Steelseries 7G Gaming Keyboard – One Of The Best 2010 Keyboards?

This piece is a brief overview of the to give the reader a quick rundown on what they might expect from this unit.
To the casual observer, the 7G keyboard has outwardly nothing to separate it from standard keyboards,
but the intrinsic design and construction are what set it apart.
This is a heavy unit which should give some clue as to the construction, this is partly due to the materials used in its manufacture, a kind of mineralised polymer, and to the metal plate fitted under the key deck.

This metal plate is fitted because the 7G utilizes mechanical keys, and this is the foundation of their superior operating ability, but these are in no way ordinary keys, they have been specially designed for the 7G, giving a reduction by almost half in actuating distance and a huge increase in key life expectancy, that is a claimed fifty million actuations, which is almost ten times the expected life of standard keyboards keys.
The second major claim here by the manufacturers is that the key performance will not degrade with age, that is to become harder to press due to substrate deterioration, sometimes caused by excited gamers hitting the keys a little too hard, the unique manufacturing method of the Steelseries 7g virtually guarantees the keys will not become ‘soggy’ or difficult to press.

The third feature that will be of interest to gamers is the anti-ghost capability of this unit,
it allows for unlimited simultaneous key presses when using a connection PS/2 mode, otherwise using a standard USB port it will permit six, plus modifiers, this limit is only because it is the maximum amount of signals a USB can handle at any one time, there is some technical reasons for this which will not be mentioned here as they are beyond the scope of this article.

The three features mentioned above are where most of the makers efforts have gone in producing this keyboard, they have resisted the temptation to put anything superfluous on the 7G , and that obviously accounts for the lack of back lighting, but this appears to be a small price to pay for a ultimate key reliability.

However the makers have ensured the Steelseries 7G has high quality headphone and microphone jacks in addition to the twin USB ports, which will accommodate the usual array of peripherals such as mice, MP3 devices, mobile chargers and the like.
The 7G uses top quality braided cable and the connections are gold-plated for added signal strength.

Steelseries have done away with the standard left side Windows menu key on this particular model and have replaced it with there own special key which, when used in conjunction with the first six F keys control the media play functions.

For gamers who use traditional keyboards in their pursuits, who may be looking to upgrade or renew then the 7G will certainly be worth serious consideration, pricewise it is not that cheap compared to some, but you will have ultra-reliable and lightning fast key operation and you will not have to learn lots of new key layouts, which may degrade your performance temporarily whilst you learn new key patterns.