14 DAY TRIAL // Keyboards are the least aspect you would consider while performing your mundane office tasks. Many people are fully productive using a no-name branded keyboard, and they manage to do their jobs better than on, say, Microsoft or Logitech counterpart. However, gamers are a special breed of computer users, and tend to be extremely picky with their gear.
Gaming keyboards have started to flood the specialized market niche lately, and we have seen quite some nifty products from Razer, Gigabyte and the likes, but despite their impressive hardware performance, their looks are not quiet easy to distinguish themselves from an office keyboard.
Saitek's PK17U "Cyborg Gaming Keyboard" was previously showcased during this year's CES in January. The new device takes backlighting at a totally new level, previously unknown to the professional gaming keyboards. It allows users to fully control not only the LEDs' intensity, but they can also mix the three color tones into different hues.
More than that, users who easily get distracted by the variety of glowing lights under their fingerprints, can define lighting zones for the commonly-used groups of keys, such as A,S,D,W, Space and the four directional keys next to the numeric pad.
The keyboard's design is also astounding, and perfectly matches the Cyborg theme, although it resembles more of Predator's gear to me. The fortified design gives the keyboard a truly immersive gaming feeling, with controls that look as if they were taken from Captain Picard's space ship.
Saitek's Cyborg also sports a group of favorite keys that can be programmed individually, in order to perform different actions for multiple key presses of the same keycap. This way, users can shoot or dodge faster, or perform other critical moves when playing with the guys on the LAN.
And, if you are one of the gamers who manage to ruin a keyboard thanks to the odd habit of punching it to purge your anger, rest assured: the keys sport metal-plated caps. Saitek's PK17U "Cyborg Gaming Keyboard" is available for purchase at an estimative price tag of $79.99.
