Simple Gamer

Saitek Cyborg V1 Keyboard Impressions

It’s been a little while since I last updated, mainly because I’ve been bogged down with work and then been on the phone to Alienware/Dell Support regarding my Alienware M11x fan. However, more on that another time, for now I want to talk about a keyboard I’ve had the chance to try out.

I’m not really into keyboards too much – as in I don’t kick up a fuss if the keyboard isn’t a gaming keyboard or has special fancy customisable features with backlit buttons. Since I’m a regular laptop user, the laptop keyboards suffice for me. I’ve been using laptops before even using a proper PC, so it’s almost natural for me to use a laptop keyboard over a desktop keyboard, which may sound crazy but it’s the truth!

I have used a range of normal keyboards by different manufacturers, such as Microsoft and Logitech, and on the whole they’ve always felt pretty much the same. There’s one thing that used to bug me, and that would be huge gaps between the keys. For some reason, and I think because of my affinity towards laptop keyboards, I hate having huge gaps between keys. It feels like it can slow your typing speed down and only causes your fingers to sometimes get stuck in a gap when trying to type fast. Therefore, even at work, I’ve tended to make sure I have a keyboard with slightly narrower gaps between the keys. Besides that though, I’m not that fussy. Honest!

I’ve been recently using the Saitek Cyborg V1 keyboard. Now, while it’s marketing as a gaming keyboard, I have to say there isn’t much there to really make it stand out as a gaming keyboard. The one feature, and literally one feature, that would make it appear to be a gaming laptop, is a key which disables the Windows key. Even though it’s just one feature, it’s actually a really useful one. Most gamers have experienced pressing the Windows key by accident mid-game, and cursing as a result as it’s ruined a key moment in their game! Therefore, Saitek decided it’s best to be able to just disable that nuisance button altogether, so added another button to disable it. It’s easy to tell when you’ve activated it too, as the button lights up green and is at the top right of the keyboard, next to where the light indicators are for Caps, Scroll and Num locks.

Speaking of light indicators, I have to say that these light indicators are subtly powerful! They must be the most powerful light indicators I’ve seen on a keyboard. Seriously, I can hold my hand a good 10-15cm above the keyboard and still see the red light on my palm! Nothing bad about that, just something I noticed! Good quality I guess!

Now, the actual keyboard is nothing spectacular as I’ve mentioned, but it’s still a solid piece of kit. The keyboard itself feels solid and rugged, no actual moving parts besides the clips at the back to add a bit of height to it and tilt it forward. The buttons are distinct, and has a good amount of spacing between each key. It is a full keyboard, with a numpad and the usual Insert, Home, Delete, etc. buttons and arrow keys of course.

I don’t have much else to say about the keyboard. It’s priced below £20, which is why it’s quite basic and probably a good buy for an average gamer who wants a normal-ish keyboard for everyday use as well. Quite often, normal keyboards will cost about £10+ anyway, so if you have a little bit of spare cash, I probably would recommend going out and getting this. The one thing I really would have loved to see in this keyboard, but which would also raise the price considerably, would be backlit keys. That would have made my day!

The Saitek Cyborg V1 and a whole range of other PC Gaming Keyboards are available now from GamingZap, as well as the Nyko Zoom for Kinect, making them the first with stock in the UK.