[section_title title=”Software”]Software
The provided software enables you to do many things with the keyboard, from changing the colour of the LEDS to setting up the macros and syncing profiles to executables, so the keyboard will change to a certain profile based on what program is launched. This means you can have the keyboard automatically go to a battlefield profile or DOTA 2 profile when you launched the game, saving time and most importantly remembering which profile you assigned to what!
Upon loading the software, you are provided with this screen:
Although the software may seem daunting at first, it is actually quite simple to use.
In essence, you select a profile either by selecting a tab from the top or by just placing the keyboard into the wanted profile using the button combinations. Once a profile is selected, the process of changing keys is quite simple. If you click on the visual keyboard you can select each key, with this key selected you can then access the menu in the lower left. With this menu, there are a few actions you can set for each key. You can assign a macro to each key.
You can change the assignment of each key (so you can have keys register as others). This facility gives you a way to make the keyboard layout truly unique and means you can set common mistypes to be what you actually require.
You can also disable keys entirely, meaning you could only have keys that you need for the game active. An interesting action is the load program option: this enables you to load any program you want when you press the key if you have this option set. This has its uses as it means you can launch a game or helper program without even taking your hands off the keyboard quickly.
The thumb keys are also edited in the same way. You can either set these to act like the control key, shift etc. or assign macros to them. You can also record macros on the fly in real time and have them assigned straight away, but more on this later.
The sync option is also very handy. This option allows you to set up to 5 trigger programs and whenever the programs are launched, the keyboard will automatically enter the set profile, as mentioned earlier.
The circular graphic on the left of the first image shows you how much of the keyboards memory you have used with the current profile. This is good as it lets you know quickly how many edits you have left. After you have set up the profile, all you have to do is press apply on the right and you get a dialog saying loading. This I found took quite a while (around 20 seconds) and the program seemed to stop responding, but I guess this is just when the profile is uploaded to the keyboard.
Now to the important bit of the software and keyboard, the lighting! To gain access to the lighting you have to click on the purple arrow on the very right of the software. This brings up the lighting menu.
This lets you change the colour of each profile and also whether the LEDs are off, a solid colour, dimming (breathe effect) or Colour loop, which cycles through the colours with a breathing effect.
To select the colour you click on the coloured square next to each profile, this brings up the following palette for you to choose the colour you want from.
The colour at the moment only allows you to choose one colour for the whole keyboard, regardless of the picture on the packaging. I’m hoping that separate zone illumination will come with a later software / firmware update.
The colours when they are on the keyboard are very vibrant and really an accurate representation of what you see on the screen. The keyboard does look good when lit up.
Next we shall talk about the performance of the keyboard in its designed application – gaming!
