Gadgetory

in the SteelSeries suite they're showing off the apex and the apex Ron I'm gonna start with the apex brah welcome to Linus tech tips at CES 2013 our trip to the show this year is powered by Corsair maker of quality PC components and peripherals our trusted storage partner is Seagate technology and our trusted networking partner is Linksys okay guys backlit keyboard has two layers of macro functionality so check this out we got macro keys here you got five we have macro keys here you've got 12 you can actually program those in two different ways but we've seen this before the entire keyboard itself is completely reprogrammable as well so that means you've actually got what is essentially but something like 200 functionalities that you can implement depending on which layer of macros you're using they've changed a couple of the key ergonomic things about this keyboard versus ones in the past number one is they've added the Windows key back this is based on feedback from gamers remember guys SteelSeries is not so much Flair and fluff although this is a nice-looking product compared to the more blocky keyboards that we've seen in the past they actually designed for pro gamers they've got a wide variety of teams they sponsor so this is one of the key changes that might cost some debate but remember guys all the keys on the keyboard are reprogrammable so don't worry too much about it number two check out this spacebar it looks kind of stupid you know what it reminds me of it looks kind of like the 7g which also looks kind of stupid because it has that huge wrist rest you know what else my wife refuses to type on anything but a 7g if I put anything else in front of her she will not use it because it is incredibly comfortable things like this come from a comfort and design standpoint not from a visual appeal standpoint so if you think about it in terms of typing you don't need a wide space bar because your hands are positioned like this with the tips of your thumbs on the space bar however gamers you know I'm not gonna generalize or anything but come on have you ever sat up straight and games like this I don't think so just latch on your seat you got your wrist down you got your thumb lying on the space bar here that makes it easier and faster to respond to so again good job SteelSeries final sort of ergonomic weirdness is these diagonal keys here these are a carryover from the acquisition of ideas on a number of years back and particularly for a memo gamers SteelSeries has gotten extremely good feedback about it so this guy one zone take two layers of macros this is the Cadillac at $99.99 remember guys these are membrane keyboards so that's why you're seeing these kinds of price points with this kind of functionality on the keyboards it has five zones zone 1 zone 2 zone 3 zone did I ever say this one for 10 zone 5 which is the logo right here and these lights that are on the side cool thing about this one is it's got four layers ten macro keys here in addition to the ones up here and you can actually change depending on the layer you're in what zones are illuminated so if you go okay I'm an MMO player I have my you know my utility class my attack class I have my healer class or whatever else you can go okay on my attack character whole thing goes red so you know what you're doing you've got you can make sure that all the macros that you're gonna be hitting are the ones that are optimized for the character using healer class turn the whole thing white or you can even do things like just change one zone you can go okay I want something more subtle so I'm gonna change the yellow on the side it's a sixteen point eight million colors or something like that so you can have whatever you want change that to a different color on the fly I actually missed an ergonomic change and I think this I think this laptop went into sleep or some hair it is it's properly illuminated now final ergonomic change I didn't mention before is the macros up here are slightly raised if I can get you to get a good look at that these are slightly raised this allows you to quickly perform some kind of a combo where you can press one of them and then the other and fall off of it like that it's actually it's really neat the way they showed it to us and they gave us a couple examples of where gamers will actually use these there's a couple of dots on the W which allows you to find your way back to WASD the same way you'd find your way to the homeroom key if you were typing and sorry excuse me it's got a USB hub built-in sorry DS Larry are you focused on that there we go USB hub held built-in and I think that pretty much wraps up everything I wanted to say about this keyboard for oh yeah okay so you can adjust your brightness adjust your volume you've got your media keys over here full number pad like I said membrane keyboard all about quickness they're advertising this as the fastest gaming keyboard in terms of you know your travel distance the feedback that the tactile feedback that's required to press the buttons whatever you want it whatever you want to look at it come on over here I want to show you guys a cool prototype this is of the apex not the apex rock and you hit the Lights so this one comes apart so they've got it programmed with a variety of different colors you can see it has a very different look depending on what kind of colors you're using and this is the kind of technology that goes inside something like this they've also updated their software in kind of a neat way and that is they can create heat maps where you can set it to okay maybe you don't know exactly what keys are optimal for you you can have it set up heat maps while you're gaming to show you which parts of the keyboard you're using most on the software on your screen so it might you'd be able to give you tips like okay most of the keys you user in here and you're using are for reload still you're not really using a that much why don't you change itto reload save yourself seven percent travel distance and potentially actually make you a better gamer I think we can all agree that in the past especially and for the most part that our peripherals don't make you a better gamer inherently but SteelSeries is trying to change that so don't forget to subscribe to Linus tech tips so you can catch all of our CES 2013 coverage I'll see you guys soon thanks for watching Linus tech tips at CES 2013 powered by Corsair Seagate Technology and Linksys you