I braved the Black Friday lines… at about three in the afternoon, because this guy isn’t going to get trampled for discounts on computer hardware. Luckily, Best Buy still had a single G900 Chaos Spectrum mouse in stock at 50% off, and a few G810 Orion Spectrum keyboards at about 35% off. I was actually looking to pick them up on Boxing Week if they dropped in price, because I surprisingly needed another mechanical keyboard, but this is even better than I expected.
So, I picked up one of each.
One of the things that attracted me to the G900 was its ambidextrous design with a tilt scroll wheel. It’s surprisingly hard to get a mouse for left-handed users that also has four directions of scrolling. The 2014 left-handed edition of the Razer Naga has a tilt wheel, although its left and right mouse buttons are swapped, so those who are used to right-handed mice will need to wait until Razer Synapse loads and connects to reverse them to left-on-left and right-on-right. What I’m trying to say is that, for the last two years, my old mouse would have left button right-click and right button left-click until my profile abruptly kicked in about 30 seconds after login. I don’t need to deal with that anymore, while still keeping the mouse tilt wheel.
I did notice that Logitech’s G Software refuses to allow binding scroll wheel input to mouse buttons (which I attach to my thumb buttons for comfortable scrolling). Both EVGA and Razer allow this, albeit you need to perform a full click for each notch, short of writing an AutoHotkey macro. It’s not too bad, because you can bind the keyboard’s up and down arrows instead, but scrolling and arrows might not behave the same in all applications, such as with Tweetdeck.
As for the G810, this keyboard feels really nice. The coating of the keycaps are nice and non-stick, the RomerG switches feel pretty good to me, keeping in mind my favorite Cherry MX switch is the MX Brown, and the keyboard’s feet are possible the best I’ve used. There are actually two sets of feet: one set that inclines the keyboard to about 4 degrees, and another that raises it to about 8 degrees. (These values are written on them.) Even better, it’s stable and takes quite a bit of force to slide.
I would prefer it to have a couple of macro keys, even a single row of them, but there’s only so much I can ask for. The media keys are RGB backlit and surprisingly clicky. I’m not sure what type of switch they use, but it feels mechanical… but a very short one like you would see on a mouse, not a keyboard. The G810 also has a volume roller, which I was a huge fan of when I was introduced to it with the first generation of Corsair K60 and K90 mechanical keyboards. (If another brand did it before them, in 2012, then I’m sorry! Corsair was the first that I’ve seen do it!) I should note that the Logitech roller is a bit smoother than the Corsair one, but, again, the K60 and K90 are about four years old at this point.
So yeah, that’s about it.
I just bought the G910 orion
I just bought the G910 orion spectrum just for 149.99€ instead of 189.99. Give me more for less…
Nice. I looked into it,
Nice. I looked into it, especially with its macro keys, but heard a bunch of complaints about the non-standard keycap shapes. How do you like them?
There are actually two
There are actually two versions(g910) from what I can tell, the original with the “contoured” keycaps, and the revision with the more squarish wrist rest and normal keycaps. The only thing holding me back is the fact they have no on-board memory.. it does look quite tempting at this price though.
BLAH! I was wondering why I
BLAH! I was wondering why I kept wanting to call the G910 "Orion Spectrum"! There's three keyboards in those two model numbers.
G810 Orion Spectrum
G910 Orion Spectrum
G910 Orion Spark
That's three different keyboards. The Orion Spectrums have the typical keycaps. The G910s have the macro keys. Mix and match to separate the models.
What's worse is that Best Buy has the G810 Orion Spectrum and the G910 Orion Spectrum on sale for the same price! I could have got the macro keys I wanted for free! Ahhhhhhh!
Oh well.
For tilt scroll wheel I use
For tilt scroll wheel I use the Roccat Kone XTD, best mouse I ever used, I’ve bought it at 50 euros (it’s usually 90). For less expensive go for the Roccat Kone +, it has the same scroll wheel, but a 6k dpi sensor instead of an 8k one.
The Roccat Kone is a
The Roccat Kone is a right-handed mouse. The Chaos Spectrum is ambidextrous (including thumb buttons on both sides).
There's plenty of right-handed mice with a tilt wheel. Ambidextrous or left-handed is much more rare. I've found, like, two that also have thumb buttons on at least the right side of the mouse (where a lefty's thumb is). All I can think of at the moment is this one and the left-handed Razer Naga.
Forgot about the ambidextrous
Forgot about the ambidextrous thingy. For keyboards, I believe nothing beats a good old Model M, unless you hate your co-workers. Or especially if you hate them…
Heh. No problem. And yeah, I
Heh. No problem. And yeah, I used to love the Model M. Now that Unicomp has the license, they are actually produced about an hour away from the PC Perspective offices.
Here in Europe, at least in
Here in Europe, at least in my country, it’s cheaper to get a 2nd hand Model M than an Unicomp. Something like 50/100 euros for a Model M, and 150 plus for an Unicomp.
Typing this on a Model M
Typing this on a Model M actually.
Nice savings for sure. I just
Nice savings for sure. I just find increasingly hard to find a decent looking keyboard these days. Seems like most brands now focus on gamers, which is fine because i am one. But what i really dont like is that the PR guys think that all gamers want these elaborate keyboard designs with the most stupid names ever invented, and circus lights to match the whole ensemble.
I still rock a 2 year old Steelseries 6gv2, its plain its simple.
Check out Leopold and KUL
Check out Leopold and KUL keyboards for some non-gamer focused mechanical keyboards. I have a black TKL Leopold with Cherry browns with blank keycaps that is about as far from circus lights as you can get.