This week I killed my keyboard, well that may be an exaggeration, I killed my "2" key, which to anyone who has heard me mash my buttons while on TS or Vent will wonder how the hell my keyboard lasted this long and they will also be surprised that it wasn't as a result of my mashing buttons, but when I was removing buttons to clean it I suspect that I tore the rubber membrane meaning the key doesn't return to the normal resting position but prefers to sit a mm or two above the activation point and actually hurts when pressing the button repeatedly as there is no rebound.
My current keyboard is a Logitech G510, my previous keyboard was a Logitech G15 and that is still giving great service to my son who received it as a hand-me-down when I saw the G510 and the bank of 18 macro keys and though to myself, "hmm, I NEED one of those!". I also have Logitech G5 mouse despite replacing it 4 years ago with a Razer Naga. I say replaced, but again I exaggerate the truth, I had a brief fling with the Naga for about 2 months before I realised the aches in my hand where because of the uncomfortable Naga that is way to small and causes my thumb to play a solo game of Twister when trying to hit all 12 buttons. So you could call me a Logitech fanboi but I prefer to think of it as me preferring man-sized goods made for men, by men that understand that men come in man-sized packages as well as small boy sized.
In the last few months I have been considering getting a mechanical keyboard and had been doing the usual browsing around. For those of you that don't know why a mechanical keyboard is claimed to be superior to a traditional keyboard watch the video below, it can do a much better job than I could:
Sadly Logitech only offer 1 mechanical keyboard, the Logitech G710, a fine looking keyboard aimed at gamers. However, there are two shortcomings with this keyboard, no screen and 12 missing macro keys. The screen I could live without but having gotten used to 18 dedicated macro keys I know I would regret every one of the £149 spent on it. It could be the best keyboard ever made and I'd hate it.
So, I started to look around idly and discovered that there were many gaming keyboards with mechanical switches but very few had macro keys. It was then that I discovered the Corsair Vengeance K95 keyboard, this beast met all my needs but it did lack the screen of the G15 and the G510. However, I was in love, wait that is creepy., I meant I really liked it and wanted one. Sure I had reservations, I had never heard of Corsair as a peripherals company, only as a memory supplier, I found a few review all sounding positive but I found no negative feedback, in the Internet world, that means they must be good because if they weren't there would be stacks of bad news forum threads. All I had to do was convince myself that spending £145 on it was a good investment and then to be able to convince the wife that I deserved one, maybe if I was good and saved some cash on the weekly shop and stopped buying the occasional goodies to add to the petrol purchase I could claim I'd "earned the right".
This was all when I didn't need a keyboard urgently, sadly my "2" key decided to break and my dreams were shattered. I searched for a bargain buy all over the Internet, I couldn't find many places that sold them let alone one that was selling them cheaply. I considered buying lesser mechanical keyboards, that is to say ones with fewer macro keys but none were priced cheaply enough to warrant the loss of the macro keys.
Therefore, I have decided to stick with my trusted brand, Logitech, and go with the latest incarnation of the G510, the G510s. It offers me everything I want out of a keyboard except them mechanical keys but for less than half the price I think I can cope, my wife will still have a nervous breakdown when I get the bill through on the credit card but ultimately I know I have got a quality product that will give me many years of service through all the abuse I'll give it.
For now, my mechanical keyboard dreams are over but next time, I'm hoping that Logitech has the product I really, really want, a mechanical G510, maybe the G510M? Oh and while you're at it drop a USB3 hub in there too so i can use my headset that require USB power to work or maybe I'll replace the headset.
The keyboard and mouse is such an integral part of our gaming but one that we often overlook or take for granted. Do you use a gaming keyboard/mouse combo? If so I'd like to hear what you use.
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