Reviews: Merc Stealth Keyboard  | read this item

TheMuffinMan decided let us take a look at his gaming keyboard.  A rather nice review of a gaming peripheral.  He highlights what he loves about the keyboard.  And he has plenty of love for it.

TheMuffinMan -

I love using they keyboard for many reasons. The biggest thing I like about it is that so many keys are just within a twitch of a move of my fingertips or my thumb and RARELY require me (usually only when I am boxing a full group) to move my hand at all. If I had to have 1 thing I did not like about it, its that (to save room on the width of the keyboard because of the left extensino) their is no “group” of buttons for Insert/Delete/Home/End etc… you have to turn the num-lock off and use the num-pad for those functions. Kinda a pain when I am working on software, but I could care less while playing WoW.

From it’s website:
Quote:
SteelSeries Merc Stealth Highlights:

* SteelSeries Z Engine enables programmability of all keys
* Pre-defined profiles for more than 150 games
* 3 color illumination options: blue, purple and red
* Internal hub with 2 USB ports
* Anti-ghosting capability: Up to 7 simultaneous keystrokes
* Special gaming key area
* Rubberized movement keys for enhanced tactile feedback

The SteelSeries Merc Stealth gaming keyboard features 34 dedicated gaming terrain keys, making it easier and more intuitive than ever to walk, run, jump, crouch and move directionally in games. The gaming terrain keys, tilted at an 11° angle, are ergonomic and comfortable even during long gaming sessions. The keyboard features 3 different illumination colors (blue, red and purple), which can be set to 4 different illumination modes (subtle, ambient, intense and off).

SteelSeries Merc Stealth supports simultaneous keystrokes and features a number of hotkeys for multimedia, navigation and other one-click controls. The keyboard features two USB 2.0 ports, gold-plated microphone and headset jacks all connected through a gold-plated USB connector. All keys on the keyboard can be programmed with the powerful SteelSeries Z Engine software, allowing for programmable keys and easy to use drag-and-drop macro creation.

Here is a shot of the left side of the keyboard where I make all my keypressed while multiboxing:

Here are several closeups of portions of the previous pic:

Here is the “keyboard” portion of it:

And here is the numpad:

Something I failed to take a pic of was the stereo jack ports for a headset and a mic, as well as a 2 USB port hub in the keyboard. (all of which are on the top).

Here are some pics of the software you can use to customize the keyboard.

The software comes pre-loaded (and can auto-updated for new games/layouts) with various default layouts for a multitude of popular games. You can have any of these automatically “turn on/apply” when the software detects the executable for your game running. This way I have have different keysets automatically engage when I play CoDMW2 and WoW without having to open the software up and switch layouts.

Any and all (read: EVER SINGLE EFFING KEY) on the ENTIRE keyboard is programmable via this software. By default (ill use the WoW layout) this is what is maps the keys to (enlarged to show detail):

Now say we want the “JUMP” key (lower right) to do something COMPLETELY different… First we click on it to bring up the key edit interface, it appears at the bottom of the application window and looks like this:

Here you can change the label of the key on the in-app interface as well as change what key(s) it is mapped to. We can see it is mapped to “space” since that is the default jump key in WoW.

I have a key on my hotbar in WoW that is mapped to Ctrl + Shift + 1. I want to change this “JUMP” button, to be mapped to my key in game. (important note: The app can actually distinguish between left/right ctrl/shift presses, however WoW does not so it does not matter which one you use when programming your custom keys) I am going to label my key PwnBoxer and click in the box towards the bottom that says “Space”. Once there I press CTRL SHIFT and 1 simultaneously (NOT one after the other). Once done it looks like this.

Just click “Apply” on the left there and your key is ready to use in game!!!

If you have any questions about this keyboards functionality (or how I use it to play), feel free to post here and I will try to answer any/all questions!

The Merc Stealth Keyboard – http://www.steelseries.com/int/products/keyboards/merc_stealth/information

TheMuffinMan’s review and responses – http://multiboxing.com/forums/f30/my-merc-stealth-gaming-keyboard-write-1849.html