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in the steel series Suite they're showing off the Apex and the Apex raw

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and I'm going to start with the Apex raw welcome to Linus Tech tips at CES 2013

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our trip to the show this year is powered by Corsair maker of quality PC

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components and peripherals our trusted storage partner is seate technology and

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our trusted networking partner is

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linkis okay guys backlit keyboard has

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two layers of macro functionality so check this out we got macro Keys here

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you got five we have macro Keys here you've got 12 you can actually program

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those in two different ways but we've seen this before the entire keyboard

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itself is completely reprogrammable as well so that means you've actually got

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what is essentially what something like 200 functionalities that you can

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Implement depending on which layer of macros you're using they've changed a

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couple of the key ergonomic things about this keyboard versus ones in the past

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number one is they've added the Windows key back this is based on feedback from

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Gamers remember guys Steel series is not so much flare and fluff although this is

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a NIC looking product compared to the more blocky keyboards that we've seen in

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the past they actually designed for pro Gamers they've got a wide variety of

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teams they sponsor so this is one of the key changes that might cause some debate

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but remember guys all the keys on the keyboard are reprogrammable so don't

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worry too much about it number two check out this space bar it looks kind of

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stupid you know what it reminds me of it looks kind of like the 7g which also

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looks kind of stupid because it has that huge wrist rest you know what else my

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wife refuses to type on anything but a 7g if I put anything else in front of

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her she will not use it because it is incredibly comfortable things like this

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come from a comfort and design standpoint not from a a visual appeal

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standpoint so if you think about it in terms of typing you don't need a wide

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space bar because your hands are positioned like this with the tips of

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your thumbs on the space bar however Gamers you know I'm not going to

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generalize or anything but come on have you ever sat up straight and gamed like

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this I don't think so you slouching your seat you got your wrist down you got

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your thumb lying on the space bar here

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that makes it easier and faster to respond to so again good job steel

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series final sort of ergonomic weirdness

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is these diagonal Keys here these are a carryover from the acquisition of ideas

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on a number of years back and particularly for MMO Gamers steel Series

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has gotten extremely good feedback about it so this guy one zone okay two layers

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of macros this is the Cadillac at 9 9.99

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remember Guys these are membrane keyboards so that's why you're seeing these kinds of price points with this

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kind of functionality on the keyboards it has five zones Zone one zone two zone

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three Zone did I already say this one four and zone five which is the logo

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right here and these lights that are on the side cool thing about this one is

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it's got four layers 10 macro Keys here in addition to the ones up here and you

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can actually change depending on the layer you're in what zones are

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illuminated so if you go okay I'm an MMO player I have my you know my utility

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class my attack class I have my healer class or whatever else you can go okay

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I'm my attack character whole thing goes red so you know what you're doing you've

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got you can make sure that all the macros that you're going to be hitting are the ones that are optimized for the

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character you're using healer class turn the whole thing white or you can even do

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things like just change one zone you can go okay I want something more subtle so

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I'm going to change the yellow on the side it say 16.8 million colors or

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something like that so you can have whatever you want change that to a different color on the Fly I actually

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missed an ergonomic change and I think this I think this laptop went into sleep

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or there it is it's properly illuminated now final ergonomic change I didn't

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mention before is the macros up here are slightly raised here if I can get you to

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get a good look at that these are slightly raised this allows you to

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quickly perform some kind of a a combo

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where you can press one of them and then the other and fall off of it like that

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it's actually it's really neat the way that showed it to us and they gave us a

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couple examples of where Gamers will actually use these there's a couple of

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dots on the W which allows you to find your way back to WD the same way you'd

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find your way to the home row key if you were typing

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and sorry excuse me it's got a USB hub

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built in sorry diesel are are you focused on that there we go USB hub H

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built in and I think that pretty much wraps up everything I wanted to say

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about this keyboard oh yeah okay so you can adjust your brightness adjust your

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volume you got your media Keys over here full number pad like I said membrane

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keyboard all about quickness they're advertising this as the fastest gaming

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keyboard in terms of you know your travel distance the feedback that the

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tactile feedback that's required to press the buttons whatever you want to

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what however you want to look at it come on over here I want to show you guys a

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cool prototype this is of the apex not

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the Apex raw can you hit the lights sir so this one comes apart so they've

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got it programmed with a variety of different colors you can see has a very

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different look depending on what kind of colors you're using and this is the kind

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of technology that goes inside something like this they've also updated their

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software in kind of a neat way and that is they can create heat Maps where you

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can set it to okay maybe you don't know exactly what keys are optimal for you

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you can have it set up heat Maps while you're gaming to show you which parts of

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the keyboard you're using most on the software on your screen so it might be

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able to give you tips like okay most of the keys you use are in here and you're

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using R for reload still you're not really using e that much why don't you

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change e to reload save yourself 7% travel distance and potentially actually

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make you a better gamer I think we can all agree that in the past especially

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and for the most part better peripherals don't make you a better

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gamer inherently but steel series is trying to change that so don't forget to

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subscribe to lonus Tech tip so you can catch all of our CES 2013 coverage we'll

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see you guys soon thanks for watching Linus Tech tips

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at CES 2013 powered by Corsair Seagate

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technology and linkis