Monday, January 31, 2011

steelseries 6GV2 Keyboard Review

  My birthday was a couple of weeks ago and  I don't ask for much besides my mandatory crab dinner, that's why I was happily surprised when my wife got me a gift that I had only nonchalantly mentioned one time while browsing a magazine. It was a keyboard, a good keyboard that I've needed for a long time. Yep, she's a keeper.
  For 6 years I had been using a Hewlett-Packard membrane keyboard and after 6 years of not being able to reload while running in an FPS or completing certain key commands with out getting a loud shriek from my motherboard (ghosting) I felt that I had learned my lesson for buying such a piece of crap. That's why my wife blessed me with my new beefy and fully mechanical 6GV2 Keyboard from steelseries, awesome!


 The 6GV2 has now gone under a 2 week stress test since it's maiden voyage and I have few if any complaints about it. The keys are very responsive, quiet once you learn how to use them, and have a nice feel to each push. It's a feel that sets the mechanical keyboard apart from the typical membrane board, it's easy to know why once you see the mechanics behind each key.

As far as I can tell this keyboard uses Linear Key Switches.

 There's not a lot to complain about so far but if there could be a complaint it would focus on the stubby right "Shift" button, it's pretty short compared to what most people might be used to. I find myself often hitting the "\" key while trying to mash the "Shift" key, I've been told though that you get used to it fairly quick, we'll see. Another change to my keyboard comfort zone is the exchange of the left "Windows" key for the steelseries Icon key. The right "Windows" key is still in place, so if you prefer that key you probably wont notice the change, but you should have seen my startled bewilderment turn to excessive rage when I attempted to launch the "Run" command in Windows. I hadn't yet noticed the switcheroo steelseries pulled on me and thought I was losing my mind.. how embarrassing.

In closing this is an excellent down to earth, tough keyboard for $100.00. It skips the excessive feature set of the SHIFT and is around $50.00 cheaper than the 7G.

Nifty:
 -Durable Build
 -Responsive Mechanical Keys
 -Clean Design
 -Cheap if you consider the durability and intended lifespan at 50 million keystrokes.
 -Gold Plated Contacts
 -"Shift+W+A+Space+R"




Not so nifty:
 -Short right "Shift" key
 -No left "Windows" key (personal preference)
 -Jordan ""n0thing"" Gilbert, nothing against him, I'm just jealous.