****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
Design:======- The keyboard looks fantastic and feels fantastic. It has a great matte-black finish with a slight hint of a brushed metal texture. The keys are raised on top of the board rather than imbedded into the middle of the casing, as with most other keyboards, which looks really stylish. It also makes cleaning and removing/replacing keys a breeze. You can just snap the keys off with the included key-removal tool, and underneath is just a flat board that you can easily clean up if any dirt or dust gets in there.- The one thing I don't like about the design is the key layout, which is non-standard. The F1-F12 keys are almost flat against the number row, and the Print Screen, Scroll Lock, and Pause keys are almost flat against Insert, Home, and PgUp. For those of us who type by feel, this is pretty damn annoying.Mechanical Switches:======- I got the MX Blue keys because I want a very clear physical feedback in my fingers when the key press registers. It feels fantastic. As another user here noted, MX Blues feel like you're popping bubble wrap. Also, it CLICKS, so you can clearly feel AND hear when the key press registers, unlike with most other mechanical switches.- A note on the loudness: There are two sounds to consider -- the "click" and the "clack". The switch itself isn't really that loud, the "click" it produces through the spring mechanism when the key is half-way down and the press registers is pretty subtle, but it sounds realily satisfying. What really produces a lot of noise is "clack", which is the impact of the key against the base on the keyboard. It's literally just a "clacking" sound of plastic hitting plastic, and is as loud as you're imagining it sounds like when you smash one piece of plastic against another piece of plastic. Overall, I'm definitely glad I chose the Blues over any other switch -- it works as well in typing as in gaming, and I'm ok with how loud the clacking can get. Your opinion may vary on this.Backlighting:======- There are three backlight brightness settings on the standard Red LED variety of this keyboard. The lowest brightness makes the keys look like the letters are printed in red in the daytime, and has a decent feel of illumination at night time -- this is my favorite setting. For those who want brightness, it does go up much higher, to the point where light starts bleeding heavily from not only between the keys but all around the surface. That's a bit too much light for me, even in darkness, but it's there for people looking for it.- There is a DESIGN FLAW in the backlight: because of the position of the LEDs, the number row is illuminating the shifted characters (!@#$%), not the digits. Unfortunate, but definitely not a deal breaker.Extras:======- The textured WASD and 123456 keys are a nice addition, but the more I play with it, the more I'm struggling to understand why it was designed like this. These special keys (which are replacable with standard keys) are nicely textured, which is absolutely awesome. Unfortunately, they are also CURVED, which is not so awesome. The WASD key curve, in particular, is so tight that it feels like it's designed for a child's hand. They're also a bit annoying to type with because of the curve. The number keys also lack the shifted characters (!@#$%^) printed on top, so good luck to anyone who doesn't have those memorized.- The volume scroll wheel feels nice and sturdy. THe media control keys, though, are unfortunately hidden behind and under the numpad keys. It's a weird design choice to place them there.- The included wrist wrest is pretty pointless and is solely for looks. The surface is too slippery, and it really needs to be much higher to be of any real use -- at the height of the spacebar, not *below* it.- There's also a custom backlight pattern key, where you can pick and choose which keys should light up and which shouldn't. You can toggle between either "custom", all "on", or all "off". Because the keyboard does not remember more than one "custom" backlight layout at a time, creating a pattern for each of your games before you play them will be annoying, and for this reason I basically don't use this feature at all.- The USB pathrough function is pointless. Who is this for, people whose mice can't reach the computer's own USB ports? I don't mind that it's there, but I certainly will never use this feature, I have plenty of USB ports on my computer case within easy reach.Overall:======This keyboard is outstanding. The only flaws are all to do with the "extras", some of which are optional. Considering that these extras are precisely why this keyboard costs about $20-40 more than the competition, you should really weigh how much these things matter to you, and how you feel about the drawbacks I described. The keyboard as just a mechanical keyboard, though, is outstanding. Truly the best keyboard I've ever owned, and going back to the standard variety just feels "primitive". The bottom line: If you're in the market for a high-end (gaming) mechanical keyboard, this is the one to get, even if some of the extra features aren't worth the extra price.
