I decided that I'd had enough of my MS Sidewinder X6 keyboard. It had done me well for a few years, but some of the keys were starting to become unresponsive. The rubber membrane under the keys had a habit of moving, so I really had to hammer on some of the keys to get them to respond. Despite taking it apart a couple of times to rectify the problem, it would always come back again after a relatively short period of time.
I figured it was time to get myself a mechanical keyboard. I read up on the switch types before deciding that MX browns were probably the best. I fancied the feedback that I'd get from them, and that I'd be able to rest my fingers on them without having to worry about accidently triggering key presses.
After that, it was a case of looking at the features I wanted. I fancied backlighting, and I really liked volume wheel on the X6, so having some kind of volume adjuster on the keyboard was pretty important. The X6 was a massive keyboard (which is why you'll see that I've moved the number pad onto the left hand side - to give my mouse a bit of room to move), so I definitely wanted something smaller.
I don't use the number pad very often, so I figured a tenkeyless board would be fine. If I can't live without a number pad, I can get a separate one.
The Corsair K70 was pretty high up my shopping list, but I read quite a few threads where people had failing LEDs and had to return them. I didn't fancy the sound of that. Some more reading around led me to the Max Blackbird. Enough of the words for now, on to the pics (apologies for the quality, they were taken with my phone in pretty bad light)...
Box Outer:
Box Open:
Unboxed:
Compared to the X6:
Plugged in:
Side lighting:
The lighting effect is quite nice and is selectable between off, low, medium, high and pulsing. The side lights are separately controllable from the main keyboard lights. You can also set custom lighting modes to only illuminate certain keys.
The multimedia keys are set on a FN layer, so pressing FN+F1 will mute the volume, FN+F2 will lower the volume, and FN+F3 will raise the volume. Not as easy to use as just twisting a dial, but I reckon I'll get to grips with it soon enough.
In use, the keyboard has a really nice feel. The keys are a bit clicky, but not too bad, and after typing this post, I'm already pretty used to it. I'll probably put some gaming hours in over the weekend to see how it copes, but I suspect it will be just fine.
The included wrist rest is nice and comfortable and keeps my wrists nicely positioned over the keyboard. There are some legs on the back of the keyboard to raise it up, but I'm finding it's fine to use in the flat position - something I got used to with the X6, as that didn't have any legs.
I'm very impressed with it, even in this fairly short space of time. I will just have to try and resist the dark side and the call of replacement key caps!
