Steelseries Apex M800 Mechanical Keyboard
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2016-05-06
·
1,725 words · ~8 min read
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for 30 years Cherry MX key switches have
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rained Supreme in Enthusiast and gaming keyboards but as much as I love
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Neapolitan ice cream I think after eating it for 30 years I might be ready
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to at least try something new and apparently Razer Logitech and steel
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series feel the same way because each of them has released mechanical gaming
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keyboards in the last year based on a new made for gaming key switch by the
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way drop us a like on the video to let us know if you're ready to get your
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cringe on in the next part of scrapyard Wars 2 coming in 48
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click on my face now to try it for free
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so let's get this out of the way now while it was co-developed with kaiwa the
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famous manufacturer of Cherry MX clones
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the qs1 switch in the Apex m800 Bears
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little resemblance to Cherry's MX design and any similarity to the rron and
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Logitech co-developed RoR G seems to be purely coincidental qs1 switches are
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totally different feeling from anything that I've personally used before but
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I'll have to return to that in a bit the Apex m800 has two braided USB plugs for
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extra power a built-in USB 2.0 Hub at the top and interchangeable rubber feet
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on the bottom to change the angle on the desk like the original Apex and Apex raw
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rubber Dome keyboards the m800 features an aggressiv looking industrial design
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with a flatter than usual interactive surface and this goes for both the key
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switches underneath and the key caps especially when you compare to the
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stair-stepped profile and contoured key caps of most mechanical keyboards this
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was done for a couple of reasons number one to slightly reduce the travel time
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between Keys although neither Ed nor I was Elite enough for the reduced
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vertical distance to help in a noticeable way and without help from the
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bump on F or double bump on W it did make it more difficult to determine what
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row of keys you were resting on and number two to reduce fatigue something
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that I personally find a bit easier to buy into since particularly for gaming
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the m800 low stance reduces pressure points for me in spite of it lack of a
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wrist rest with my lazy resting a lot of my weight on the table posture and the
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space bar helps with this hand position as well I still don't like it for typing
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that'll be a common theme for this video and thanks to the very low 45 G
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actuation force of the qs1 switch under it is actually possible to accidentally
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press while resting on it though not nearly as bad as the death outer 2013
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but for gaming spamming space bar and just general use there is a reason that
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2 and 1/2 years after Steel series first introduced this space bar to their
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gaming keyboards this design unlike the
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macro row above the F Keys is still here
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it is better and more comfortable but let's talk macro Keys now the six macro
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buttons to the left are really well spaced so they're Within Reach but far
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enough away that you won't accidentally trigger a console command to change the
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name of every non-clan member in your server to headshot magnet every time you
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want to crouch and no you can't actually do that but you can do almost anything
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else steel series engine 3 might have
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ballooned to the size of a several yearold graphics card driver but damn it
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I guess they've got enough functionality in the thing to justify it there's one
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processor in the keyboard dedicated to just inputs up to 256 of them at a time
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just in case you thought your other dimensional clone might also want to
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press every single key on his m800 at the same time you are and then a
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separate processor to handle lighting effects so the utility of the keyboard
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is never affected by the bling bling and every single key on the keyboard
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including those macro Keys is reprogrammable and can be rebound to a
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keyboard function Mouse click some combination of the two a modifier a
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profile changer so you can switch up everything on the keyboard mid program
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instead of relying on auto profile switching when you launch an application
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which engine 3 supports as well and I didn't think I'd ever hear myself say
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this but steel Series has finally nailed it it's the e easiest customization
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interface I've personally used for a keyboard and they managed to do it
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without hamstringing the functionality good job and it looks like
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they've done a great job with the illumination effects as well with all
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the standard Fair like breathing reactive typing um but also some nice
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little touches like three different modes of selecting which Keys you want
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to configure including a handy little magic wand that intelligently grabs keys
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that are already grouped and some really sick pre-done effects including a Danish
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flag and a Yan cat inspired waving rainbow both of which made me smile
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they've also added Cloud sync to the driver but it's entirely optional so you
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don't even need to create an account you can just exit it when it first comes up
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and I think that's a really nice touch okay so we've beat around the bush
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long enough let's talk qs1 switches like the RoR G's qs1 are not going to be
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compatible with Cherry MX stem key cap so forget about customizing the key caps
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on your keyboard and like RoR G's they have a center mounted RGB LED that
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enables brighter more even lighting effects with less spill and they actuate
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at 1 and 1 12 mm of pressing down up to 25% faster than a Cherry MX but that's
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where the resemblance pretty much ends RoR G's have a very noticeable tactile
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bump while Qs 1's are a linear switch
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but I still think saying that they're like shorter Cherry MX Reds doesn't
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really get the point across they have a strange resistance when you bottom them
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out that feels uh kind of like pushing
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your hand down on a couch cushion like even even even oh yeah there's the you
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know there's the base of the couch um like if you had really thick O-rings on
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a cherry this makes them really quiet which is nice but also a little bit
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mushy feeling so between that and the lack of a tactile bump they are purely
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IMO abominable for typing at least in
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this super flat configuration so I won't be switching from MX Browns anytime soon
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but that doesn't mean that they're bad there's zero dead zone between the
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actuation and reset which is good for gamers and from talking to edzel whose
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skills are a little sharper than my own the Apex m800 felt a little cramped in
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his words but it is so well tuned for FPS gaming that it would beat out the
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g910 and every Cherry keyboard out there
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as as his csgo Board of choice if they
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had taken it one step further and left off the number pad to leave room for
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more natural mousing posture and I guess
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that's the conclusion here unlike many other keyboards that were designed for
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gaming this one really did go all in
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gaming first typing second and it shows
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so well done steel series now let's see a 10 keyless and you really got our
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attention not mine mind you I type on my keyboard but Ed's attention for sure
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point all right guys so I guess that's pretty much it thanks for watching if
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nice a