the manufacturers need to recoup all their costs in the final selling price.

2) LEDs need to be in each key for proper backlighting. Having both that and several colour zones like the Apex will incur more cost into the design and manufacture of the keyboard. My old G11 had just sixteen LEDs, while a modern keyboard has 107 keys.

So if you have to do twice the amount of work and have a design and quality assurance process that takes twice as long, most companies will hike up the bill to cover that. Mechanical keyboards are still quite expensive to manufacture.
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This.

Also I can tell your a reviewer and I am not lol xD but I tried and thanx for that :)
 
Wesley said:
1) Mechanical switches need to be in each individual key and all need to be wired up to the PCB. It can't be replaced like a plastic membrane in a regular keyboard, so the manufacturers need to recoup all their costs in the final selling price.
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I doubt failure rates are a tangible factor in this matter. Regardless of which tech, a year or 2 of trouble free action is assumed I think & where this does not apply its a fringe case imo.

As for costs...we've got maufacturers putting literally *billions* of transistors on a chip...and then people tell me adding 130 switches doubles the cost...never.

The whole mech keyboard thing smells of excellent branding tbh. The tech has merit no doubt, but add a thick layer of marketing BS and it just becomes ridiculous.

Wesley said:
2) LEDs need to be in each key for proper backlighting. Having both that and several colour zones like the Apex will incur more cost into the design and manufacture of the keyboard. My old G11 had just sixteen LEDs, while a modern keyboard has 107 keys.
Click to expand...
And lighting affects dome vs mechanical how exactly?
 
Wow quite an in depth review of the kb, kudos to you joker.
I played Counterstrike CZ on a laptop the other night, really missed my Aivia so that taught me how much of a difference a kb makes to ones playing ability when used to a certain kb
 
Well i have one and i think it's an amazing KB specially the lighting that you can even adjust so that all the keys are "Switched off" by dulling it to black. i have huge amounts of fun with it in BF4 with the bigger space bar making the parachute work better :p.

You can remove the keys with a blunt teaspoon "handle part" or if your lucky enough and have a previous KB with the key tool you can use the but use something with roundness in it no edges or you'll put dents in the keys
 
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