This week I have been putting the Knucker gaming keyboard from TteSports to the test, but this one is a little different to a lot of gaming keyboards on the market as it sets to combine some of the benefits of membrane keyboards with some of the benefits of a mechanical keyboard, yet its going to do it all for a very reasonable price tag, I aim to find out if it’s managed to succeed.

A quick search on Google will find you the Knucker available for around £35 including delivery and that sounds like pretty amazing value for a gaming keyboard, especially one from a well-respected brand such as TteSports. Of course for those of you who haven’t heard of TteSports before, they are the gaming orientated branch of Thermaltake, who are one of the most popular chassis and component manufacturers on the market, but their gaming brand TteSports have been working at the grass roots level within the pro gaming and eSports scene, even sponsoring a few gaming teams along the way such as Team Infused.

TteSports are building a firm fan base and a good reputation thanks to their strong affiliation with pro gamers, eSports and of course the millions of fans who follow the sport, attend events and of course play the games themselves. Gamers always want the best peripherals to enjoy their game with and if they’re priced fairly and performance is up to scratch, then a product can get very popular very quickly, so its important to get these things right.

The Knucker comes nicely packaged in the usual Thermaltake / TteSports colours and for a budget friendly product like this its quick a well design package. There are a few logos on the box as well as a few major features such as the anti-ghost, long key lifespan and repeat rate.

Around the back of the box we have a few more details about features such as the plunger switch, anti-ghosting, repeat rate and key life expectancy, but we’ll go into more detail on those shortly. These details are broken down into 15 international languages across the back of the box.

In the box I found a fabric bag containing some extra components, two stickers, the installation guide and a warranty booklet.

The extra components include a key cap remover, PS2/USB adaptor and 8 red key caps for the WASD UDLR keys.

The keyboard comes with a nice quality black plastic finish to the main chassis and keys, this is offset by a somewhat contrasting sky blue key lettering, some of which also feature red key highlights, it certainly makes the keyboard standout and while it does look a little strange at first, I quite like TteSports colour choices.

The keyboard comes with a permanent wrist wrest that offers a good typing position, its of a good size too but not so much so that it would over intrude on your desk space.

Along the edge we find a stylish little cutaway and a small red plastic strip, doesn’t server any practical function but it does add an extra touch of style to the overall design.

The keyboard comes hardwired, but it does feature a good quality braided cable that has a gold plated USB connection.

The underside features four small rubber grips, as well as two wide and fairly durable fold out feet, perfect for adding a little extra angle to your typing position.

One super cool feature of the keyboard is the dragon logo, press fn + F12 to awaken the dragon (make it light up).

Here we can see the “plunger” key mechanism, lets not fool around, this is still a membrane keyboard, it just has a fancy half mechanical mechanism over the top.

Here we can see the custom red key caps, which do look fantastic and key with the red / blue key colouring of the other keys, but offer a much easier way of spotting those most vital gaming keys at a glance.

Setup & Installation

Setup of the Knucker was quick and easy, of course I was able to use it via USB but I think its great that they’ve included a PS2/USB adaptor to allow compatibility with older connections. Windows found the drivers straight away and it only took a minute to get the whole thing setup and ready to go.

Gaming Performance

I’ve been using this keyboard for a couple of days now, so it’s helped me nicely through my play through of Bioshock and a few adventures in Planetside 2. tactile response from the keys is really nice to use and while it’s not quite as lush as a fully mechanical key, it’s better than that of a typical membrane switch, given that the device is technically engineered to be somewhere in the middle of both switches, its easy to understand how it feels like a halfway point in terms of performance, this is of course no bad thing.

The keys are snappy and responsive, perfect for a good few games on any fast paced FPS, or of course any game that requires a keyboard, 12 anti ghost keys means you’ll never suffer any lag unless you’re a 20 fingered Starcraft wizard, but overall it certainly performs far better than your average membrane keyboard.

General Performance

This keyboard is for lack of a better word, nothing fancy, it doesn’t feature a mass array of multimedia keys, or macro keys, in fact, it doesn’t include any of those things, about the only flair you will find here is the light up dragon logo and the changeable key caps that add a nice touch of colour to the design. What it does feature however is enough for 95% of users, it’s a full size keyboard, has a good wrist rest and it’s really nice to type on, I’ve been working on this for a couple of days and it’s certainly more comfortable typing experience than your average membrane keyboard.

I’ve been playing around with a few TteSports products recently, and one thing keeps coming back to my mind each and every time I try a new product of theirs, how on earth can this be so cheap to buy!? It makes good use of lightly textured surfaces, well finished edges and general ergonomics to make a product that is both a pleasure to use and that is visually appealing, although the blue lettering on the keys is likely not going to be to everyone’s taste.

Plunger keys are also a little bit of marketing nonsense, this is just a membrane keyboard at its heart, but it is a very high quality one and the sensation is somewhat close to that of Cherry MX Black switches, but with a lighter force required (similar to Cherry MX Red) and with only a fraction of the noise, similar to that of any other membrane keyboard.  So it takes some of the best qualities of each and that leaves a product that performs, feels and is priced between that of a membrane keyboard and a mechanical one.

The keyboard is incredible value for money and for those who want something that is straight forward, uncomplicated and stylish, typically someone who will be doing more web browsing, work and typing in general, then this is the perfect keyboard for you. Yet on those evenings when your done with your work and you want to fire up your favourite game for a couple of hours, the Knucker isn’t going to let you down one bit. Of course if you want something a little more gaming orientated with Macros and other multimedia functions you’re going to have to look elsewhere in the TteSports range.

The post TteSports Knucker Plunger Gaming Keyboard Review appeared first on eTeknix.

If you’ve been a PC gamer within the last 10 years, or even just had a passing interest in PC gaming, then it’s highly likely that your family with two names, Steelseries and World of Warcraft. Both brands have been going for around 10 years now and both have been feeding PC gamers with products ever since. Of course Steelseries also have some rather big successes in the console gaming market, but we’ll keep our focus on PC for today.

World of Warcraft is big business, love it or hate it one has to admit that ever since it began it has been nothing short of a sales sensation, turning many millions of dollars for Blizzard and providing a gaming experience that can sap the life out of hardcore fans as they plow literally hundred or even thousands of hours into its world. It makes sense then that one of the biggest names in the peripheral business would want in on the action and Steelseries chose to launch several products specifically for World of Warcraft, or at least ones that are branded with WoW colours.

Priced at around £50 this mouse isn’t about to take down the big dogs of the MMO gaming mouse world, but it should at least offer something unique that will please World of Warcraft fans, or MMO players alike, otherwise what’s the point! Yet for a £50 investment, as with any investment, you’re still going to want decent build quality, a good size feature set and of course performance that is at least on par with other mid-budget gaming mice, so lets move on and see what the WoW mouse has to offer.

The packaging is really well designed and its on par with what we’ve come to expect from Steelseries in terms of design, it gives us a great image of the mouse, as well as some marketing badges that let us know its compatible with mac/pc, as well as it being the official gaming mouse for Mists of Pandaria.

Around the back we have a more detailed breakdown of the specifications, such as 11 fully customisable buttons that can be bound using the WoW interface, customisable LED lighting, ergonomic shape and easy to use software.

In the box I found the mouse, which comes hard wired with a fairly standard USB cable, a quick start user guide and a funky little Steelseries sticker.

The front of the mouse is well equipped, the LMB and RMB features a slight lip on the outer edge that provides a nice resting position for your fingers, on the inner edge of the LMB and RMB are two more buttons, and there is yet another button at the top centre, making five buttons in total (not including the scroll wheel). The scroll wheel is coated in a gripped rubber with a “notched” turn that provides a subtle click feedback when rotated, the wheel is also clickable.

The left side features four buttons, two horizontal at the top and two vertical below those. They’re well enough place that you can easily operate them with your thumb but the left side of the mouse is swollen out also, and this provides a good resting position for the palm of your hand.

The right side features an even more pronounced side pane and this again will help your hand find a good resting position, this mouse is great if you have larger, or wider hands than most as many mice tend to be quite slim towards the back.

The top shell of the mouse features a printed graphic that adds a nice touch of style to the mouse. This top panel is really smooth compared to the lightly textures base and this makes it easy for your fingers to navigate the buttons while keeping a firm grip on the mouse.

The underside of the mouse is pretty straight forwards with the sensor in the middle and little else. One thing that does stand out however is the huge Teflon surfaces that should provide a great amount of glide.

Setup & Installation

The mouse is fully plug and play compatible but you’re not really going to see any benefit from doing so as the software (downloadable) opens up extensive customisation options. The first of these is on the back of the WoW mouse, a back lit logo that can be customised using a full RGB colour pallet, change intensity and enable various pulse and breath effects to the lights to your liking.

The software is styled like that of an old school RPG interface, something that will go down with WoW fans and it features a staggering 10 profiles! Each of which can be extensively customised with macros, illumination settings and DPI settings. There is a large labeled image of the mouse too which makes navigating the custom macro settings a lot easier. It will take you a while to set this up, but that’s something you should be expecting if  you are buying a customisable WoW craft MMO mouse.

Performance & Calibration

The mouse moves with ease on both hand and soft surfaces, partly due to the large slipmats on the underside but also because the mouse is fairly light weight thanks to its plastic chassis.

Unfortunately the mouse sensor really didn’t like softer surfaces and failed my acceleration tests quite badly if the mouse wasn’t placed on a hard cloth or wooden surface. moving the mouse quickly from one side of the mouse mat to the other at both high and low speed should have the crosshair land in the same location, but at higher speeds the mouse pointer actually landed short of its target, meaning the sensor just wasn’t getting the feedback it needed from softer surfaces (tested on all major DPI settings) I highly recommend you use this mouse on a harder mouse mat.

Liftoff distance is quite high too at around 2mm and maybe a little more, this isn’t customisable either but the mouse ergonomics aren’t really tailored towards life-off play and the mouse is definitely happier if kept firmly on the gaming surface.

There were no signs of angle snapping / prediction on this mouse and when you get the right surface paired up, it does feel very responsive and accurate across a full range of DPI settings.

Gaming & General Performance

Being able to setup an extensive array of macros to this mouse has big advantages in MMO gaming and given the huge pre-set library of settings for World of Warcraft the advantages of using this mouse with WoW are extensive. It took a little while to figure out test best layout for my shortcuts and macros, not to mention a sweet spot for the DPI settings, but once dialed in right I was quite happy to get stuck into some serious gameplay.

After a couple of hours on WoW I do like the layout of this mouse and the ergonomics are good, but its not without its faults. Having to play on a harder surface to get good accuracy was a nag for me, so I switched back to my softer surface. In a real gaming environment I couldn’t even notice the acceleration issue and this is more something that would be more obvious in a FPS game. The mouse buttons are all quite heavy to click and feel like they need to be worn in over time, leaving my fingers a little fatigued from using more force to depress the switches.

Final Thoughts

I’m not won over with this mouse, it does offer some great features and some not so great features that do offer a fairly reasonable balance of value and performance, which is acceptable on certain levels given that this mouse isn’t incredibly expensive. Priced at around £50 this is on par with many other gaming mice but significantly cheaper than similar spec MMO gaming mice in terms of number of buttons and macro options.

Yet while it may cost less, it does feel “less” in some ways too. The sensor really isn’t fantastic and while your average gamer might not even notice, any truly serious gamer is going to want more accuracy in the form of a laser sensor, of course you can expect to pay an extra £20-£30 for a mouse that offers such a thing along side this many buttons.

The build quality isn’t too bad, but it is fairly basic and its essentially just moulded plastic, there is no flair here or polish that really makes it stand out. There is however a nice design on the top panel and it does feature some LED back lighting, but style is a subjective thing and lights and paintwork does little to change the overall build quality, which is on par with competing brands in this price range.

The WoW branding on the mouse limits its market potential too, as someone who isn’t a WoW fan isn’t likely to buy this product, but that’s ok because it is tailored heavily towards WoW in many ways and when it comes to the actual gameplay side of things, it performs really well, but for day to day tasks, or other games I would suggest you look for something a more versatility.

The post Steelseries WoW MMO Gaming Mouse Legendary Edition Review appeared first on eTeknix.

This week I’ve been testing out something a little bit special, the very cool A40 multi format gaming headset from Astro. The brand might not leap out at you and I too hadn’t heard of them until earlier this year. So who are Astro gaming and what have they been doing?

Astro Gaming makes high-end pro gaming equipment, the sort of products you will see targeted at pro gamers, eSports and hardcore enthusiasts who simply want the best of the best to help them enjoy doing what they do best, play computer games. Astro Studios are already a well established design powerhouse and Astro Gaming was spawned as a separate company using private funding and a passion for gaming. Essentially they took talented designers, enthusiast gamers and a pile of money and threw them all into a room, the Astro Gaming brand was created and from what I’ve seen of their product range, they’re doing some incredible work.

“Our company lives at the epicenter of technology, lifestyle and design” claims Astro founder, Brett Lovelady. “For years we’ve been involved in the design of many forms of consumer electronics, particularly in the video gaming arena. And now that video gaming has become a leading form of entertainment, with “gaming lifestyle” quickly taking root, we decided to leverage our experience and give people an authentic gaming brand to rally around at the heart of this culture. Our products are specifically designed for the underserved hardcore gaming professionals and core gaming enthusiasts. Our overarching commitment is to improve the sport of video gaming.”

In short, Astro are confident in their brand and even more so around the A40, which is highly regarded by fans and Astro themselves to be one of their greatest products, but with price tag of around $199.99 / £199.99 and all this talk about pro gaming and more, I am literally expecting nothing less than perfection from this headset today, nothing else will satisfy me for a headset that costs nearly £200.

The A40 sports an impressive specification list and with 7.1 Dolby Surround Sound, multi platform support, game to voice balancing, EQ modes, multiple connectivity options and even line-out for live streaming your audio. So lets move along and take a closer look at what the Astro has to offer.

First thing that really stands out is the packaging, a sizeable and fairly heavy presentation box with a nicely designed slip cover. The box features a really nice picture of both the headset and the controller.

Around the back is a little breakdown of some of the other features, such as surround sound, optical cable connection, detachable microphone and the ability to daisy chain multiple Astro headset.

The box folds out to display the headset, the controller and on the right we have a box stuffed full of components and cables.

Somehow I don’t think that connectivity is going to be an issue for the Astro A40, but given that it supports two consoles and PC’s, it needs to come with plenty of cables. From left to right we have USB, 3.5mm splitter, Xbox headset cable, boom mic, 3.5mm to 3.5mm cable, 4pin 3.5mm to 3.5mm with in-line mic, and at the top right we also has a Toslink optical cable.

The controller is really nicely finished and I for one wouldn’t mind having this on my desktop. A large control wheel at the top for volume and a smaller control wheel for the Game/Voice channel mixer take up the main features. But you’ll also find a power button, EQ pre-set and surround sound on/off toggle. There are four ports at the front, two for daisy chaining the A40 to other A40 headsets, one for the headphones and a line out to hook up your Xbox 360 controller for Xbox chat.

The controller feels heavy and this helps it stay firmly on your desk, it’s also got a high quality soft touch rubber coating around the outside that looks great against the glossy finish top panel. The back of the device features four more ports (bringing the total to 8) and these are optical line in, mp3 line in (or AUX line in) stream line out and USB in.

The headset is really nicely designed, with plenty of sleek curves and straight edges giving a very stylish look to the set. The headband is expandable thanks to two sliding arms on the left and right side that look more like a hydraulic system than anything else and it’s a nice change from the usual slide and click clips that you see on most headsets / headphones. The boom mic is attached to the left earphone here but since the covers can be removed from the headset you can in fact swap it around and have the microphone on the other side, which is a nice feature.

There is a small 3.5mm jack plug on the underside of the left earphone for hooking the headset up to the mixer / control unit.

One of the cooler features, as simple as it may be, is the headband, which is suspended between two strong support bars and the central bar moves around, this helps keep a really comfortable, but close fit on your head and ample padding here also adds even more comfort.

Here you can better see the height adjusters, which use friction rather than notches to lock into place, but they’re definitely robust and offer plenty of support.

The ear cups are finished in a super soft padding and fabric, even the covers for the drivers feature a light bit of padding, overall the ear cups feel soft as a kitten and should stay super comfortable after long gaming sessions.

The back of each ear cup features a magnetic cover that features the Astro logo.

There can be taken off and replaced with custom covers and its a great way to add a little personalization to the set, personally I think the headset looks cool even with the covers removed.

Setup & Installation

Adding the headset to my PC was incredibly easy, just hook up the USB cable, plug the headset into the base unit and I was up and running in less than one minute! Software can be downloaded from the Astro site, but all this does is patch the headset to fix any old bugs or issues, this process took about 30 seconds and the software was only 4.5mb, so overall I’m very impressed with PC setup.

The Xbox and PlayStation were easy too, assuming of course you have the correct connection points. I opted for a mixture of Optical and HDMI as this is the most practical method for my setup. The only difference is you need the USB cable for the PlayStation 3 and the controller to base unit cable for the Xbox 360, but again, setup was setup easy and straightforward. The only thing to keep in mind is that this is designed for pro gaming, a setup where your typically sat near your console or computer, not 20ft away with your feet up on the couch, so the cables are not typically very long on the A40.

General Audio Performance

I put the Astro through its paces on my PC first, picking out a selection of high quality FLAC audio files from my favourite albums and it didn’t seem to matter what I threw at the drivers on this set, I couldn’t find anything I didn’t love about the tone. The bass, mid ranges and high all feel independent and the set offers some incredible distance and depth to the sound scape that was well suited to heavy rock music. The lower death metal growls of bands like Bloodbath came through without distortion and the classical folk music high notes of Blackmores Night were blissful. Most importantly for me however are the mid tones, something often ignored on many gaming headsets in favour of heavy bass and screaming high tones, there is a warmth to the sound that just screams quality and it’s perfect for those who really love classic rock / prog rock.

Gaming Audio Performance

Games like Battlefield 3 tend to push the EQ way above normal, favouring heavily distorted bass tones that rattle your teeth, high notes of bullets ripping past you and very little in between and this often causes a lot of headsets to sound muddy and distorted, especially at higher volumes. That isn’t the case here however and you’ll go plenty deaf before you find distortion becomes an issue here. Even in the real thick of things you can still pick out the finer details of the sound scape and more impressive than anything else, you can still hold a conversation with your team mates, almost as if there are a second set of headphones giving you clear audio for voice chat over the carnage filled audio of the gameplay. There is of course a dial to alter the mix between game and voice chat, perfect for when you really need to ignore your friends, or block out the action.

PlayStation gaming audio sounded fantastic, as too did the voice chat but the headset really came into its own on the Xbox and this is likely due to the fact we have cross-game chat and voice chat is one of the A40′s strong points and both the microphones gave a loud and clear reading on all gaming formats.

Final Thoughts

Overall the A40 are nothing short of one of the finest headset on the market, although juding by the price tag, marketing and feature set, I think Astro already know this. The headset isn’t new either, it’s been on the market for  a good while and has already proven its self immensely popular with the well-funded end of eSports and enthusiast gaming scene, it would likely be even more popular if it wasn’t such an expensive set, but when it comes to high-end equipment, you have to expect to pay a premium for quality.

Build quality on this set is really nice too and while it does still have some plastic moulding on it, it should survive a few knocks and bumps if your travel around a lot. It does come with a decent packaging box that double as a protective hardware though and while it’s a little big and heavy to chuck in a backpack, at least it will keep the headset safe and sound to a certain extent.

Design is best in class too and I’ll be damned if this isn’t one of the best looking headsets on the market. Sure style is a subjective quality and there are plenty of great looking headsets on the market, but when you look for one that suits your style preference, the build quality and performance don’t always match up, in my opinion the A40 has all three.

The finally and most important feature of the A40′s however isn’t their sound, it isn’t the build quality and it’s certainly not their price either, its how comfortable they are. The headset sits on your head with so much grace and it’s got the biggest adjustment range I’ve ever seen on a headset too, ideal for those with tiny heads (or very high ears?!), or those with a big bobble head like myself, either way it’s headband is extremely comfortable and the lust padding on the ear cups is as soft as earmuffs.

It may not be cheap, but there is no doubt that this is one of the best headsets on the market and it’s going up against some tough competition in this price range too, but while you can spend £200 on a headset from few rival brands that may match the performance, you’ll have a hard time finding one that is anywhere near as comfortable, let alone one that works on three major platforms.

The post Astro A40 Audio System 2013 Edition Xbox, PS3 and PC Headset Review appeared first on eTeknix.

TteSports are the gaming branch of Thermaltake that as you might have guessed from their name, deal with eSports. While Thermaltake is well known for their chassis, coolers and other computer components, TteSports are rapidly building a solid reputation of their own based on gaming peripherals and related products.

TteSports have been producing some stunning products this last couple of years and many of them have already won awards from many sources including from us here at eTeknix, be it gaming keyboards, mice, headsets or even a LAN bag, TteSports have an interesting product range and while they’ve proven themselves in terms of performance the real big selling point for TteSports seems to be their price, more often than not they’re cheaper than competitive brands and that trend seem set to continue with the Black Element which can be picked up for around £35 from any major online retailers.

Built with MMO gaming in mind, the Black Element is entering one of the toughest parts of the gaming mouse market and if the setup and configuration options aren’t up to scratch then even a low price tag won’t help win over any serious MMO gaming fans, so let’s move on and put the Black Element to the test.

The Black Element comes nicely packed and there are plenty of details on the packaging that detail the various hit features such as the macro keys, high DPI sensor and custom lighting.

In the box I found a cardboard sleeve, the mouse its self and a soft padded carry pouch.

Inside the cardboard sleeve there was the driver backup DVD, quick installation guide, warranty policy booklet and a pair of TteSports stickers, overall a pretty good selection of extras and way more than I would have expected for a product in this price range.

The left side of the mouse features matt white finish and a soft touch coating that adds a little grip to the mouse. There are three side buttons here and there are located at the end of a clear strip of plastic which houses the first set of LED lights.

The right side features similar styling to the left and features a single control button and further LED lighting.

The mouse body is super slip at the back, but extra wide wings on the side provide a comfortable resting position for your fingers. The TteSports logo here also features LED illumination.

The switches on the left and right mouse buttons have a durable feel to them and it takes a little more force to click that most mice but nothing too extreme, although it does mean you can take quite a firm grip without accidental clicks. The scroll wheel is super light to turn and it does features some very mild clicks while turning but most of your feedback is provided by the deep notches in the outer grip coating, the scroll wheel also features an LED light. Lastly, behind the scroll wheel we have a pair of toggle switches that by default control the DPI configuration.

The underside of the mouse features four Teflon slip mats, which are quite thick and no doubt are made like that to reduce the minimum liftoff height. Just below the laser sensor there is also a profile switch that can be used to toggle through the five custom profiles that can be setup via the included software.

Remove the bottom cover of the mouse and you will find a rubber shape that holds 5 x 4.5g weights, perfect for customizing the mouse to your liking.

Setup & installation

The mouse is plug and play compatible and all the major functions work just fine, including the DPI toggle, but if you install the included software then you will be treated to an extensive set of button and control customisation that can be set to any one of five profiles that can be toggled on the fly from the mouse.

The software is nicely laid out and while it does look a little cluttered, everything is clearly labeled and simple to navigate.

DPI is extensively adjustable and by tweaking everything from the polling rate, scroll speed, cursor speed, double-click speed, DPI level and X / Y speeds you are sure to find a setting that is just right for you, eventually.

There are three lighting zones on the mouse, the side strips, the Tt logo (which is a dragon on the mouse, but shows at “Tt” in the software”) and the scroll wheel. Each of these areas can be enabled on/off and you can change the overall all colour between give presets, which just so happens to be the same as the number of configurable profiles.

Performance & Calibration

The glide on the mouse isn’t fantastic, and this is partly due to the low surface area of the rear slip mats, the catch a little on harder cloth surfaces and the mouse is definitely better suited to softer surfaces with a smooth texture such as the Zowie G-CM or TteSports Phrrhus and Dasher, of course this is just preference as some people like the slower drag for control, although thanks to the custom weights you can greatly reduce this drag by removing all the weights from the mouse.

Lift off distance is less than 1mm at stock settings, but keep in mind there is about .5mm of Teflon, so it’s likely closer to a true 1mm distance. TteSports do provide a downloadable tool to adjust this liftoff, and while you can lower it further I noticed no difference, it can also be greatly increased to around 3mm, but why you would want to do that is beyond me.

The mouse features some mild acceleration and while this isn’t an issue, more of a preference, it is something that becomes more obvious at higher DPI settings. There are 3rd party apps that can alleviate this issue but for your average gamer I doubt you’ll even notice the acceleration here, only those who are actively seeking an acceleration free mouse should be concerned with this imo.

There was no sign of prediction either and aside from the mild acceleration the sensor is accurate to a fault, a few simple drawing tests in mspaint at various DPI settings proved the mouse was as accurate and inaccurate as my hand was, with no signs of straight line prediction / correction.

Gaming & General Performance

One thing I really liked about this mouse is that even at high DPI settings it’s still remarkably stable, this is partly down to the accuracy of the sensor and also due to the ergonomics of the mouse, it promotes a comfortable hand position that allows you to keep things steady and it’s something that really shined through after a few games of League of Legends and Battlefield 3. While there was a little acceleration in my raw tests, in an actual gaming environment is way barely noticeable unless turning at extreme velocities. The macro keys offer a nice little expansion to the controls on the mouse and once setup they do come in handy for some MMO gaming, it’s not as extensive as your average WoW or Diablo themed mouse, but it’s nice to have a few extra buttons and macros over your average gaming mouse and it’s always better to have them and not need them.

Final Thoughts

TteSports have a very interesting product here and while it isn’t perfect it does offer a lot of potential for very little financial investment. The mouse isn’t without it flaws and that’s not really a bad thing as it’s pretty safe to say that no one mouse is going to be right for everyone and aside from the mouse feeling a little rough on harder surfaces and a the mild acceleration issues I can’t think of anything else wrong with this mouse.

TteSports have put in a lot of effort, and in many ways I struggle to see how this mouse can even turn a profit for them, it packs all the features most gamers will ever need, such as customisable profiles, a moderate amount of macros, DPI configuration as well as other sensor adjustments, not forgetting of course a decent amount of style and customisable LED lighting as for the most part, gamers love things with lights in.

Yet on top the actual hardware side they’ve also added little extras such as a high quality braided cable, gold plated USB connection, a weight calibration system and of course a soft carry pouch that is perfect for storing your mouse when traveling to LAN gaming events.

So overall it’s not the best gaming mouse ever made, but it does pack enough features to beat just about anything else within this price range and that’s obviously a good thing. If you’re looking for a mouse that performs just as well in day to day tasks as well as it does in gaming and you are on a tighter budget, £35 is hardly going to break the bank and at the very least this is one seriously cool looking mouse.

The post TteSports Black Element Combat White MMO Gaming Mouse Review appeared first on eTeknix.

This week I have been spending time with the M95, the latest gaming peripheral from Corsair. Corsair have a long and rich history in the PC market and have experience in making everything from some of the finest PC chassis on the market, award-winning high-end CPU coolers, SSD hard drives, memory modules and many of them prove popular around the world with enthusiast gamers, PC users and just about anyone else, chances are this if you’ve been a PC user for more than a couple of years, you’ve owned at least one Corsair product.

The M95 is part of the Corsair gaming range and will take its place along side other Corsair products such as the M65 FPS mouse which we reviewed last month and while that was one of the finest FPS mice I’ve ever seen, the M95 is set to tackle the world of MMO gaming, if you think the world of competitive FPS gaming is fierce, then move aside, because MMO gaming can demand so much more of a gaming mouse, but will the M95  have what it takes to fulfil the exacting demands of the MMO gaming crowd, or is it just another mouse with more buttons that most people need?

The m95 comes in a fairly standard package, which is clearly targeted at retail displays as it features a nice large display window that gives us a great first look at the mouse its self.

In the box there was next to nothing in the way of extras other than a quick start guide and the mouse its self. Of course there doesn’t need to be extras, but they’re always welcome.

The mouse is absolutely packed with buttons and design features that immediately set it apart from the crowd. The left and right mouse buttons are formed from the top shell of the mouse which has a hard glossy coating that is as smooth and slippery as ice, it’s hard to describe, but it just feels expensive and lush some how. The front left of the mouse features not only the LMB but also two configurable switches.

Down the left side we find there are 9 more ergonomically shaped buttons and each features a unique shape that makes them super easy to locate with your thumb, a welcome feature given it’s a little crowded here and the last thing you need to be doing is looking at your mouse mid game when you can’t find a button. Here you can also see the Aluminum chassis of the mouse curving up toward the front, extending out sideways and there are 6 small holes punched through it, this is little more than a stylish flair and rightly so, I think it looks cool.

The right side of the mouse is super clean and short of an ergonomic curve and bump to the panels there is little here, but this is a mouse tailored for right-handed players so that’s hardly an issue. The central part of the mouse features a heavily recessed scroll wheel but a wide split between LMB and RMB gives more than enough room for your finger to operate the scroll wheel. The scroll wheel is well weighted and features notches when turned to give you some tactile feedback as well a durable rubber grip coating for extra control. Lastly we have a DPI toggle switch in the top centre, perfect for adjusting settings mid game.

There is a join on of surfaces between the right side panel and the main gloss finish top panel but it’s very close and can’t be felt while using the mouse.

Personally I find the underside of the mouse more interesting than anything, with a slick brushed aluminum finish, some really nice engineering in terms of design and construction and little beyond some Teflon slipmats and a small sensor that really standout, it makes me wish the entire mouse has the same aluminum finish!

Setup & Installation

The mouse is plug & play compatible should you need the basic functions, but many of the side buttons will be pretty useless without the software, although you can still adjust the DPI sensitivity up and down so it’s not too bad. The software has to be downloaded from the Corsair website (33mb file) and is easy enough to install but it does provide you with a robust feature set once installed.

The software gives a macro recording feature that will no doubt prove popular with MMO gamers and its vital to be able to make accurate macros given the large number of buttons featured on this mouse. You can also switch between multiple profiles as well as enable / disable the built-in lighting on the mouse.

For those that want an even more tailored setup you can adjust the four main DPI settings, between the immensely slow 50 DPI and extremely high 8200 DPI, giving both high accuracy and high-speed respectively. The sensor is also able to detect surface quality, although personally I find this a stupid feature as I think the best gaming surface is what ever feels best for you, the M95 rated my mouse mat average, but I personally can’t play on anything else.

Performance & Calibration

The mouse glide across pretty much any mouse mat with ease, even though the chassis makes the mouse quite heavy it still glides with the relative ease of an ice skater, this is party due to the Teflon pads but it’s also helped by the smooth brushed aluminum finish on the underside of the mouse.

Liftoff distance is full customisable and while you can get it up to around 3mm, it’s not recommended as this mouse features ergonomics that don’t lend well to the mouse being lifted, it will slip away from your more often than not should you try, party due to its higher than average weight. The minimum setting was certainly under 1mm and I had no issues with accuracy on either high or low settings.

Angle snapping is enabled by default but its far too strong for my liking and its near impossible to draw a circle in MSPaint without Angle snapping turning it into a rounded square, I’m sure some of you have a use for the feature but personally, I would advise you leave it off for gaming.

There were no noticeable signs of acceleration here, a few tests across multiple DPI settings informs me that the sensor can be trusted to give you 1:1 feedback, even at high acceleration and DPI settings.

Gaming & General Performance

The first thing I had to do with this mouse was setup a multitude of macros for my favourite games, given this is a button laden MMO mouse it deserved nothing less. It takes a little while to get used to the button layout but given that each button has a unique ergonomic shape it does make them easy to distinguish without having to glance at the mouse. More than a few games of League of Legends and a couple of hours on Diablo III flew past and I couldn’t find fault with the mouse performance.

It’s been holding up just as well in day to day tasks too, especially in Photoshop where I have been finding the extra macro keys especially useful, it may be a gaming mouse at heart, but its comfortable ergonomics and switchable macro profiles allow you to tailor it to many day to day tasks.

Final Thoughts

The first thing that really surprised me about this mouse was the visual aspect of it, it looks absolutely stunning and there is nothing quite like it on the market, with the exception of the Corsair M65 which we reviewed a few weeks ago, which is again unique in its own way. The high gloss top panel really shines against the dark contrasting side buttons and having it all mounted on an extruding aluminum chassis just tips it to being one of the best looking mice on the market, of course that is a subjective quality, but love it or hate it you can’t deny that the styling is really cool, can you?

The next thing that took me by surprise with this mouse was the price, it has a feel of a product that has a triple digit price tag and I was fully expecting something in the region of £120, the build quality and materials used just feel that nice. The M95 is still expensive at just under £70 but for this level of build quality and performance, this is still a sound investment.

This price tag sets it in the same area as the NAGA Hex, MMO7, Level 10M and Kone XTD, all of which have proven themselves to the gaming community on one level or another and now it seems Corsair have entered the fight with unrelenting force, is the M95 better than all those rival products? Yes and no, it’s really a subjective and down to personal taste, I personally would have no issues going out and spending money on any of them as I’m confident all would perform exceptionally, but the real tipping point for me today is style, Corsair have made on the best looking mice ever made and as a bonus they’ve packed high-end performance and features that shouldn’t leave any gamer feeling disappointed.

The post Corsair M95 MMO Gaming Mouse Review appeared first on eTeknix.

I have something a little different in the office today, the Xebec Easy Eye keyboard and while some of your are likely recoiling in shock, thinking “what on earth are you doing” well, I’m going somewhere with this and I think this is an important product in many different ways, so lets see if I can get to the bottom of this.

The Easy Eye is quite a popular product and while I expect you don’t see many of them on the pro gaming scene or the gaming scene at all really, there are a lot of people in this world that would have good use for a keyboard like this, its big, bright, simple and water proof, perfect for those who are hard of sight or perhaps other disabilities that would make the use of a regular small key-keyboard more difficult.

The thing that interests me the most however is that its effectively water proof and while I don’t expect it would survive an over night soak in the bath, Xebec say it should survive some severe spillage, which is something I aim to test.

Priced at around £15-£20 from most major online retailers its reasonably price too and so long its build quality is up to par and its actually a comfortable keyboard to use, I see a big market for this keyboard, I already know before I open the box that my dad would love this keyboard.

The box is nothing fancy but it does list a few of the major features such as USB connection, large print keys, high contrast design, multimedia hot keys, a low profile design, spill proof and UK layout.

Style wise I actually think it looks pretty good, it makes you eyes widen a little at first, but that’s the point. The keys are huge and feature massive lettering that is super easy to read and hopefully this is still true for those who are hard of sight.

It’s a full size keyboard design, and we have a full set of number keys, although the ins, home, pgdn, pgup, end and del keys have been compressed into a 2×3 format and the arrow keys moved to the left a little to keep the width of the keyboard within normal parameters,

The low profile design gives a nice flat surface across the whole keyboard, and this should make it easy for your fingers to travel across the board while typing, it also means that non of the keys are obscured by other keys, regardless of viewing angle.

Around the back of the keyboard everything is straight forward and only a USB cable pokes out on the top right side.

Underneath we have two flip up feet and two rubber grips, all fairly standard stuff. More importantly we have a range of holes which serve no other purpose than letting water drain through should you spill something on the keyboard.

Performance

Setup was as simple as plug and play, there are no extra drivers, no fancy software, no macros or anything like that. This is a pure and simple keyboard that you just hook up and use and it couldn’t be more back to basics than that. This is of course one of the designed intentions for the keyboard as some people have limited computer knowledge and just need their products to work straight away and that’s what the Easy Eye delivers.

Typing is actually quite pleasant on the keyboard, the soft touch of the keys gives a nice tactile feed back and while I can’t type quite as fast as before, I don’t feel its an unpleasurable experience, the keys have a nice travel and tactile feel to them and in all honesty its far better than I was expecting. It’s not going to be #1 for a StarCraft II tournament but its not going to stop you from doing any other day to day computing tasks either.

That’s right, I fully intend to test out the main feature of this keyboard, it’s time to take it outside and introduce it to my friend Mr Garden Hose. I’ve wrapped the USB cable in a plastic bag and used a cable tie to keep the connection dry, not sure if that will work or not as I’m writing that while the keyboard drys out!

After a quick blast of water the keyboard is well and truely dripping wet and there is only one solution for that, peg it out on the washing line in the sun to let it dry off.

An hour later and its time to hook it back up to my computer and see if it works…. OF COURSE IT DOES! Not a problem and dare I say it’s also remarkably dust free too. This test might not work every time as I’m sure I would eventually break the board, but should you knock a cup of tea, pint of water or something similar over this keyboard, it looks like its got a high survival chance. Should I do this with my own desktop keyboard it would be very very dead by now and I’d be looking at a £100 bill to replace it.

There were a few minor issues at first as the QWE and 789 keys refused to work at all, even after 4 hours of hanging out on the washing line in the sun there was still moisture within the keyboard, fortunately this dried out over night after leaving the keyboard close to the radiator over night, now all is good.

Other than a few water stains on the keyboard all was good and it looked fine, all the keys felt fine to press and there was no damage, now kick back and enjoy the video of me blasting the keyboard with my garden hose, because pouring a pint of water over it was just too boring.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Xebec have really hit on a few major issues here and while none of them are specific to my needs I think its easy to see why this product would appeal to certain people. Not everyone who uses a PC on a daily basis has need or desire for a high end gaming keyboard, with mechanical switches and a £100+ price tag, some people just want something that is simple and functional and thats certainly something that the Xebec provides.

The easy eye keyboard is tailored to the need of those who may be hard of sight and its big bright keys and bold lettering makes it super easy to read, obviously. My dad uses his PC everyday and he’s constantly having issues with seeing what he is typing and at 70 years old I know for a fact he would love this keyboard, not only because he can see it better but because he is terrible for spilling things on his keyboard, beer, tea, water you name it, all of killed his keyboards time and time again over the last few years and maybe this keyboard is the solution for him?

I was really impressed that it survived our water test and while it took a whole day to dry out, likely due to me over doing it with the hose, I have no doubt that this will survive most day to day spills. It’s not everyday that your going to hose your keyboard down and hang it on the washing line, although sometimes that wouldn’t be such a bad thing if you could.

Its modestly priced, performs well enough for day to day tasks and it can survive being attacked with a garden hose, overall I think that’s a pretty impressive result.

The post Xebec Tech Easy Eye Large Letter Keyboard Review appeared first on eTeknix.

Competitive gaming is big business, quite literally big business too as peripheral brands, pro gaming teams and their related sponsors fight for the lime light much like they do in any other sports. Year on year were seeing huge advances in the popularity of eSports and this has been backed up by an even more robust range of gaming peripherals than have ever been seen in the PC industry.

Go back to the early days of PC gaming and brands like Logitech and Microsoft ruled the roost in terms of keyboard, mice and headsets, yet these days there are countless companies offering the latest and greatest components that are tailored seemingly to any modern gaming requirement. TteSports are one of these brands and in recent years they’ve been going from strength to strength in pushing eSports and building a solid fan base for their gaming peripherals.

Today we’re looking at the Saphira gaming mouse, something that has already gone down well with many eSports players, as well as TteSports sponsored pro gaming team “Team Infused”.  Most notably though is that this mouse is fully endorsed by Starcraft 2 legend “White-Ra” and if its good enough for him, then its got to be something a little special. Yet for all its fame you would think this would be an expensive product, but priced at around £30 from many online retailers it’s far from pricey, but lets move on and see how the performance holds up on this budget friendly offering.

As you can see from the specs above, its well equipped, but not over the top in terms of features. It’s got a high DPI, some straight forward macro features, 5 control buttons and a few LED lights, so about on par for this kind of price range.

As you can see on the front of the box we have a picture of White-Ra, his endorsement is all over the box, literally. We also have a few feature highlights such as the function lock, 3500 DPI sensor and onboard memory.

Around the back we have a sizeable statement from White-Ra, as well as the multilanguage breakdown of some of the mouses features.

The box also features a velcro panel that allows us to see some more detailed diagrams of the mouses feature set, as well as our first look at the mouse its self, so far so good

In the box I found the usual instruction book lets, the mouse its self and a nice quality protective pouch. Given the price of the mouse I’m amazed that it came with such a well designed box and any extras at all, so this all a very welcome bonus.

The mouse is hard wired with a 1.8m braided cable, an attached velcro strip to keep the cable tidy and a gold plated USB connector.

The left side of the mouse features four LED light indicators for the DPI setting, the forward and back toggle switches and a good size soft rubber grip area.

The right side features similar styling to the right, albeit without the buttons, but does feature another soft rubber grip.

Each mouse button is heavily scooped and contoured and this gives the mouse great ergonomics for right handed players, it also gives a solid resting position for your fingers.

The switches on the mouse feel really nice and responsive, offering up a satisfying tactile click and feedback. So too does the scroll wheel which features a nice rubber grip coating, plenty of tactile steps in its rotation and its also super easy to turn, allow you to rapidly scroll through your web pages, or of course your selected weapons.

The underside of the mouse is full of features, first we have two absolutely huge Teflon surfaces that should offer plenty of glide, a profile select button (configurable from software), DPI button, polling rate button and a function lock on/off switch. There is also a removable panel that houses five 4.5g weights, I can’t remember the last time I found a mouse that had this many underside features! Best not forget the 3500 DPI optical sensor that is sat in the middle.

Setup & Installation

Setup and installation were quick and easy, the mouse is fully plug-and-play compatible, and because the bulk of its features can be toggled from the mouse its self, you need not worry too much about the software for general day to day use. The included software will allow you to customise DPI, Macros and a few lighting features to your liking, it’s not overly complex and it goes a long way to adding extra value to the mouse.

Gaming Performance

The 3500 DPI optical sensor is remarkably accurate in frantic gameplay and I never once found my self doubting anything but my own ability, a few hours of Planetside 2 and Max Payne 3 certainly left me happy with the mouses gaming performance. I’m not one for Starcraft II, lack of talent might be to blame there, but a quick spin on Torchlight II was good enough for me to see why White-Ra is happy to endorse this mouse and having the additional macro features are always welcome too.

General Performance

The first thing that really stands out about this mouse is how well it glides, those large Teflon surfaces really work well on a soft and smooth surface such as the Zowie G-CM or TteSports Dasher. It’s just as comfortable on harder fabrics too but I guess that’s just a matter of personal preference. The button layout is nicely balanced and overall ergonomics are great. The fact that this mouse features an adjustable weight system makes for an overall enjoyable experience, or at the very least one that can be slightly adjusted to your preferences.

I am simply blown away by the Saphira, is it the best gaming mouse on the market today? Not really no, does it have one of the best optical sensors on the market? Not really, does it have the most features and most extensive customisation, best software and anything else on the market? Again no not really, but there is one thing that I just can’t shake from me head, it’s price.

I must have googled this 6 times to confirm, I even contacted TteSports to confirm the RRP and they say its typically around £35, yet I’ve found many placed online where you’ll get change from £30 after shipping. Which brings up some very interesting conclusions about the mouse, what else can you find for this money? Some of the budget end MadCatz products, some older Logitech stuff and the Ozone Xenon and at a push the Mionix Saiph, none of these come close to the Saphira in terms of features and quality. None of the competitors offer weight customisation, but none offer a full range of custom macros via software, customisable lighting, or DPI, polling range and profile changes directly from the mouse its self.

I’m a firm believer that this is by far the best mouse you can buy for under £40, with performance and features that sit between the mice I’ve just mentioned and more mid range offerings such as the R.A.T.5, Sensei, M90 mice, but with a price tag below most companies budget models. I’m happy to award this with our Bang for Buck award for many obvious reasons. Its not just a good product because its cheap, its a great product and its cheap.

The post TteSports Saphira Gaming Mouse Review appeared first on eTeknix.

If you’re a gamer then you have no doubt heard of Steelseries, if you haven’t heard of Steelseries, then you’ve been gaming while sitting under a rock for the last few years! Steelseries are one of the biggest gaming peripheral brands on the market, both in terms of sales and reputation, this is down to their much loved product ranges that span PC, console gaming and more recently mobile.

I wouldn’t count my self as a massive fan of Steelseries, this is partly down to me only ever having used a few of their products, but each one I have tried has been a great product. Yet as a gamer I’ve always admired many of the products in the Steelseries range as for the most part they’re great looking products with some awesome specifications to match, so I’m really happy today to finally get to put one of those more desirable items to the test.

This week I’ve been putting the Wireless, MMO friendly World of Warcraft gaming mouse to the test, a hardcore, button riddled, rechargeable and expensive gaming mouse that I’m hoping will be nothing short of exceptional. With a price tag of around £100 at most major online retailers, the WoW mouse is quite an investment, but as anyone who takes their gaming seriously will tell you, you can’t put a price on performance and quality, lets just hope that this product has plenty of both to justify the price tag.

The mouse comes in a cool looking presentation box, with a fold out panel, clear window and the mouse mounted in its recharge base, given you a great view of the mouse its self. There are a few marketing slogans and specs on the box.

• Weight: 115 grams (0.25 lbs)
• Height: 40 mm (1.6 in)
• Width: 81 mm (3.2 in)
• Length: 115 mm (4.5 in)

In the box I found a USB charge cable, quick start guide, manual and a Steelseries sticker. Of course there was also a mouse and charging dock, but we’ll take a closer look at those in a moment.

The left side of the mouse features a light curve that should give a nice resting position to your thumb, which is important given the multitude of buttons here. 4 control buttons adorn the side and these will be perfect for pairing up with macros and shortcuts. All the buttons have a nice tactile feel to them and the joining plastic between allows you to pivot your thumb between each switch. On the bottom front left side you will find a single LED indicator, this is used for showing power / charging status and just below the mouse wheel at the front of the mouse a Micro-USB port.

The top plastic cover for the mosue features a gorgeous map decal that really makes this mouse stand out, its almost as stylish as the gold finish control switches that adorn the top and sides of the mouse. At the back we have a  pre-set DPI toggle switch, two long toggle switches at either side of the scroll wheel and of course the standard L/R mouse buttons.

On the right hand side we have a large swell that makes this mouse wider than most, this acts as a sturdy rest for your ring finger and also provides a good resting position for the single button found on the right side of the mouse, its a little awkward to press as the force required is a little heavy on this button but I’m sure that having a switch that isn’t going to suffer from accidental triggers may be a good thing.

The mouse wheel feels fairly robust and has quite heavy notches in its rotation, but overall its quite a slow wheel, which isn’t really a bad thing, but some may prefer one that can be turned much quicker, it can also been clicked inwards to provide yet another control switch to the setup.

One subtle feature that is easily missed in pictures is the ergonomics of the mouse buttons, both left and right features a slow curve and a light raised lip toward the front of the mouse that will suit both a raised (claw) or flat resting hand position.

A stunning WoW logo brings the top of the mouse to life and features some subtle indentations that serve no purpose beyond style. The top panel is made from a matt finish plastic, but its very slick to touch, the side panels are still very hard but feature just a subtle amount of grip, although most of the grip here is provided by the curvy ergonomics rather than tactile surfaces.

There are three large Teflon surfaces on the underside that provide a good ammount of glide, the mouse is also super light given its overall size so its quite versatile in terms of traction on both hard and soft surfaces. Also on the underside you will find a master power switch, very handy for a wireless mouse and a connect button for pairing the mouse to the base unit. In the center we have the sensor which packs 8200CPI, 150ips, 30G acceleration and 3m wireless range.

The chasing base usnit is a plastic moulded and very stylish looking thing, with a simple drop and charge area, LED lights and around the back a Micro-USB port to hook the device upto your computer. This also acts as the wireless receiver for the mouse and unless you use the USB cable directly into the mouse, this is required to use the mouse.

Four firm rubber feet help to keep it in one place on your desk and in the center you will also find a pair button that allows you to sync the mouse to the base unit.

The mouse drops into place with ease and its quick and easy to store here, which of course also keeps the mouse charged.

Both the mouse and the base unit feature some gorgeous blue LED lighting, the mouse has a customisable brightness setting (low/med/high/off), it can be set to pulse on and off and it can also provide feedback on the RF pairing with the charging base.

Setup & Installation

“Plug & Play” wasn’t an issue for the MMO Wireless mouse and as soon as I connected the charging base to my PC via USB windows installed the basic drivers. The mouse automatically paired to the base and was up and running without issue and all the major control switches on the mouse functioned perfectly. The Steelseries management engine can be downloaded from the official website and provides further customisation options, as well as extensive macro settings that are perfect for MMO gaming, most likely more settings than you’ll likely ever need, but its better to have them and not need them.

General Performance

Day to day browsing is well suited to this mouse, its very light, and that makes it easy to control and move around, plus the added benefit of wireless technology means you have a lot of freedom of movement around your desk without worrying about the cables. Lift off distance is set pretty low as standard at around 1mm, and this is going to be very handy in our gaming tests, if you prefer it can be increased to around 5mm, although I can’t understand why you would want to. The software is also really easy to navigate and tweak to your liking, and that means you can spend more time gaming, less time tweaking.

Gaming Performance

I’ve been using this mouse for a few days across WoW, Diablo III and League of Legends and it hasn’t let me down yet, although it did take me a while to get used to the layout. The macro keys are fantastic but they don’t feel natural and it can take a while to adjust to where everything is before you really see much benefit. I had heard that there was some light acceleration on the mouse but either I couldn’t find it or it was so minor that it’s not an issue and over the sensor was very accurate at both high and low DPI settings.

The light weight and the wide hand resting position meant that I was able to play for hours without any noticeable hand fatigue, which is obviously a good thing. The fact it works flawlessly on a multitude of surfaces is also a nice feature as I prefer a softer mat for work and a harder cloth surface for gaming.

One big issue however is that while the mouse does come with a recharge base, it doesn’t have any power saving options and if you don’t dock the mouse it will just run until the battery dies. Sure you can turn the mouse off on the underside but its easy to forget to turn it off as it is to forget to charge it. Most wireless mice I’ve used in the pass will auto-off after a while and it would be a welcome feature here.

The wireless tech was faultless and even with the dock at 6ft away I didn’t notice any input lag or drop in signal throughout all my test, I know a lot of people refuse to use wireless tech for serious gaming, but I really couldn’t find a fault with it.

Overall this is an expensive product and it goes a long way to justifying that price tag. The software is robust and offers extensive options for macros, especially for World of Warcraft thanks for 130 preset actions. It’s also very cool to look at and of course style is subjective but I love the overall visual design of the mouse. The wireless technology is well integrated and even with a built in battery the mouse is still super light weight which I found rather impressive, although I would have liked to have seen a set of calibration weights to better reflect against some competitors gaming mice within this price range. If your serious about your WoW or any MMO for that matter this more an exclusive collectors item than anything else, it’s a brilliant gaming mouse but the fact that it is heavily branded makes it a bit of a niche product overall.

Had this been a little more nondescript in terms of branding, rather than just WoW and had it had weight customisation and perhaps even some power saving options, I would have been awarding our Editors Choice Award. Yet if your serious about WoW, you play for long hours and need something that is both practical and comfortable, then you will struggle to do much better than the Wireless MMO.

The post Steelseries World of Warcraft Wireless MMO Gaming Mouse Review appeared first on eTeknix.

For the last couple of days I have been spending my evening gaming and putting the Ballista MK-1 gaming mouse from Shogun Bros through its paces. Until a few weeks ago I had never even heard of Shogun Bros and give that the gaming peripheral is somewhat dominated by a few big brands it can be hard for another name to squeeze through. Yet a quick look online has shown that products like the Ballista and other products from Shogun Bros have been getting a lot of attention and a lot of love from both review media and the gaming community, so what is all the fuss about?

Priced at around £50 from most major online retailers the Ballista is walking the fine line between budget friendly solutions and premium gaming peripherals and given that for around £50 a lot of the big gaming peripheral companies don’t offer a specification sheet that is as packed as the MK-1.

• 8200 DPI / 12000 FPS
• Independent X and Y Axis Sensitivity
• Macro Key for one touch launch
• 8200 DPI / 1000HZ Polling Rate / 12000 Frame Per Second
• 10 Customisable buttons
• 5 Preset Gaming Mode for FPS, MMO, RPG Type of gaming
• Total 50 customized button for Gamer in 5 Mode
• “Gamer Name Their Own Mode” – Mode name show up when gamer change the mode
• Backlit Color to On Each Mode and Change in Lightning Speed
• Left Thumb Rest with Thick “Rubber Sofa”
• Military Grip Surface on Right Fingers Rest for “Best Control”
• Total Finger Rest Design
• Rubberized Coating on Main Body for “Best Grip and Comfort”
• Golden Plated USB Connection
• Braided Cable

The specifications on this mouse are up there with some of the best gaming mice on the market and the inclusion of a high DPI laser sensor, extensive calibration and customisation options, macros and much more is going to help a lot in our gaming tests.

The MK-1 is nicely packed in a display box that gives us a great view of the mouse, or at least it would if it were not so reflective.

Around the back of the box we have a few of the major features of the main laser sensor as well as some small images of the LED lighting options.

There wasn’t a great deal of extra in the box, but there doesn’t really need to be. I found the colour instruction manual, the mouse and a USB break-off adaptor.

The cable its self comes with a gold plated connection and some nice, high quality, black and red braiding.

The mouse is absolutely packed with features and the top panel and left side are covered in LED indicators that provide feedback on mode, DPI for both X and Y axis and various other calibrations. The left side of the mouse features a pair of toggle switches, most commonly used for forward and back navigation, but also comes with a sliding thumb toggle for the DPI selection. The middle part of the left side is filled with easy grip rubber, while the outer rim of that is hard plastic, topped by a soft touch top panel that forms the left and right mouse buttons.

The MK-1 features an some pretty drastic curves and bumps that give it both a unique look and highly ergonomic shape.

The front right features a pair of customisable switches labeled Alpha & Beta that can be configured from the MK-1 desktop software, in the center we have a mode and configuration button and finally a four direction scroll wheel with adjustable acceleration (can also be disabled). The scroll wheel is really light to turn and has some slight tactile notches to give you feedback as you rotate it, it’s also packed full of LED lighting which you’ll see better in a moment.

The ergonomics look fantastic and over I really like the style that they’ve gone for here but mostly because its makes it comfortable to hold and is not just a style feature.

The underside of the MK-1 is pretty bare but we do have three Teflon surfaces that should help with glide and we also have an off center laser sensor.

Setup & Installation

As you can see above, the MK-1 really puts on quite the light show and every light has a purpose rather than just show as they all provide feedback on what profile you have selected, your DPI settings and your X/Y speeds and this should mean you know exactly what your doing mid game with just a glance at your mouse.

The mouse is plug and play friendly and all the major fucitons worked perfectly but the included software really pushed the feature count up, allowing you to customise button actions, macros, dpi settings, profiles and more.

I was expecting the software to be dull and basic, but its colourful, well designed, intuitive to use and it gives you plenty to tweak to your liking.

Accuracy & Reliability

After testing for acceleration on all the preset DPI settings I can confirm that it is 100% acceleration free, the sensor is extremely accurate when turning, even at extreme speeds the mouse pointer landed back on the designated target.

Angle Snapping was all but useless and while it does allow you to draw straight lines with a slight wobble to your hand it does occasionally freak out, leaving undesirable results in Photoshop when trying to draw anything else, I advise you leave this setting disabled.

Liftoff high isn’t too bad at around 1.5mm but its almost irrelevant as the ergonomics of the mouse do not lend well to being able to pick the mouse up mid game.

Performance

The high quality sensor really lends its self well to FPS gaming and I really like the location of the DPI toggle as its out of the way while gaming yet still within reach for when you need it, its placement also means you don’t have to take your index finger off of the trigger.

The custom modes and macro settings are really handy too and it didn’t take long before I had League of Legends, Chrome and Photoshop dialed in to my liking and having an OSD overlay to indicate which mode I’m in was helpful too, either way I found all round performance to be superb.

There is a decent amount of glide and very little drag on both hard cloth and softer gaming surfaces, although it definitely felt more at home on harder surfaces such as the Zowie Speed TF.

Final Thoughts

Overall I was expecting the Ballista MK-1 to be dull, poorly made and average (at best). Sorry Shogun Bros but I just went into this review with low expectations given that the gaming mouse market has many new names, many of which can be of little excitement, why do I bring this up? Because I was completely and utterly wrong to think like that! I haven’t been able to find much about the MK-1 that I didn’t love or at the very like like better than I was expecting.

The array of LED lights had me worried that this was going to be a cheap mouse that had been given some sparkle and that really isn’t the case here, every LED serves a purpose to give you feed back on a setting, its just a bonus that the lights also make the mouse look cool, at least in my opinion. The style is improved further by the black and red braided cable that does look good but should also help protect the cable, improving overall life expectancy of the mouse.

Construction is really nice too and there are no poor seams or glue marks on the edges, the mouse wheel feels a little light weight but since its set quite low into the mouse chassis I can’t see this being a problem and unless you treat it like dirt I doubt you will break it.

It’s great to see so many features for such a modest investment and while £50 is still a big investment for many its a bargain when compared to similar specification gaming mice, most of which cost around £80-100. If you like the style and you need a massive feature in return for a modest investment, you’ll be hard pushed to find something better within this price range.

The post Shogun Bros Ballista MK-1 Pro Gaming Mouse Review appeared first on eTeknix.

We love a good gaming headset here at eTeknix and there can only be one thing better than one gaming headset, two of them! What better way to kick off a great review than to take a good look at a the range of Shock headsets from Thermaltake’s ever popular gaming brand TteSports.

TteSports are one of the best known gaming brands on the market, through constant support of pro gaming, eSports and of course their close partnership with eSports team “Team Infused”, as well as being hands on with the gaming community and many of the world’s top gaming events, not only within the eSports community but also BYOC LAN gaming events such as Multiplays Insomnia iSeries.

We’ve actually reviewed one of these headsets before, the Shock One, which I personally reviewed, albeit quite some time ago now. I had a few minor issues with it but overall I couldn’t knock its overall audio performance, nor argue with its value for money, so how will it compare to the other headset in the range, the TteSports Shock?

The Shock One is priced at around £60 while the Shock is a much more modest £30 and since we’ve already reviewed the first one, this is really a review for the Shock, but is it half as good as the Shock One given that its half the price? Or to put it another way, is the Shock One twice as good!

Well lets not hang around and lets jump straight into taking a closer look at each of these headset to see what they have to offer, where I hope to find out which one sounds the best and which one is better value for money.

The post TteSports Shock & Shock One PC Gaming Headset Review appeared first on eTeknix.

This week I’ve been playing around in my favourite games, working and wasting time on the internet, just like any other week then! The difference this week of course is that I’ve been using the Kone Pure Inferno Orange mouse from Roccat, the latest in a range of colour options as well as the latest addition to the extremely popular Kone mouse range.

These new limited edition colour editions of the Kone Pure were created to celebrate the 5th anniversary of the original Roccat Kone release, which has already gone on to win multiple award, including awards from eTeknix that I awarded myself. In Roccats own words “The Kone series includes some of the most successful gaming mice ever made, and has pioneered breakthrough design innovations such as Easy-Shift[+]™, Talk®, and Talk® FX – and tons more.” and they’re absolutely right, Roccat are doing some really exciting stuff with their products this last few years and its certainly set them apart from the competition.

It was only last August that I reviewed the premium grade Roccat Kone XTD, awarding it with our Editors Choice Award. Its a product I still use to this day and I personally regard it as the best gaming mouse money can buy, or its at least the one I’ve been most happy using on a day to day basis. So what new does the Pure Inferno Orange have to offer to the party?

The main impact here is definitely its design, this mouse has already proven its self to the gaming community, and this is Roccats way of saying thankyou and giving you a little more choice of style from the range. Just remember that the Kone Pure is a little smaller than the regular Kone, 91% of the size in fact, but still offers many of the same great features, so lets dive right in and see just what this funky little number can do.

The Kone Pure comes nicely packaged in a well designed, custom shaped box and it features plenty of information on the major features and functions, such as the high quality sensor, easy-shift[+] technology, multi-colour lighting and more, but of course well be taking a closer look at those features in a moment.

The box folds open to give us our first look at the mouse its self, which as you can see features a stunning black and orange chassis design. The inside of the box features a few bits of marketing and feature description.

In the box I found the mouse its self, which comes hardwired with a high quality braided cable and I also found a simple to understand setup and owners manual, not exactly a lot in the way of extras, but it keeps things simple and what else do you really need anyway!?

To my eyes, the first thing that really stands out is that fantastic colour scheme, sure its not going to be everyone liking, but I think it looks stunning. Both the orange chassis and the black top plate and made from a soft-touch plastic that gives a really smooth and premium quality feel to every surface of the mouse. Of course its not just about colour and there are plenty of practical things going on here too, down the left side of the mouse we have two high quality switches that function as back / forward tabs, although all buttons are customisable in the Roccat software.

The right side of the mouse features no buttons, but here you can see the ergonomic curves of the mouse chassis, its really well balanced too and both these combined make it really comfortable to hold.

The front end of the Kone Pure features some pretty hardcore components, such as the click Master switch tech – powered by Omron. These feature the world’s most advanced switch components (According to Roccat), that ensure extreme precision and a really nice tactile feedback (according to me). Between these two epic switches is the + / –  controls that are used for DPI settings, although as with everything else on this mouse, these buttons can be configured from the included software.

The mouse wheel is pretty epic too, featuring the Roccat Titan Wheel, said to be build of the Earth’s highest quality components, with the world’s strongest axis shaft and most advanced encoder, making it strong, accurate and reliable. With 24 steps per rotation, rubber grip coating and 3KG push force in every direction, I have to agree with Roccat that this is one seriously high quality wheel.

On the underside we have the 8200dpi Pro-Aim R2 laser sensor, the same found in the Kone XTD mouse, lag free and extremely accurate thanks to its TDCU (Tracking and Distance Control Unit) that allows you to customise to your current gaming surface and more.

The other end of the cable, we find that the mouse comes with a nicely moulded USB connection that sits nicely with the style of the braided cable.

Setup & Installation

Just like any other mouse, you can plug in the Kone Pure and get gaming, it’ll work straight out of the box, but the real magic is in the Roccat software, as this gives you more customisation options than you can reasonably comprehend. Customise buttons, DPI calibrations, macros, extensive lighting colour customisation with 16.8 million colours, as well as lighting effects to choose from, and you can even have the mouse work in unison with other Roccat products such as the Isku Keyboard, combining macros between the two devices.

Gaming Performance

I’ve been using the Pro-Aim Laser Sensor in this mouse for a week and just as it was in my normal mouse (Kone XTD), its incredibly accurate. With 8200 dpi, a 10.8mp sensor, 1000Hz polling rate (effective 12000fps) and 30G acceleration its no wonder the mouse has never missed a beat, the only reason I miss a headshot these days is when I get it wrong, not the mouse.

The ergonomics of the mouse lend them selves well to gaming too and its easy to flick between the major buttons, dpi switches and deploy macros without missing a beat. Its a little smaller than the mouse I normally use, but I quickly adjusted to that after half hour on Borderlands 2.

The mouse buttons are very responsive and give great feedback that allows for some seriously fast paced clicking, switches are easy to press, but no so much that you find your self accidentally clicking them.

General Performance

Day to day use of this mouse is where it really shines, it gaming performance is right up there with the best on the market but that’s something that really translates into other tasks that demand accuracy. I do a lot of work in photoshop and other multimedia applications so its important to have something that is pin point accurate, but also comfortable over long periods of time, both of which I get with the Kone Pure.

Roccat really has gone the extra mile with the Kone range and its very easy to see why the product has been proving popular for them over the years, not only with gamers, but also with those that just want a rock solid and reliable product for day to day use, not forgetting the part of the market who just want something that looks cool, and the Kone Pure certainly does look cool.

The only issues I’ve had with the Kone Pure is that its fairly light weight, this isn’t an issue of course this is my personal preference and unlike the Kone XTD, the Pure doesn’t feature additional chassis weights. This comes with one benefit though as it means the mouse glides beautifully on a multitude of surfaces, from the hard cloth of the Zowie Speed TF to the thick padding of the TteSports Dasher, all of which work wonders with the Kone Pure, even more so thanks to the laser calibrations that ensure you get the best settings for every surface.

The mouse also packs quite a performance punch of its own, featuring a 32-bit Turbo Core V2 processor that gives it snappy computing speed of its own, perfect for handling the multitude of customisation options, macros and functions without any lag or delay. This is backed up by 576KB of on-board memory, giving the mouse plenty of headroom to store all its macros and profiles, giving you instant access to your profile and settings in the heat of battle.

Priced at around £60 its certainly great value for money, even though £60 is for many (including myself) a lot of money, you do get quite a lot in return. There are many mice on the market within this price range that are great value for money, but don’ offer half the feature that Roccat has managed to pack into the Kone Pure. The addition of the funky colour scheme makes this one seriously cool product to own, the performance makes it cool to use, and the build quality ensure that you can enjoy both for a very long time indeed.

Much like the Kone XTD, the Kone Pure Inferno Orange is deserving of our Editors Choice Award, easily one of the most flawless peripherals on the market today.

The post Roccat Kone Pure Limited Edition Mouse Review appeared first on eTeknix.

Steelseries already have quite a history behind them and its not hard to see why, they have an extensive and much applauded product range that caters for everything from high performance gaming keyboards to audio products, all of which have proved them selves popular time and time again on both the eSports scene and with the general gaming community.

This popularity within the gaming scene isn’t by accident either, and you don’t have to spend too long at a LAN gaming event, computer trade show, or anything based around gaming communities to find plenty of people sporting a Steelseries product. Steelseries have worked hard at the ground level to support gaming teams, invest time in consumer testing and letting people get hands on with their products to not only prove they work, but to also find ways of improving them.

Its through this success that the brand has also been labeled as somewhat of a style accessory, its a “cool” brand to own and the gaming scene isn’t necessarily one that is synonymous with fashion, but when its backed up by performance or by something that can physically improve how well you play, then its a done deal.

“From day one, SteelSeries has been focused on making high performance gaming gear used by the most demanding, top professional gamers worldwide and peripherals that provide superior quality and a competitive edge to gamers of all skill levels. We believe, as most gamers do, in winning, not trying!”

The headset we’re looking at today is from the popular Siberia range and priced at around £100 here in the UK it isn’t exactly cheap, yet there is a strong market for headsets in this price range and so long as all round quality and performance is up to scratch its a small price to pay for something that you may end up using for several hours a day for gaming, multimedia and maybe even a little work.

Headphones

• Frequency response: 18 – 28,000 Hz
• Impedance: 40 Ohm

Microphone

• Frequency response: 50 – 16,000 Hz
• Pick up pattern: Uni-directional
• Sensitivity: -38 dB
• Active noise reduction: Up to 20dB

Everything Else

• Cable length: 3 ft.
• USB Cable extension: 6.5 ft.
• 50mm Drivers
• Integrated Soundcard
• 16 LED, 6 Mode Illumination
• Retractable Noise-Cancelling Microphone

The front cover features a velcro panel that folds out given a huge close up of the ear cup and a little marketing slogan “Incredible comfort. Award winning sound.” Also a large windowed panel gives us a great view of the headset and that’s no doubt tailored towards people picking up the headset in a retail store.

In the box we find the headset its self, which comes hardwired with a durable USB cable, a quick start guide, and the best extra I’ve seen in a while, a simple yet effective USB extension cable.

The headset is finished in a stunning gloss white with some subtle textures around the fittings. A mesh cover on the back of the earcups covers a series of 16 blue LED lights, 8 per ear cup.

Tucked away on the left ear cup is a pull-out, flexible boom mic, and it’s just as easily tucked away for when you don’t need it. Each ear cup features a super soft grey padding and that should provide a fantastic fit for those long gaming sessions. A sprung / elasticated system keeps the headband firm on your head and it should provide a clean fit for any head size without the need for side adjusters.

The round shape of the ear cups looks sleek and stylish, and the central mounting acts as a pivot to further assist with a good fit over your ears. If you look in the bottom left you can also see the microphone boom neatly tucked away.

The headband sits neatly inside the twin bars that float above your head when wearing the set, branded neatly with the Steelseries logo across the top, although the headset is already quite distinctively a Steelseries headset, but it still looks pretty cool with the branding.

The headphones are as friendly as plug-and-play, fortunately Windows 7 found the drivers immediately and even the microphone worked with ease. However, if you really want to get the most out of the headsets features your going to need to download and installed the Steelseries Engine software. It’s not a big download, but it does give you unified control over multiple Steelseries devices, allows you to tweak the headsets EQ presets, including create a custom one, adjust LED light intensity and frequency, as well as the overall volume.

Music

I always start my headset reviews with the music test, it’s the best way to get a grasp of the sets drivers, equalisers and all round performance, what I wasn’t expecting was the sound quality to be anywhere near when the Siberia V2 offered up. I listen to an extremely wide range of music and its important to me to be able to enjoy any style of music, at any volume, when ever I feel like it. The extreme high and low tones of Cannibal Corpse were rattle free, the warm mid tones of Genesis were soothing and didn’t wash out any of that classic Vinyl prog rock tone that I love so much, but the real winner is the high end notes and vocal lines, regardless of the volume of how much racket the rest of the music was making, this was easily the most distinct part of the sound, yet as clear as the high tones are they didn’t sound like they were over powering the audio.

Movies

The driver handle extreme bass really well and while there maybe some buzz at the most intense settings and extreme volume, this is true of most any headset and only happens beyond the pain threshold of most people hearing. The low rumbles of epic battles in Lord of the Rings are faultless and against as with music, dialogue was incredibly clear.

Gaming

Its obvious at this point that the headset is doing well in my tests, but the real important job for this headset is gaming, it is essentially a gaming headset after all! Fortunately it doesn’t disappoint, and while the frequency ranges and their clarity were still holding strong throughout gaming, but it soon became clear why the Siberia is popular with gamers. Having powerful drivers really offers up a rich, deep and engrossing world around you but this is further brought to life by the range of stereo separation, I find some headphones can sound a little “close” to your ears, giving a false sound. That really isn’t the case here however, and the Siberia V2′s can really give you that sound of wide open spaces and a greatly positioned audio, perfect for making you jump when someone sneaks up behind you in Battlefield 3.

This headset is a solid all rounder, there are so many positive I can think of in terms of audio quality for music, movies and gaming, and quite honestly I find it hard to pick a clear winner on which was best. But as with most things, there is always something that sticks out above the rest and for me it was the microphone. For the size of it, I wasn’t expecting amazing performance from the microphone and I was exactly right, it gives very good performance at best, still that’s hardly a deal breaker saying it was “very good”, but no “very very good”. However, the benefits of the clear audio really worked well for in game party chat, or even just Skype calling and being able to hear the insult and advice from your fellow team mates can sometimes be difficult in the heat of battle, but the Siberia V2′s came through loud and clear.

As a big music fan I can quite happily sit here for hours with this headset and listen to my favourite albums, I think my own headset sounds a tiny little bit better, but then again it costs twice as much as the Siberia V2 and to be honest, I’d be lying if I said the Siberia v2 sounded £100 worse to my ears than my current set.

Now we move onto comfort, sa this headset features a lightly sprung headband, it sits like a feather on top of your head. The support bars that go over your head don’t actually touch your head and are just there to keep everything in shape, combine that with the super soft padding on the ear cups and you’ve got one of the lightest feeling, most comfortable headsets on the market. The headset may look bulky, but it really doesn’t feel it to wear and while most headsets hurt my ears after an hour or two, I could quite happily wear this set all day long.

So by this point your likely thinking I’m 1 more compliment away from marrying this headset, normally I can think of at least one fault with the set that I like to bring up but that really isn’t the case here, kind of. The LED lighting on the ear cups, if anyone can explain to me what the purpose of this is that would be great? Sure it looks cool, but you can’t see that when the headphones are on your ears, fortunately the software aloud me to disable them, so I was happy with that.

There are many great headsets on the market for around a £100 and this is easily one of the best. While I would like to say “it is the best” I think it really boils down to prefference, some people like the even more outlandish styling or Mad Catz or the brutish but cool look of Razer, or the 90′s look of Logitech (sorry Logitech), while many others will love the allround, accesible styling of the Steelseries range, its very good looking, its very cool to own and you wouldn’t be ashamed to be seen it in (asuming you’ve turned those bright blue LEDS off). Audio performance is literally faultless to my ears, the price isn’t over the top and is actually very good value given the overall build quality and sound quality. Overall I’m blown away by the Siberia V2′s and its why I’m more than I’m happy to award them with the eTeknix Editors Choice Award.

The post Steelseries Siberia V2 PC Headset Frost Blue Special Edition Review appeared first on eTeknix.

Razer is one of the biggest names in the gaming market, famed for their range of award-winning peripherals, as well as their support for eSports and their related gaming teams. The controller I’m looking at today is the Razer ONZA, a Razer peripheral tailored to be the ultimate precision tool for eSports, pro gamers and of course any other gamer who wants the best tool for the job. Of course some of you may already know that this isn’t exactly a new product for a Razer and it has been on  the market for a while now. I’ve even had the chance to try it out a few times in the past at various gaming events, but this is the first time I’ve gotten to spend a significant amount of time with this premium controller.

Of course there is a slight problem with this controller when it comes to eSports, it’s illegal to use under the MLG rules. This is due to the MFB buttons on the rear of the controller, an aspect of its design that we shall take a closer look at in a moment. You can read the rule that applies below, but don’t worry, its only against the rules to use it in competing MLG eSports tournaments, no one said you can’t use this at home, online or anywhere else!

“Players may not use a controller with Turbo capabilities, Button Mapping capabilities, or Wireless capabilities, and they may not use a Play and Charge Kit. Controllers with Turbo capabilities allow Players to press a button that results in their Character performing a set of actions that would normally require the Player to press the same button multiple times. Controllers with Button Mapping capabilities allow Players to map a button sequence to a specific button. Pressing that button results in their Character performing a set of actions that would normally require the Player to press multiple buttons.”

The controller comes packaged in a half plastic display box, it gives you a great view of the controller and also highlights some of the major features such as the adjustable analogue sticks, Multi Function Buttons (MFB) and Backlit hyperesponse action buttons. Of course an important badge here is the official Xbox licence in the bottom light, this is a fully licensed product that will work with all Xbox 360 models.

Around the back we have a much more detailed breakdown of the controllers features, but of course well take an even better look at those in a moment.

The controller its self comes finish in a durable and grippy feeling rubber, a big improvement over the hard plastic of the original Xbox controller, although it can be a little more challenging to keep clean as dust tend to stick to the surface. One feature that does stand out is the Razer logo on the right side of the controller, it adds a nice touch of style to the controller, and there is no doubt that this is a Razer product.

The twin analogue sticks feature a rotating mechanism underneath the top of the thumb stick. This can be rotated (with a little force) to tighten or slacken the resistance of the stick. While this doesn’t change actual sensitivity it does change the amount of force required to make adjustments in-game, which has the same effect overall. It’s also a great way of fine tuning to your personal playing style on the fly without having to adjust sensitivity options in your games pause menu.

The biggest game changer here of course is the introduction of two new shoulder buttons RMFB and LMFB, each of which can be found above the RB and LB shoulder buttons respectively. These can be programmed to any of the main control buttons of the controller by way of a button on the underside on the controller.

The two buttons in the center are for the L/R MFB’s, holding one down will display what button that sides MFB is configured to, or press it once to enable the programming mode, hit the button you would like to set one of the MFB’s to and BAM! Your done, it’s that simple.

One of the biggest features for me personally is the inclusion of a four-way D-Pad, a massive improvement on the notoriously inaccurate Xbox D-Pad, and while Razer’s is by no means perfect it’s certainly going to be more precise.

Each of the four main face buttons, A, B, X & Y are really nicely finished and set into the body of the controller. Each features the same mechanical switch that Razer use in their high-end gaming mice, so they have a really nice tactile sensation and audible click to them, but also a much shorter travel distance than the membrane switched official XBox controllers buttons.

The controller comes hard-wired with an extra long braided cable, which also features a break-away adaptor just like the official XBox controller.

Setup & Installation

This is a simple as plug and play, especially true if you’re using it on the Xbox 360, but Windows will also detect the controller much the same as it would the official XBox controller and requires no 3rd party drivers. Because the programmable shoulder buttons are managed from the controller its self, you don’t need any extra software to configure the controller as this can all be done on the fly. The controller will also remember the button configuration for the shoulder buttons after the device has been powered off or disconnected.

Gaming

This is obviously the most important feature for the controller and it’s where it’s really going to be proved its self. The first thing I wanted to try out was the new D-Pad and thanks to it being 4 separate buttons it made a huge impact in my gaming performance on Soul Calibur IV (I Don’t like V) and having that extra accuracy means that I can finally pull of the more complex combos with (a little more) ease, many of which proved to be a case of luck on the original XBox controller.

The adjustable sticks are really handy too and personally I found it preferable to keep the left stick very loose, this allowed for quick and easy maneuvers in Halo 4. The right stick I set to a much more resisted setting, this allowed me to make minor tweaks and adjustments to my aim more accurately when I had the game on a high look sensitivity, but still allowed me to make the extremely fast turns that come with having a high look sensitivity. While this might not sound like a big deal to some, this is a real game changer and for me its less about changing the sensitivity often, more about finding that balance that suits you the most and leaving it there, something that I’ll certainly miss should I ever switch back to the original Xbox controller.

The MFB’s are strange at first and I often found myself accidentally hitting the wrong shoulder button, fortunately you can have them configured to LB and/or RB and that effectively makes them just like the standard controller, a handy setup for the first hour or so or at least until your fingers get used to where they are. But when it comes to games like Halo, Call of Duty, Battlefield 3 or just about any game really, being able to have jump, tag, abilities, melee, reload or anything else on the back of the controller means you never have to take your thumb of the sticks, saving those vital milliseconds in battle.

The ONZA is one of my favourite Razer products simply because it stands out from the crowd in terms of design, I like the idea of owning a controller that was banned by the MLG as to me that just makes it sound even more cool. Of course reputation is one thing, performance is a different story altogether and performing is the thing that this controller does best.

The analogue sticks take a little getting used to, not because they’re difficult to use, but simply because they’re different in terms of feedback. Spending a little time with the controller you start no notice more and more minor refinements to the design, such as the short throw on the analogue trigger, which come with a longer curve than standard XBox trigger to ensure your fingers don’t slip from their optimum resting position. The extra grip from the rubber treated chassis, the illuminated mechanical keys, the true four-way D-Pad, a sturdy headphone jack, repositioned start and select buttons (no more accidental pauses in frantic gameplay). There are all minor tweaks in one way or another but they all add up to a real game changer and a new way of playing.

The quality is flawless, the controller feels sturdy, the sticks are durable and the style and overall design of the controller looks great too, given that this isn’t a new product for Razer I have found that you can pick one up for around £40 from many online retailers and that is incredible value for a controller with build quality, features and style on this level.

If you want to stand out from the crowd, have something a little different but also enjoy a controller that can make a difference to how you play, then I highly recommend you check out the ONZA.

The post Razer ONZA Xbox 360 & PC Tournament Edition Pro Gaming Controller appeared first on eTeknix.

This week I’ve been spending my time on the MEKA G Unit, one of the latest gaming peripherals from the ever popular TteSports, the gaming branch of the PC component manufacturer Thermaltake.

Since Thermaltake launched the TteSports brand, they’ve both set about taking the eSports scene by storm, it’s not an easy scene got get into for any manufacturer either. Given that the gamers, pro gamers, LAN gamers and anyone else involved in the sport will be wanting the best tools for the trade, they want to look good, play good and win. If the products they’re using aren’t up to scratch then that is something that is going to reflect in their game and something that is going to reflect to the spectators, fans and consumers who are tied up in that scene.

Fortunately for TteSports, they’ve been doing rather well over the years and through sponsorship of teams such as Team Infused, not to mention having strong endorsements from some of the world’s top gamers on many of their gaming products. eSports isn’t like Formula 1, you may never get to drive the F1 teams Ferrari, but in eSports you can (for the most part) go pick up the same peripherals and systems that your favourite player does.

The one we are looking at today is a fully mechanical keyboard, which as you may know use a single mechanical switch under each key, opposed to the large rubber switch that normally covers all keys on a membrane keyboard. While this does have many benefits such as the keys lasting longer, improved tactile response and overall quality, it does comes with a come with a few draw backs such as an increase in cost and they’re often heavier (although weight isn’t exactly a pro or con). The price of the G Unit is around £100 at many online retailers and that’s not exactly cheap, but for a mechanical keyboard of this specification its on par with offerings from rival brands.

The G Unit comes stylishly packed in this colourful box and already it gives the impression of a premium product. On the box you’ll find a few logos showing the major features such as backlit keys, 60 macro keys and a 1000hz polling rate.

The back fo the keyboard highlights even more features such as the macro keys and multimedia keys broken down into multiple languages for different markets.

Opening the box I found (aside from the keyboard) a good quality protective bag for the keyboard and another for the cables and extras, perfect for keeping it safe and scratch free when you’re transporting your peripherals to a LAN gaming event. 

The larger cardboard package (bottom left of previous picture) contained plenty more goodies too, these include the software and driver install disc, some cool stickers, installation guide and the warranty policy.

The big stuff consisted of the keyboard, the detachable wrist rest and a USB connection cable.

The cable is a really high quality braided cable that is fitted with gold-plated connections. It’s completely removable from the keyboard.

In the top left we have some mode switching keys, while the top right features 7 multimedia keys that provide next and previous track, pause / play, stop and volume controls. Down the left side we have 12 hot keys and of course for the rest we have a full size mechanical switched keyboard.

The back of the keyboard features the USB connection port, two USB out-puts that act like a USB hub, allowing you to hook up your headsets, mice or other peripherals straight from the keyboard, as well as headset and microphone ports for your headset.

Each side of the keyboard features a tidy red strip, adding a little touch of style and colour to the edges of the keyboard.

Flip the board upside down and we find a there is a little groove for routing your cables, this should help keep things organized and out of the way. There are also two durable, extra wide plastic feet with rubber grips.

The keyboard isn’t fully back-lit, but the important stuff such as the arrow keys, WASD and Caps lock feature a brightness adjustable white back light that in my opinion is much more stylish than a full backlit keyboard with bright red LEDS, it adds a subtle hint in the places you need it and it’s not so much that it can distract your eyes from the game, but enough to find the important keys when you do glance down mid battle.

Setup & Installation

Setup is as simple as plug and play, with ease windows found all the basic drivers to get me up and running just like any other keyboard. Of course if you want to dive into the full feature set of your £100 gaming keyboard, you need to either install the drivers from the included CD-Rom or download them from the TteSports website.

The software is pretty straight forward, breaking the keyboard into three main profiles, each of which can have their own set of hotkeys, macros and functions applied. It’s very simple to understand and setup and while it doesn’t contain any presets for popular games, it really doesn’t take long to key them in yourself.

The macro function features a record function that allows you to create even more complex key combinations for your hotkeys, something that will prove popular with MMO players.

Gaming

Gaming is the main feature for this keyboard, it’s what it was built to do best, and it doesn’t take long to realise that TteSports have really delivered on this front. The Cherry MX Black switches are wonderful to game on, and they offer a really nice, tactile resistance when gaming, allowing for quick and precise button presses in the heat of battle. I’ve lost count of the amount of hours I’ve clocked up in Battlefield 3, Bioshock Infinite and Torchlight 2 this week, but this keyboard hasn’t let me down once. The macro function isn’t normally something I tend to use, but have a few setup for those more complex spells, or for me personally I made some custom multimedia keys for my music and voice chat client, saved me having to take my hand from the mouse and WASD position while gaming to take control of my audio, yes I know the keyboard has multimedia keys, but I like my ones better.

General Performance

As you can imagine, my job involves an awful lot of typing and while gaming maybe this keyboards big feature, its real beauty comes from the Cherry MX Black keys and they say that once you’ve typed on a mechanical keyboard you’ll never want to go back to a membrane. This maybe true for many, but I personally love my current membrane keyboard, but even I can’t deny that the G Unit is lush to type on and it gives you a nice balance between the typing response of a modern keyboard with an old school type writer. If you have to do a lot of typing on a daily basis, you’re going to benefit greatly from this keyboard.

Another bonus I’ve found recently is how useful the macro keys are for applications such as Photoshop, being able to apply filters, open tools and more with one button press can be a massive time saver when you need to use them a lot, having a great typing response, macros and all round gaming performance is never a bad thing.

I really enjoyed working with this keyboard and after a week of using it’s going to take me quite some time to get used to my day-to-day one, not to mention the next keyboard I review. The typing response is wonderful and its the first keyboard I’ve used that features Cherry MX Black keys as most manufacturers have been using the very popular Cherry MX Red switches for most of their range, but that is changing as many users have been demanding more keyboards that feature more tactile switches such as the black, green and brown switches as these require a little more force to push, give a nice feedback and in some cases a subtle click when pressed.

The Black switches do not click when pressed but one thing that is apparent is that they’re louder to type on than membrane keys, they may not “click” but they do “tap” against the chassis as the key is fully pressed, this is a sound that could potentially drive the person next to you crazy if you’re in a quiet room but for me personally I like the audible feedback as I’m typing.

It may not be cheap at £100 but for your money you do get very high quality key switches, a nicely integrated back lighting feature on some keys, some reliable and highly functional software, a lot of macro and multimedia keys but most importantly for me is the build quality, There isn’t one bit of this keyboard that doesn’t feel well put together and I don’t doubt that it would last you a great many years without fault. Add to the features and build quality that the keyboard comes with a protective pouch, durable braided cable and a little cool factor from being from a popular eSports gaming peripheral brand and you’ve got your self a complete package here. I’m more than happy to award this with our Editors Choice Award, sure it maybe a gaming keyboard, but it delivers so much more.

The post Tt eSPORTS MEKA G Unit Mechanical Gaming Keyboard Review appeared first on eTeknix.

Steelseries have one of the most loyal followings in the gaming peripheral business, they’re one of the names that are synonymous with quality, performance and they’re well known to be a popular choice on and off of the eSports scene. So I feel somewhat privileged today to have the opportunity to play around with their ever popular Sensei range, one of the companies most versatile and successful product ranges that has seen numerous iterations since its release. However, the edition that I’ll be taking a look at today is the Sensei [RAW] Frost Blue Edition, a special limited edition colour scheme with icy blue LED lighting.

The Sensei mouse is an ambidextrous mouse, perfectly suited to both left and right handed use, a difficult area to get right when it comes to ergonomics as just making the mouse symmetrical can often lead to a less than favourable hand position for both sides, but given their industry experience, I’m sure Steelseries know a few things about balancing ergonomics by now.

The Sensei has a competent feature set and with full ambidextrous design, 7 full programmable buttons, three zone lighting and no doubt a few other tricks up its sleeve, I can’t wait to get this fired up in a few games.

Features

• Ambidextrous shape
• Driverless plug-and-play
• 7 programmable buttons
• Brilliant white illumination
• Three zone lighting – Scroll Wheel, CPI Indicator, and Logo
• White Glossy Coating

“Based off the most award-winning gaming mouse in history, the SteelSeries Sensei [RAW] Frost Blue is the pure and essential performance edition of the most award-winning, critically acclaimed gaming mouse in history. Powered by the SteelSeries Engine software suite, the mouse can be configured to meet your exact specifications including CPI, DCPI, lift distance, and button layout with intuitive drag and drop functionality.” – Steelseries

A box may just be a box, but Steelseries have take that little bit of extra care with their product design and packaging, the box features a really nice picture of the mouse as well as all the usual branding and styling that you would associate with Steelseries.

The box features a fold out panel that gives you a nice little marketing run down about the brand and product, but most importantly we get a real look at the mouse and its already clear by this point that the picture on the front of the box isn’t doing it justice, this thing looks fantastic.

The top shell of the mouse is made finish with a super smooth gloss white that is as slippery as ice, its also quite elongated and that should allow for a comfortable resting position for those who have bigger hands, like myself.

The left and right sides of the mouse are identical and both feature a pair of navigation buttons and a grey, lightly textured plastic that will aid with grip.

On the front of the mouse we have two mouse buttons and a grey centre section that houses the DPI toggle switch, LED indicator and clickable scroll wheel.

The underside features three good size slipmats that should aid with glide, there is a small Steelseries logo but into the plastic and finally we have the central sensor, all pretty straight forward, but its all what you would expect from a mouse in this price range.

The main design feature here however is the lighting, which is in three stages, the main icon logo at the back of the mouse, the LED indicator between the DPI switch and scroll wheel then the outer rim of the scroll wheel its self and overall the colour and tone of the lighting looks really nice and it does give a premium look to the product overall, if you like that sort of thing.

Setup and Installation

Setting up the mouse is as simple as plug and play, but to really get the most out of it you need to download the Steelseries Engine software, this allows for extensive customisation of the mouse and unlocks more features for the product. The software isn’t included with the mouse, but it is best to download it from the official homepage anyway to ensure you have the latest edition, as well as the latest firmware.

While the mouse may look fairly limited in terms of buttons / features, that really isn’t the case and you can still customise every main button on the mouse, allowing for app lauches, macros and complete customisation of the button layout, something that will no doubt please many gamers who want to get the most out of this mouse.

This is complimented by full customisation of the polling rate, CPI and illumination to squeeze that little extra out of the mouses performance and style.

Finally we have statistic, which may seem pointless but if you can track your usage of the buttons you can fine tune the areas you use most, or even the ones you don’t use much to optimise your playing style.

Gaming

The thing I like the most about this mouse is that its gaming performance is non specific, its not tailored to MMO or FPS specifically and that makes it a solid performer no matter what your playing. A few games of Battlefield 3 proved to me that its highly capable when it comes to precision aiming and the DPI toggle switch really comes in handy for those long range shots. When it comes to MMO style games, one may prefer more mouse buttons for macros, but having fully configurable keys certainly helps and its easy to setup the most important macros for this type of game, configure a couple of your favourite spells or configurations to the side buttons and your already getting better performance than you would with most standard PC mice.

General Performance

While this is generally a gaming product, its straightforward design really lends its self to day to day use much more than it does extreme gaming performance. Browsing the web, using photoshop and well, just about any other day to day application is a highly enjoyable experience with this mouse. It’s slipmats provide a smooth glide on any surface I tried, from soft mats, hard cloth and even just hard wood of my desk, the Sensei didn’t miss a beat and its a great allrounder in general.

The ergonomics are well balanced and regardless of left or right hand usage I found the buttons were well positioned to suit multiple play styles and hand positions. At first I did find myself having a few accidental clicks of the 2nd set of side buttons, but this issue fixed its self after about half hours usage once I had gotten accustomed to the shape and layout of the mouse and its buttons.

Overall I was expecting the Sensei to be nothing more than a fashion statement, its a very lovely looking product and there is a market for products that simply look cool on your desk. Yet while it does feature flawless build quality, a really nicely mixture of materials that product sleek and smooth surfaces, aswell as some subtle textures in all the right place, its build quality only serves to compliment its overall performance.

This is the first Steelseries mouse that I’ve had the pleasure of using on a day to day basis and given how it looks fairly straightfoward in terms of features at first glance, I was impressed by just how configurable it actually is toward a whole range of different scenarios, be that gaming, produtivity or just relaxing and wasting time on Facebook. Having a full range of custom macros and shortcuts that you can apply to its buttons means you can use it for controlling you multimedia applications, improving your work flow in office and image editing applications or finding those few extra kills in your favourite game.

The software is pretty straight forward, but also very informative and anyone with limited experience of macros and configuration options should have no problem setting the mouse up to their liking. It’s easy to setup and the hardware or software hasn’t failed me once since I started using the mouse, which was just over a week ago now.

With prices at around £40 from many major online retailers its also priced extremely competitively and with options from many rival brands typically costing 20% extra and beyond for this kind of functionality you would be mad not to consider this one of the best mice on the market for under £50. It’s got good looks, good performance, good range of features and a fantastic price tag and while that would normally be enough to justify an eTeknix Bang for Buck Award, its performance in any day to day application as well as gaming, combined with its value, amibidextrous design, style and well presented software  is what earns it our eTeknix Editors Choice Award.

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