So my old CoolerMaster Devastator III gave up the ghost after a good 3 or 4 years of service a few weeks ago, and I was making do with the wireless Logitech I have for my Laptop. Well, since I had a few extra bucks to spend since finally getting some bills caught up, I headed down to my local Memory Express (Think Micro Center for my American homies... just not quite as large-scale) and started looking around at the keyboards.
I ended up going with a Steel Series Apex 5. It's considered a Hybrid keyboard, so it has the feel of a mechanical, especially one with clicky switches (I think Cherry Blue or Brown, according to the rep at MemEx) but it's really a membrane. So it bridges the gap, especially if you're like me, completely clueless about what kind of mechanical would fit the bill, but certainly wanting an upgrade over a cheap membrane unit. This will probably be my gateway drug into the realm of DIY Mechanical Keyboards.
I had a chance to try out a demo unit they had in store for a minute or so, and was instantly impressed. Yeah, it's noisy, but at least I know I'm hitting my keys. There's also a slight, barely perceptible bump when you hit the key. Not a bad thing for a ham-fist like me. And of course, it can be configured with all the pretty RGBs you want, and you can set up 5 different configurations, too. So if you're a macro junky, you can program a whole swath of keybinds and macros for each game. Once I get back into flight sims with some more gusto, you bet I'll be taking full advantage of that. In the mean time, I'll keep it simple for my shooters. Despite my seething hatred for all things RGB, I decided to have a bit of fun with it. Instead of my usual solid blue, I decided to set the idle mode to a black & blue warp pattern. And when I hit keys, they turn red for a couple seconds before going back to blue. The devastator didn't do that. It was solid colors, or a cycle through the different available ones. It even has a little black & white OLED display that you can program with a gif, image or do what I did: Display your telemetry, such as CPU, GPU and RAM usage, speeds and temps where applicable. All in all, it's pretty neat. I guarantee there are some additional features I didn't even bother to mention, either because I haven't really messed with that stuff yet, or just don't have much use for it.
Needless to say, I'm still not 100% sold on it, being a brand new piece of kit and all, but so far I'm liking it. It even comes with a magnetic wrist rest in the box and the feet provide a pretty good elevation angle. It's still not the 125% size I'm craving, but I doubt I'll ever find a giant keyboard for my giant hands. In terms of key spacing... it feels a lot like a Logitech MK270 wireless. My sausage fingers still hit multiple keys at once, but I've never NOT had that problem. Only cure for that is bigger keys and more spacing, both of which I can't find anywhere. Maybe when I finally build my own...
All in all, I can easily recommend the Apex 5 if you want to try out a keyboard with clicky switches but don't have the budget for a mechanical. Especially if your retailer/etailer does Price Beat like Memory Express does. There was a dude about my age looking at the same keyboard, and he had an Amazon page up that had the Apex listed at $60 less than what MemEx was charging. Cool thing is, the rep hooked me up with the same deal since I was right there when it happened.
Performance over Pretty.
