SC2F.org Reviews the SteelSeries StarCraft II Zboard Keyset

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We’d love to thank Steelseries for helping us celebrate StarCraft 2’s launch right. If you’re one of our lucky followers who was at a location where StarCraft2Forum.org was throwing launch events, you may have nabbed yourself a SteelSeries StarCraft 2 mousepad. In my gaming opinion, SteelSeries mousepads are among the best. I’ve used a few of Razer’s and I certainly prefer the washable and flexible material that SteelSeries offers. I myself use a QcK+ pad (it’s ginormous) and it both makes my desk more comfortable as well as helps me keep a quick response in game.

But last week SteelSeries wanted us to take a look at the StarCraft II Zboard keyboard and keyset. They sent me one to play with and asked for me feedback, and that’s exactly what I’m going to give.

I know for a lot of us price is a huge point of contention. Even if something’s the best product on the market, you’re not going to use it if you can’t afford it, right? Exactly. And guess what? The SteelSeries Zboard keyboard/set really isn’t very cheap. In fact, it’s quite expensive for a wired gaming keyboard. Of course at $69.99 it’s well short of Razer’s ridiculous $119.99 Marauder StarCraft 2 keyboard. (The StarCraft 2 keyset itself is $24.99 and is compatible with SteelSeries' new Shift gaming board). So it’s certainly a much cheaper StarCraft 2 licensed keyboard. If that’s important to you, one nock for SteelSeries’s Zboard.

Let’s talk about it’s use. I’m a Diamond level player. I’m certainly not the best player on Battle.net, but I do all right by myself. This keyboard, hands down, improved my actions per minute significantly. I was averaging between 92 and 115 actions per minute prior to setting myself up with the keyboard, and now after adapting to it somewhat, my actions per minute have jumped to somewhere between 125 and 140 actions per minute. How much of that is due to increased practice versus the keyboard is hard to tell, but it’s a noticeable improvement.

I was also particularly impressed with the software that installs with the drivers. It allows you to fully remap the board so you can completely change your hotkey layout, and it also records your keystrokes, letting you know your APM for games and giving you a chance to improve. For instance, it'll let you know that you only hit "A" 14 times when you're playing as Terran, telling you that you need to use hotkeys more to produce Marines. Very useful.

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What I love about the keyboard is its tactile response. Most of the keys (most, see my next paragraph) respond very well to touch and give a very real impression that the key has been depressed. It also recovers much more quickly than my prior keyboard (not a gaming keyboard). I also love the media keys and the ability to swap between the SC2 keyset and the normal gaming keyset which comes with the board. You can literally swap it in about five seconds, just don’t break it! I also really like the shrinking of the windows key on the board, I press it a lot less. Also, you can completely reprogram all of the keys on the board, so you can completely deactivate alt+tab, alt+F4, and the windows key if you wish. You can also move all of your hotkeys into a closer configuration if you wish, although I haven’t done any of that.

So in general I’m happy with the keyboard’s overall performance. But there are a few takeaways. Firstly, the space bar is broken into two sections, a larger left button and a smaller right. The right space bar doesn't depress correctly, sometimes it doesn’t detect, and after only a week of use it’s starting to squeak. What is that? I also hate the shift key. It’s colored blue which makes it pretty tough to see in the dark, and you can’t tell when you’re pressing it. Lastly, I just can’t find a justification for the keyboard’s numpad system. It’s designed so that you can swap between Zerg, Protoss, and Terran hotkeys for macro buttons, but honestly who is going to use their right hand for hotkeys? Only a left-handed player (I’m left handed and I use a right-handed configuration). I don’t use these buttons and never will.

I do have serious concerns about the life of this keyboard. It doesn’t seem all that durable and I’m starting to think it’s going to break after a few months. Something’s going to go wrong with this thing, I’m sure of it. But I do have another keyset if this one breaks.

So there you have it. It’s got some fancy features I really liked and some that just plain need to go. Honestly I don’t think it’s worth the $70, but if you’re looking to squeeze that extra APM out of yourself and can’t afford one of the higher-end boards, this could be a decent buy. For now, though, I think I’ll stick with their mousepads.

 

Are those keys really circular? I can't imagine a circular Numpad being all that easy to use.

 

Yeah. They're circular. And I don't even touch 'em.

 

I am a left-handed player and I can tell you that I still wouldn't use the num-pad keys. It's just been easier to adapt to right handed functionality....in fact since it has always been this way it doesn't even feel like adapting (the idea of "left-handed" mice for example is just weird to me). Also, you don't need to concern yourself so much when shopping for new mice/equipment since you're already using 'standard' stuff.

I wouldn't mind seeing an FPS keyboard redesign for the right side of the keyboard, since I've never liked the off-set WASD keys for movement and the right side keys, while having proper alignment, don't typically have a high enough concentration of buttons to easily bind everything you need to. But for RTS games I utilize the keyboard no different than the righties.

On a side note, is this keyboard in 'compliance' with SC2 ToA? There was a recently a forum topic brought up how Razer's keyboard allows for macro programming in violation of the ToA, curious if the same thing applies here.