WEBVTT 00:00:00.240 --> 00:00:06.879 This video is brought to you by our trusted graphics partner, NVIDIA. 00:00:05.040 --> 00:00:11.280 Welcome to my unboxing and first look at the Steeler Apex RAW gaming keyboard. 00:00:09.440 --> 00:00:16.480 This is also the first unboxing that we're doing in our all-new Steeler 00:00:14.240 --> 00:00:21.840 themed gaming den set that we're going to be using for Steeler unboxings as 00:00:19.279 --> 00:00:25.279 well as Steeler product videos showing you everything that there is to know 00:00:23.519 --> 00:00:29.840 about their products which are somehow different from unboxings 00:00:28.000 --> 00:00:34.399 in a certain way that is different. All right, so let's start with what they have to say for themselves about this. 00:00:32.559 --> 00:00:38.480 designed for quick reflexes. This is a lowprofile keyboard, meaning that the 00:00:36.480 --> 00:00:42.239 keys don't need to be pressed down as far in order to actuate them. It does 00:00:40.239 --> 00:00:45.200 use membrane key switches rather than mechanical key switches, but given the 00:00:43.920 --> 00:00:49.200 price, this should pretty much be expected. It has raised macro keys, and 00:00:47.520 --> 00:00:53.360 we're going to show you how this is used for fast key combinations, as well as a 00:00:51.520 --> 00:00:56.879 brilliant white backlight with eight different levels of brightness. Other 00:00:54.960 --> 00:00:59.760 than that, I pretty much know everything else there is to know about this 00:00:58.079 --> 00:01:03.120 keyboard, having already looked at all this stuff. So, let's go ahead and get 00:01:01.199 --> 00:01:07.520 it open. So, Steel Series has a plain black box with a black mat inside. And 00:01:05.840 --> 00:01:12.960 then once you open it up, you find pretty much the keyboard itself in a 00:01:10.560 --> 00:01:17.840 plastic sleeve, which I'm having a great amount of difficulty removing. 00:01:15.920 --> 00:01:25.040 There we go. That was my big effort. That's like uh you know, some kind of 00:01:21.920 --> 00:01:27.280 combo that I unlocked. It's like the 00:01:25.040 --> 00:01:30.720 plastic removal and put the product down combo. There we go. Okay. We've also got 00:01:29.040 --> 00:01:35.119 a quick start guide, which should be pretty much plug the thing into the thing. Although, they might give you a 00:01:33.040 --> 00:01:38.400 few little instructions about how to use the software that's included cuz there's 00:01:36.720 --> 00:01:41.920 some neat functionality in there. And last but not least, you've got a couple 00:01:39.920 --> 00:01:45.759 of rubber feet that can be used to adjust the angle of the keyboard. So, 00:01:43.600 --> 00:01:49.360 those just come in a little ziploc bag here. So, we're going to go ahead and 00:01:47.439 --> 00:01:56.399 put that behind it and show you guys first the bottom of the keyboard. 00:01:52.960 --> 00:01:58.320 And there was a cat incident. So, yes. 00:01:56.399 --> 00:02:02.079 All right. So, on the bottom, you've got these two uh rubber feet that do not 00:02:00.560 --> 00:02:07.360 move. And then you've got these two here, which can be removed just by popping them off. And then you can plug 00:02:05.360 --> 00:02:10.879 a new one into it to give the keyboard more of an angle compared to if you 00:02:09.679 --> 00:02:16.160 don't plug it in. So, there you go. You can see that raises it about a centimeter or so, maybe a little bit 00:02:14.080 --> 00:02:19.120 more than a centimeter. And that's pretty much it for the bottom of the 00:02:17.360 --> 00:02:24.640 keyboard. Other than that, it's uh well, a keyboard. So, let's move on to the 00:02:21.200 --> 00:02:27.520 top. Layout wise, I'm so happy to see 00:02:24.640 --> 00:02:31.520 Steeler has not committed any cardinal sins, as I like to call them, in terms 00:02:29.200 --> 00:02:37.280 of the layout. Long shift key, long enter, long backspace. And I love to see 00:02:35.120 --> 00:02:41.280 that macro keys are also sort of uniquely positioned on this particular 00:02:39.200 --> 00:02:46.879 keyboard in that they are here on the left where we've seen them many, many 00:02:43.040 --> 00:02:48.720 times. And they are also da da da above 00:02:46.879 --> 00:02:53.599 all of the F keys. This is for a number of reasons. So the ones here are because 00:02:50.879 --> 00:02:57.120 when you're on the WD keys, which are, you know, the pretty much the most 00:02:54.959 --> 00:03:00.640 common gaming keys, you can reach this, you can reach this, you can kind of 00:02:58.400 --> 00:03:04.080 reach this. You definitely can't reach another row over. And we've seen 00:03:02.080 --> 00:03:08.239 keyboards with as many as two or three banks of keys there. Past two, it gets a 00:03:06.640 --> 00:03:12.640 little bit on the impractical side. These ones up here are meant for people 00:03:10.080 --> 00:03:16.480 who often use their F keys for binding abilities or whatever else. So, what you 00:03:14.400 --> 00:03:19.840 can do is you can either hit a macro key and you can actually see I'll give you 00:03:18.000 --> 00:03:23.200 guys a better angle here. You can see that the macro key is raised 00:03:21.360 --> 00:03:27.200 significantly above the F key. This allows you to feel where the macro key 00:03:25.280 --> 00:03:32.799 is without actually actuating either of the buttons. Or you can actually program 00:03:30.239 --> 00:03:37.360 the keys to do a particular thing and then a particular thing. So, you can 00:03:34.159 --> 00:03:40.080 actually hit a couple of them, one, two, 00:03:37.360 --> 00:03:42.959 or even three buttons as a as a combination move. So, this could be 00:03:41.200 --> 00:03:47.680 like, you know, fire one bank of missiles, fire two, fire all of them 00:03:45.200 --> 00:03:51.920 because we're stuff's getting real, so go for it. Uh, so that's really neat. 00:03:49.599 --> 00:03:56.239 So, there's five here, 12 here for a total of 17 macro buttons, and you can 00:03:53.599 --> 00:03:59.360 use the L1 or the L2 buttons to switch the functionality. So, you can have an 00:03:57.760 --> 00:04:02.879 unlimited number of profiles within the Steel Series Engine software, and then 00:04:01.280 --> 00:04:06.000 you can have two layers of macro functionality per profile. Another 00:04:04.720 --> 00:04:10.319 really cool thing, I mean this is one of the things they actually don't talk about that much in the marketing, but I 00:04:09.200 --> 00:04:14.400 think is really cool is you can completely reprogram any key on the 00:04:12.239 --> 00:04:18.239 keyboard to do pretty much whatever you want. You don't have to leave it the way 00:04:16.320 --> 00:04:22.639 it is stock. So you can see Steel Series has relocated the Windows key from the 00:04:20.639 --> 00:04:27.520 right to the left and the Steel Series key from the left to the right. You can 00:04:24.160 --> 00:04:29.199 see my older 7G here has a Steel Series 00:04:27.520 --> 00:04:33.759 key on the left and a Windows key on the right. So, according to the feedback 00:04:31.759 --> 00:04:36.400 they've gotten, people want the steel or they want the Windows key back on the 00:04:35.120 --> 00:04:40.800 left. So, they've gone ahead and done that. Now, this is an ergonomic thing 00:04:38.479 --> 00:04:45.759 that Slick Diesel and I all agreed on when we saw this keyboard in the Steel 00:04:42.960 --> 00:04:50.240 Series suite, and that is this longer space bar. So, I'm going to try and give 00:04:48.080 --> 00:04:53.600 you guys a good look at this. I have two different feet on it right now, so don't 00:04:51.759 --> 00:04:57.520 worry. It doesn't normally do that, but there you go. Uh, so what this does is 00:04:55.520 --> 00:05:01.120 when you're typing, a short space bar is fine. it doesn't make any difference 00:04:59.120 --> 00:05:05.040 because you rest just the the side of your thumb on the key. However, when 00:05:02.960 --> 00:05:09.280 you're gaming, you're much more likely to end up in a situation where you have 00:05:06.880 --> 00:05:11.840 your thumb resting down like this because you're not sitting on the home 00:05:10.880 --> 00:05:17.280 row. You're actually a little bit further up than that. So, what this does is it's it's just meant to be a more 00:05:15.520 --> 00:05:22.080 natural way to press the space bar without actually interfering with normal 00:05:20.320 --> 00:05:25.919 typing. So, I think that's a pretty cool little thing as well. And moving right 00:05:24.800 --> 00:05:30.639 along. Oh, yeah. I should probably show you guys just the overall design of the keyboard. I mean, I talked about how 00:05:28.400 --> 00:05:35.680 it's low profile, but it has sort of a cool lowp profofile shape to it as well. 00:05:33.039 --> 00:05:41.440 So, I'll do my traditional iPhone size comparison, although with the HT1 HTC1 00:05:39.919 --> 00:05:45.840 coming soon. I might be doing away with that pretty soon. So, at its thinnest point, it's actually a little thinner 00:05:44.080 --> 00:05:49.840 than an iPhone 4. And then at the thickest point up on the top, it is 00:05:47.919 --> 00:05:55.199 significantly thicker than an iPhone 4. So, it has kind of a a curvy sort of 00:05:52.639 --> 00:05:59.840 angular angular shape to it overall. You can actually see, I'll show you guys 00:05:57.120 --> 00:06:05.759 right here up close if you want to see how much the buttons actually need to be 00:06:03.120 --> 00:06:09.360 depressed. That is not to say sad, but uh pressed down in order to actuate 00:06:07.919 --> 00:06:15.120 them. One thing I missed about the layout is they've added little bumps on the W key. So, this allows you to more 00:06:13.360 --> 00:06:18.479 easily find your way back to them. I personally don't find something like 00:06:16.400 --> 00:06:22.000 that that helpful because my landmarks are usually more to do with the 00:06:19.840 --> 00:06:25.600 positioning of my spacebar and my shift and then I can find my way back to WD. 00:06:24.160 --> 00:06:30.960 But if you have trouble finding it in the dark, then that's something that you 00:06:27.840 --> 00:06:31.919 can uh definitely benefit from. Now, I'm 00:06:30.960 --> 00:06:36.720 going to go ahead and plug it in, and we'll be back in a moment. So, there are only a few things that are really left. 00:06:35.280 --> 00:06:41.199 We've got it plugged in now. You can see the backlight, but we're going to turn the lights off to show it to you in more 00:06:39.360 --> 00:06:44.639 detail. So, the Steel Series key is used to control backlight brightness, as well 00:06:42.880 --> 00:06:50.080 as your media keys, volume up, volume down, all that good stuff. And they have 00:06:47.199 --> 00:06:53.360 readded the diagonal keys over here. So, they had taken them away on some 00:06:51.759 --> 00:07:00.319 keyboard and then a bunch of people were upset. So, they have now brought them back. If you wanted the diagonal keys 00:06:56.800 --> 00:07:03.120 back, then now you have them. It does 00:07:00.319 --> 00:07:07.440 support up to 20 simultaneous button presses, uh, which is sort of an anti- 00:07:05.759 --> 00:07:12.000 ghosting type feature that prevents you from accidentally triggering random 00:07:10.000 --> 00:07:15.360 extra events, which is what ghosting actually refers to. Most gaming 00:07:13.599 --> 00:07:19.440 keyboards do have this feature, but 20 is pretty aggressive, especially for a 00:07:16.880 --> 00:07:22.800 USB model. And one thing that's kind of cool about it as well is they have 00:07:21.120 --> 00:07:27.199 reduced the width of the keyboard a little bit by narrowing the gaps that 00:07:24.880 --> 00:07:31.599 you usually find between the three different groupings of keys on the 00:07:29.199 --> 00:07:36.479 keyboard itself. So it makes it still have a very large layout. So you've 00:07:34.560 --> 00:07:40.560 still got extra keys at the top and on the side, but without being sort of 00:07:38.319 --> 00:07:46.080 extraordinarily wide like something like a G15 Gen 1, which is sort of like that 00:07:43.759 --> 00:07:49.199 that first weird sort of lots of macros gaming keyboard. that had like that 00:07:47.520 --> 00:07:52.080 screen on the top and all that. Uh the wrist rest is a little bit longer than 00:07:50.720 --> 00:07:57.039 usual. So, when you're resting on the home row, you're going to find yourself 00:07:53.840 --> 00:07:58.319 right around here. So, there you go. I 00:07:57.039 --> 00:08:02.879 personally find that more comfortable. It's one of the things I like about the 7G and dislike about a lot of the other 00:08:01.520 --> 00:08:06.160 keyboards that are out there is very, very short wrist rests. And I think that 00:08:04.960 --> 00:08:12.000 pretty much wraps it up. So, I'm going to run around and turn off some lights and we'll show you guys the eight 00:08:09.120 --> 00:08:15.280 different uh levels of backlighting that are available on it. There's still a 00:08:13.360 --> 00:08:21.160 window open, so there's still some light in here, but we're going to go ahead and 00:08:17.120 --> 00:08:21.160 step it down one by one. 00:08:25.599 --> 00:08:31.319 Oh, it's still Nope, it's off now. There we go. 00:08:32.080 --> 00:08:38.399 And I think that's pretty much it. Thank you for checking out my unboxing and first look at the Steel Series Apex RAW. 00:08:37.039 --> 00:08:42.640 Don't forget to subscribe to Linus Tech Tips for unboxings, reviews, and other computer videos.