Corsair Vengeance K90
All the macro keys money can buy
Price : $130
Website : www.corsair.com
THE CORSAIR Vengeance K90 launched early
last year alongside the Vengeance K60. It is, at heart, an expanded version of
that board, fitted with a vast bank of customizable macro keys at the far left,
and a detachable rubberized wrist rest. The extra functionality is mostly aimed
at MMO players, who may have need for the truly staggering number of macro keys
18 keys, arranged into three banks of six, with three profile buttons for a
total of 54 programmable actions. We're a bit skeptical about the utility of so
many macro buttons, as it becomes difficult to remember which key does what,
and to hit them without looking, as the button count increases. Still, you
should be able to imagine whether you'd be able to put the buttons to good use
or not.
With
the K90, Corsair goes deep on macro keys. Unfortunately, only the main QWERTY
keyboard and arrow keys are mechanical.
Beyond those extra keys, the K90 features
the strong points of the K60, including a rugged all-aluminum body and
responsive Cherry MX Red switches. The fantastic-looking low-profile aluminum
design is even snazzier in the K90, thanks to blue backlighting that shines
through the laser-etched keycaps. One of the strangest and worst features of
the K90 is that it uses membrane-style switches for a small subset of the keys
on the board (the 18 macro keys, the function keys, as well as the block above
the arrow keys), which feel noticeably worse than the mechanical keys that make
up the rest of the board. Especially for keys that are meant to be used in the
heat of the moment, the transition to non-mechanical keys is very jarring.
Rosewill Rk-9100 Mechanical Gaming Keyboard
A solid board, low on features
Price: $130
Website: www.rosewill.com
Sometimes it's nice when a company comes
along and boils down a product category to just the features that are
important. With the RK-9100, Rosewill does just that, offering a solid
mechanical gaming keyboard with few flourishes.
The RK-9100 is a compact design with no
wrist rest and a minimal lip around the outside of the board. It's heavy, and
feels quite sturdy. It uses mechanical keys once again, Cherry MX switches,
though with the RK-9100 you have a choice of the typing-friendly Blue switches,
or the in-between Browns. We tend to prefer the Browns as a nice compromise
between gaming and typing, which makes it a bit frustrating that the
Brown-switch version of the RK-9100 retails for $130, $20 more than the Blue
version.
The
Rosewill RK-9100 isn’t the fanciest-looking keyboard, but it feels great to
use.
The keyboard has a nice blue backlight,
except for the scroll-, num, and caps-lock keys, which glow green while active.
It's a good idea, but for some reason the green light is incredibly bright, and
angled to shine right into your eyes while active. It's distracting, and unfortunately
can't be turned off we wouldn't be surprised if most RK-9100 owners end up
fixing the problem with electrical tape. That's the only significant problem we
noticed while using Rosewill's keyboard, but we couldn’t shake the feeling that
$130 is a bit too much to ask for this board. The Logitech G710+ features the
same MX Brown switches, and with street a price that's currently only about $10
more than RK-9100, includes significantly more features that set it apart as a
gaming keyboard.
Roccat Isku
Membrane plank makes strong
impression
Price: $90
Website: www.roccat.org
If you're not ready to make the jump to a
mechanical keyboard, and aren't interested in touchscreens or scalp massagers
or whatever other luxury features are going into the $200-plus planks, your
money will go a lot farther. Specifically, it'll go all the way to the Isku, a
handsome and feature-rich keyboard from German newcomer Roccat.
The Isku is wide and flat, with an
oversized wrist rest and a wide bezel all around the board, taking up plenty of
desk real estate. It’s got a grippy textured-plastic frame and recessed
contoured keys that make the whole thing seem flatter and lower to the desk
than normal. The dome keys are good (as far as they go) with a fairly crisp and
responsive activation.
The
Isku is thin but takes up a lot of room, thanks to its broad wrist re-stand
bezel.
Where the Isku really shines is in its
expansive set of features. It has eight macro buttons (including three
"thumbster" keys under the spacebar), with on-the-fly recording, and
profile switching. It gets further mileage out of the bind-able keys and macros
with an “Easy Shift" button where the caps-lock key would normally be,
which temporarily switches the functions of all right-hand-accessible keys
while held down. There’s a lot to customize, and the included software suite is
intuitive and up to the task.
Also, the Isku is part of the "Roccat
Talk” ecosystem, which allows button presses on the keyboard to affect the
behavior of a Roccat gaming mouse, and vice versa. At this price, we’d strongly
recommend buying a mechanical board, but if you can’t or don't want to, the
Isku is an excellent choice.
A Keyboard For Clean Freaks
One of the keyboards we received while
preparing this roundup was the Logitech Washable Keyboard K310. Somehow it
didn’t seem quite fair to pit the $40, K310 against the likes of the Razer
Death-statker in a straight head-to-head, but we couldn't resist the chance to
see if this washable keyboard really works.
The K310 has a standard full-size layout
with flat, thick plastic keys. Despite the very plastic-y construction and
nonstandard keys, the keyboard actually feels pretty decent to use.
We don't actually have a standard testing
procedure worked out for washable keyboards, so we improvised. We took a quick
trip to the corner store for a bag of Cheetohs bane of all keyboards. We then
used a mortar and pestle to mash them into a fine, delicious powder, and
applied it liberally to the keyboard (and surrounding table).
We were originally going to stick the K310
in the dishwasher, but a label on its back specifically warns against doing so.
Instead, we gave it a thorough hand-washing in the sink.
What's the verdict? The keyboard looks like
new, and works just fine. Not bad!
