by Jayden Leggett, Editor

Just when I finally feel that I am able to pull myself away from constantly playing video games, another sweet piece of gaming tech lands in my lap and pulls me back in. In this case, it is the incredible SteelSeries Apex Gaming Keyboard. Trust me when I say that it is the best keyboard I have ever used so far.

Before I describe just how spectacular this keyboard is to use, let’s begin with the unboxing, shall we? The box contains a Quick Start Guide, a couple of height-raising feet and of course the keyboard itself. If you wish to raise the height of the keyboard, simply pop out the default feet underneath and replace them with the taller ones. The USB cord is very bendy and super-adjustable, and makes for less mess when connecting to your computer.

There are two USB outputs, but before you stress out, the keyboard itself also contains two USB inputs, so technically you aren’t actually losing any of your valuable ports on your computer (which is great for people like me who have several devices like headsets, game pads, portable hard-drives etc that constantly need to be plugged in). The SteelSeries Apex Gaming Keyboard did not work via a simple plug-and-play, but the Quick Start Guide directs you to the downloads section on their website where you can install the SteelSeries Engine Suite, which installs the keyboard.

In addition, the Engine Suite is your ultimate tool for customizing the Apex Gaming Keyboard. The headlining feature for this keyboard is the “Activezone Illumination” of all of its keys, and the Engine Suite allows you to customize the colors of the LED in the various zones of the keyboard. Far from being a gimmick and merely looking cool (and believe me, it looks incredibly cool) the LEDs make finding the correct keys a breeze, especially if you make every zone on the keyboard a unique color. Gaming in the dark with the Apex is no longer an impossible challenge, and I lost quite a lot of time experimenting with the different color combinations that were possible to me. Four layer keys on the top left of the keyboard allow for quick-changes between four different color schemes.

As well as customizing the LED colors, the Engine Suite also allows you to configure your own button bindings, but I found that I didn’t need to make any customized key-commands, thanks to the excellent design of the Apex. Which brings me to my next point: the sheer joy that I experienced when gaming with this bad boy.

The various keys are all nice and large, as is the keyboard itself, and the keys are bunched up nice and close without being too huddled together to allow for a great ease of use when playing games, while your wrists rest comfortably on the lower section of the keyboard. In particular I loved how the W, A, S and D keys were grouped very closely to the TAB, CAPS, SHIFT, CTRL and ALT keys, meaning that any of these side keys can easily be pressed with you pinky whilst you are playing your favorite games. Another nice touch is the welcome inclusion of a couple of small tactile bumps on the W key, to further assist finding your home gaming-finger position without having to take your eyes off the screen.

Obviously, this type of gaming ‘board is ideal for shooters (I put the Apex through its paces in Fallout 3 just to make sure my previous statement wasn’t a lie), but I also found that I enjoyed using this keyboard in the place of games that I previously only played with a game pad. Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light, for example, is a twin-stick shooter that requires the precise movement and careful aiming that is usually only achievable via the use of a game pad. With the SteelSeries Apex Gaming Keyboard however, I found I preferred being able to use the keyboard for my movement, freeing up my right hand for even finer gun aiming with my mouse. I don’t know quite what it is, but something about these keys just makes using this device a true delight.

When I wasn’t gaming (shocking, I know, but computers can actually be used for things other than video games), I also found use of the Apex far superior to the Apple keyboard that I was previously using. In fact, thanks to the excellently-designed position of the keys, I found my touch-typing skills flourished and well-exceeded my previous capabilities. Incredibly handy for writing keyboard reviews (and thus possibly creating some form of paradox that will explode robot heads all over the world).

To be honest, I really can’t fault the Apex Gaming Keyboard at all. It suited all of my computing needs, be it playing games, surfing the internet or simply typing. If I had to try and find some negative points to this device, all I could really come up with is the fact that the initial installation of this device was ever-so-slightly fiddly, and when I used it in Mac OS I couldn’t get it to perform the “Eject disc” function, but frankly, if you are going to buy this keyboard, it’s because you primarily want it for PC gaming and not much else. It just so happens that I found it immensely useful for non-gaming related activities as well. When the day comes that for one reason or another I find myself using a different keyboard, you can be assured that it will be a bleak day indeed, and that I will be huddled in the corner of my room, crying in the fetal position .

Rating:

ComicsOnline gives the SteelSeries Apex Gaming Keyboard 5 out of 5 hours joyfully wasted screwing around with different LED color combinations.

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