[section_title title=”Performance”]Performance
Having both of the Aivias with their different switch types, in front of me did take up a significant area of my desk, however it did enable me to switch between the two to make the most of the different switches. Whilst switch types are subjective, the brown is a great tactile switch for most and the red is an ideal linear switch for gamers – both of which have a low actuation weight of 45g, although because of the subjectivity of switches, I won’t allow it to make a significant impact of my overall thoughts – although I do prefer browns! Since I’m essentially eliminating the main difference between the two types, I’m left with the LED colours, which again, is all down to the preference of the user. Ignoring this means I will focus purely on how well the keyboard actually performs, over how it looks.
Gaming
The Aivia is a big keyboard, but since Gigabyte have opted to put the macro keys along the top left edge, I couldn’t fall victim to pressing them instead of the left Ctrl key, which I often find with keyboards with additional keys along the left side. Having Cherry MX switches felt great when using and having the linear switches can improve reaction times by not bottoming out on them. For FPS this is great, however not so much for other genres, although the switches still feel great. MMOs/MOBA and RPG games were easier to play as the macro keys could be bound to various functions that aid you in your quests. The keyboard is very comfortable for use with its large palm rest, which whilst may actually hinder your performance and not be as good for you as you might believe, I found it great for the long gaming sessions I had. The backlighting also aided my ability to game deep into the night as I could clearly make out each key. Overall, it’s a great keyboard to use for gaming, although this could be said for any mechanical keyboard with similar switches.
General use
For general use the Aivia is a breeze to use and feels great using the Cherry switches – whilst I preferred the brown, the slightly lighter force required to activate the switches, was ideal for me when typing a fair amount (like this review). Again aided by the palm rest, it is very comfortable to use and the inclusion of the media keys meant it was very simple to change the volume levels and the audio track. I found the profile feature very useful for day to day tasks like photo editing and internet browsing, as I could assign different macros depending on which profile I wanted to use – great for editing in Photoshop then switching to MS Word – although I did have a hard time remembering which colour I had set to which profile.
