Keyboard wishlist

Keyboards – no longer just that thing you use to type up last minute essays the night before deadline. They are now deadly killing machines which can, in the right hands, become a devastating advantage over noobs on the opposing team. However like guns, knives and other deadly weapons, not all keyboards are created equal and some are more desirable than others. Here are our top picks from 2012:

Steelseries 6G V2

It scored 87 percent in the MyGaming SteelSeries 6G V2 keyboard review and now it’s on our Christmas wishlist. The Steelseries 6G V2 is the perfect example of how doing things right means you don’t need fancy styling or gaudy lights to win consumers over (for the opposite of this, see the Saitek Cyborg V7 later on the list).

This mechanical keyboard is unassuming, looking more at home in an office rather than in a gamers den. But any assumptions that this is a regular keyboard are done away with when you lift it up. It weights slightly more than your average cathedral and feels a lot more solid. It’s well built to stand the test of countless gamer rages, it offers all the important features gamers would want (such as media control and mechanical keys) and best of all it’s fairly priced at under R900 locally. Sure, it’s missing macro keys, but with the responsiveness of the keyboard you’ll hardly miss them.

SteelSeries 6G V2 front

Razer Nostromo

Gamepads are the way of the future. With this firmly established I present to you the Razer Nostromo, the best gaming keypad on offer at present. The ergonomic design means you can game in comfort, and a comfortable gamer is a happy gamer, who also consequently gets more frags.

Rather than having to deal with a keyboard which was designed for a totally different purpose and then adapted to gaming, this gaming keypad has been designed from the ground up for gamers. All of the keys are easy to reach and there are enough options to keep everyone from FPS gamers to MMORPG’ers happy. Did I mention it’s cheaper than most gaming keyboards? This should leave plenty left over for a decent typists keyboard for when the games go away and real life comes barging in.

Razer Nostromo gaming pad

Logitech G510

Logitech, one of the peripheral brands that never seems to disappoint. Their G15 series of gaming keyboards were a common sight at LANs for years and for good reason, they were some of the best boards available at the time.

The market has changed and Logitech have released a successor to the G15 series, the G510. It’s bigger, it has more features, and the series-defining built in LCD is present and ready to display vital information (such as ammo count and your current CPU usage). It’s not cheap and the competition in the gaming keyboard market is greater than ever, but the G510 is still a fantastic option for gamers who favor macro keys, media control and information displays over more minimalist offerings.

Logitech G510 keyboard

Saitek Cyborg V7

If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, then the road to undesirable gaming keyboards is littered with good design ideas that are poorly executed. Scoring just 58 percent in the MyGaming Cyborg V7 Keyboard review, the keyboard is the perfect “coal” gift for gamers who haven’t been good this year.

The review summed the keyboard up with, “if you’re looking for a feature-rich, bling keyboard and can live with sub-standard execution, you may want to consider the Cyborg V7. However if lights and chrome aren’t vital to you, look elsewhere,” nuff said.