Steelseries Merc Stealth Gaming Keyboard Unboxing Linus Tech Tips
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2010-05-08
·
875 words · ~4 min read
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so today on my video blog we're going to be unboxing the Merc stealth keyboard
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This is a steel series keyboard it's uh a fairly premium gaming keyboard and the
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reason for that that they bring is what they bring to the table is a unique
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gaming terrain layout so what that means is they've got a whole section of this
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keyboard that is dedicated entirely to gaming Keys okay it has red blue or
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purple backlight and let's see what other interesting features they have on
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the back yeah that's pretty much it okay it
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supports simultaneous keystrokes like most gaming keyboards these days and to
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be perfectly honest with you the only reason I'm opening this thing is because
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I want to see it uh the cameraman I have
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uh substituting for the real cameraman today actually says that he's tried it
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and it doesn't work for him because he uses some kind of like ancient old
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school way of gaming where he uses like the right and left Mouse buttons to go
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forward and backwards and like a z to strafe left and right I was like what so
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it didn't work for him but I think for someone who uses a more well okay less
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traditional but more modern WD layout it might work so it comes with a steel
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series sticker okay there it is it comes with a steel series uh terms and
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conditions which I can't imagine you could possibly care about it comes with
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a steel series professional gaming gear oh this is just a brochure of some of
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their other products okay that's good and then it comes with uh download
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software you know I really like to see this instead of a disc to be perfectly
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honest most people have the internet these days you can go download the
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latest version of the software and we drivers and uh this is oh okay this is
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like a manual how to use your Merc stealth so the Merc stealth is kind of
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like the Merc except that it has a backlight and I think they've changed
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the aesthetic of it slightly so before we look at the keyboard itself why don't
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we just check out the cables that we have running out of the back here so I
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just got to get this zip tie off and here we go so we got one thick cable
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coming out of the Merc stealth and that plugs into a USB port on your computer
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as well as your headphone and mic jacks on the back of your computer so what
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that means is that this keyboard does have support for a USB hub and then it
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also has support for you to plug your headset and well your headset into the
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keyboard itself that just means you're able to run a shorter wire as opposed to
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a lot of other keyboards which don't have that feature now you do have little
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stands and if I can get the cameraman to kind of get like a weird angle on this
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here from the side so you can see how much that elevates the keyboard versus
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running it just flat like that there you go and then let's have a look at the
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gaming terrain because besides the gaming terrain you've got a fairly bog
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standard layout here okay tactile feedback on the keys but basically what
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it comes down to is this part of the keyboard so actually I'm just going
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going to go ahead and put my hands here so there's your WD there's your q& e so
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to speak cuz they've got it sort of mapped out for you that way and then
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you've got tab caps lock I'm not sure who uses caps lock for gaming but uh
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yeah I find it gets in the way more than anything else there's shift control so
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actually shift shift forward actually that's kind of neat so the way they've
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mapped it out basically is such that you've got a similar layout to here but
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it's supposed to be quite a bit more comfortable and more ergonomic to have
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your hand coming in at this angle you've got far easier access to all of your
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number keys so it means you're going to be able to reach all of your weapons far
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more easily as well as access with your thumb to quite a few more keys than
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you'd normally have so actually it's kind of a pretty cool looking feature
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I'd like the cameraman to just kind of have like a quick look at the keyboard
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overall I don't see anything particularly stupid about the layout
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like every once in a while you'll see something like a shortened shift key or
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a short backspace key or something ridiculous like that doesn't have any of
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those mistakes and we'll just have a quick look at the back and thank you for
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checking out my video blog on the steel series Merc stealth