Steelseries Shift Cataclysm Keyset Review

Steelseries Shift Cataclysm Keyset Review

Steelseries Overview

“The SteelSeries Shift World of Warcraft®: Cataclysm™ Edition Keyset presents gamers with predefined game mods and an intuitive layout of the most common commands, actions and emotes. The Keyset helps groups run more smoothly through its ability to mark targets for added group and raid functionality. The SteelSeries Shift Keyset provides new functionality that reflects changes that have come over the game since the last expansion. Its labeled and color coded keys, together with the World of Warcraft: Cataclysm artwork and functionality, will immerse players into the world of Azeroth and help to accelerate game mastery.”

Features

(*Requires SteelSeries Shift.)
• One-touch macros for raiding and PvP gameplay
• The ability to mark targets for added group and raid functionality
• Extended raid functionality to better manage raid groups as well as easily find a raid group to join
• New functions to reflect World of Warcraft: Cataclysm: “Exit Vehicle”, “Raid Browser” and “Set Focus”
• Intuitively grouped chat commands; enlarged keys for most commonly used chat commands for easier access
• All commands are labeled and color coded on all keys
• SteelSeries Engine software allows full customization of each key
• Compatible with all versions of World of Warcraft

Steelseries Shift Cataclysm Keyset

If you’re not familiar with the keysets for the Steelseries Shift Keyboard, many different keysets for different games can be bought separately and attached onto the Shift Keyboard. The keyset is foldable and once opened lays on top of the keyboard and secures in place.

To see the review of the actual Steelseries Shift Keyboard...

The graphics on the Cataclysm Keyset features the main latest boss, which is the large dark red dragon, that isn’t currently out yet and will be arriving soon next year in another expansion pack. The Cataclysm keyset is very similar to the standard shift MMO gaming keyset, of which you can see below, the differences are obviously in the graphics on the products, and on the keyset extension (right hand side), instead of having hotkeys labelled A1, A2, A3 and so on,  the WOW keyset is purposely built for the game specifically and has key commands that run along the top of the keyboard.

Note: The Steelseries Shift keyboard takes up 2 x USB2.0 ports.

Steelseries Cataclysm Legendary World Of Warcraft Mouse Review

Steelseries Cataclysm Legendary MMO WOW Gaming Mouse

Steelseries are to date one of the best brands out there for gaming peripherals, using high quality materials and making a high quality build standard, while offering features and functions that increase the users and equipments performance.

The Steelseries World of Warcraft gear has done exceptionally well in the market. Steelseries has gained great sales from their WOW mice, which is what we have today for you.

A you can see from the box, this mouse is compatible with both PC and Mac.

                            

Specification

COMPATIBILITY

• Operating systems:
• Windows 2000
• Windows XP
• Windows Vista
• Windows 7
• Mac OSX

Optical sensor

• Frames Per Second: 3600
• Inches Per Second: 130
• Counts Per Inch: 3200
• Acceleration: 30 G
• Lift Distance: 2mm

The Cataclysm Legendary MMO Mouse

Before we begin with the mouse review, we would like to show you the mouse mat used for the review. We used the Steelseries Cataclysm Deathwing Edition mouse mat. Which kept a nice grip to the desk and had no friction when mouse setting were set to low DPI and thrusting the mouse across the mat, this pad is recommended for user as its very cheap and would be a nice addition to your WOW collection. The mat is very large, so make sure you have a big desk. It’s dimensions are 12.6-inch x 10.6-inch.

The mouse has a lightning design spreading over the mouse, originating for the circle in the middle which features the WOW logo. While in operation the WOW logo glows on and off with a breathing effect, inside the circle it has symbols around it from the game.

As you can see from the product images, the shortcut of hotkeys are located around the scroll and on both left and right sides of the mouse. The hotkeys can be assigned by the software built for the specific mouse. You can assign one specific button to do the job of two, or even three buttons that you would normal use on the keyboard that you would activate together by holding down. So with this mouse you can easily activate around 11 programmable buttons with more than 130 preset game commands.

The Steelseries WOW legendary mouse is a great looking mouse, you can instantly see it is fit for full comfort, with its low profile thumb/palm rest, and on the right hand side its high profile lift for your little finger. Both of these sections are layered in a smooth black rubber, which is allows you a cool hand and make sure there’s no slip and slid while in the heat of battle. The mouse is designed to stay strong and tight on your hand while playing, but yet at the same time due to the unique hotkey buttons all over the mouse, it also allows you do access commands that otherwise you would have to lift off and press or hold a couple of keyboard keys at the same time. This makes gameplay much quicker and easier, and for a WOW user who already spends around £8.99 a month just to be online, it would not be a - “must have” – but a need to get.

Steelseries Cataclysm Gaming Mouse Review

Steelseries Cataclysm Gaming Mouse Review

The World of Warcraft Cataclysm mouse is one of the more popular Warcraft gaming mice’s on the market, this is most likely due to the armour plated styled design to look like the characters from the game, and it featuring 14 buttons that can bind directly from the World of Warcraft interface, without ever leaving the game, 16 million colours to choose to illuminate your device, and many more features.  The Cataclysm is supported by PC and Mac. If you’re a World of Warcraft fan, or just a gaming enthusiast, take a look at what you are missing out on.

Steelseries are to date one of the best brands out there for gaming peripherals, using high quality materials and making a high quality build standard, while offering features and functions that increase the users and equipments performance.

The Steelseries World of Warcraft gear has done exceptionally well in the market. Steelseries has gained great sales from their WOW mice, which is what we have today for you.

Steelseries :

“Developed for World of Warcraft® players by SteelSeries and Blizzard Entertainment®, the World of Warcraft: Cataclysm™ MMO Gaming Mouse invokes the iconic imagery of Deathwing the Destroyer, leader of the black dragonflight and instigator

of the Cataclysm. The SteelSeries World of Warcraft: Cataclysm™ MMO Gaming Mouse is fully scalable to meet and exceed the requirements of even the most demanding World

of Warcraft gamer.”

Exclusive features

2. 16 million colors with 4 levels of intensity and pulsation
3. Ergonomic design with an intuitive button layout
4. Easy to customize, drag and drop software allows you to:
• Program all 14 buttons with over 130 preset game commands
• Create your own custom macros or use the in-game macro scripting language
• Develop up to 10 profiles linked to the Armory
• Store your profile and settings directly in the mouse

Specification

Fully Supported and Scalable via
• Multi-platform Compatibility
• On Board Memory
• Official In-Game Support
• Advanced Illumination
• Advanced Macros
• Up to 10 Unique Profiles
DRIVER SOFTWARE COMPATIBILITY
• Mac OSX 10.6
• Windows 2000
• Windows XP
• Windows Vista
• Windows 7

The Steelseries Cataclysm Mouse

Before we begin with the mouse review, we would like to show you the mouse mat used for the review. We used the Steelseries Cataclysm Deathwing Edition mouse mat. Which kept a nice grip to the desk and had no friction when mouse setting were set to low CPI and thrusting the mouse across the mat, this pad is recommended for user as its very cheap and would be a nice addition to your WOW collection. The mat is very large, so make sure you have a big desk. It’s dimensions are 12.6-inch x 10.6-inch.

The Cataclysm mouse strikes me instantly as being visually designed to resemble the heavy armour worn by the strongest of characters. The back the armours plating on the chest and arms. The cataclysm mouse lights up with programmable colour changeable LED lights, that illuminate through the back of the mouse in-between the amour plated layers. You will see this cool effect on the next page.

As you can see from the product images, the shortcut of hotkeys are located around the scroll and on both left and right sides of the mouse. The hotkeys can be assigned by the software built for the specific mouse. You can assign one specific button to do the job of two, or even three buttons that you would normal use on the keyboard that you would activate together by holding down. So with this mouse you can easily activate 14 programmable buttons with more than 130 preset game commands.

The Steelseries Cataclysm mouse is quite a large mouse, and double the size of a standard mouse. Some users may not feel as comfortable as others with the size of it, but I would say if you do decide to buy this mouse, the best thing to do would be to buy a mouse mat with a wrist rest with it; the mouse is big and high up, which can and may strain your wrist after long durations of use, so a wrist rest mouse mat is suggested. The latest Cataclysm Legendary mouse that we reviewed took similar aesthetics from this Cataclysm mouse, such as the smooth black rubber, which is allows you a cool hand and make sure there’s no slip and slid while in the heat of battle.

 

The hotkeys make gameplay much quicker and easier, and for a WOW users everywhere you may want to consider the Cataclysm mouse over whatever it is you are using now. Forget the price, as World Of Warcraft is your hobby and for some your life. WOW gamers already splash out £8.99 a month on the RPG game, so after using this mouse I would strongly suggest getting the Steelseries brand Cataclysm mice. I suggest this not only due to the comfort and design of the mouse, but because of the programmable software that comes with it, which is on the next page.

Rosewill RK-9000RE Mechanical Keyboard Review

Rosewill RK-9000RE

We have recently been reviewing various products from Rosewill lately. They are a division of Newegg if you didn’t know and they make various computer components (usually entry to mid-level type products). They aren’t really known for their keyboards but I have the pleasure today in reviewing one of their more recent keyboards. I will be looking in close detail on the Rosewill Mechanical Keyboard RK-9000RE. As the label says it’s a mechanical keyboard which will gain a lot of attention because mechanical keyboards have better response and an overall better feel when using them for casual or hardcore usage. I myself am a fan of mechanical keyboards as well and I can’t wait to get started on this review. Let’s take a look and see what Rosewill has to offer.

• Rosewill Mechanical Keyboard RK-9000RE
• 1 x PS/2 to Mini USB Cable
• 1 x USB to Mini USB Cable

Aesthetics

The keyboard layout is pretty standard in terms of the sizes of the shift, enter, ctrl, and space bar keys. There are no extra keys for macroing unfortunately but since this is just labeled as a mechanical keyboard, I can’t really mark them down for not adding them. However, I am just biased to macro keys or macro capabilities so I always hope for them in a keyboard. The F1 through F9 keys resembled old fashioned keyboards which may interest users that like that type of size since most keyboards have the smaller sized function keys. I actually like the smaller function keys but these aren’t too bad as well. On the rear there is a plug for a mini usb cord and they give two types of cables so that this keyboard can work for old and new computers alike. This makes it very versatile and appeal to the more general public.

Cherry MX Switch

The Cherry MX Switch is a feature that Rosewill has added to their mechanical keyboard that allows for simultaneous key presses. All mechanical keyboards usually have some form of Anti-ghosting keys or simultaneous key actions since casual and hardcore enthusiasts need a keyboard that won’t skip a key when they are typing keys simultaneously. This switch will allow up to 104-key presses with a 50 million click life cycle for each key. The 104-key presses are just amazing because most keyboards I have reviewed would offer like 20-50 but I haven’t really seen above 100 too often. I don’t see how you would ever need to press that many but the ability to have that many will ensure your keyboard won’t ever miss a beat. And the 50million click life cycle for the keys is definitely a great addition because consumers will buy the keyboard knowing it will last long since most people don’t want to keep replacing their keyboards too often.

Laser Printing on Each Keycap

Laser printing on a keyboard is definitely something new to me. I don’t know if any other keyboard manufacturer does this but it’s worth taking note of. This will help people that want to use this keyboard for long periods of time and to those who don’t clean their keyboard often. The oils from our fingers can build up on our keyboards and mice and usually leaves some residue that can lead to erasing the ink on standard keyboard keys. But with Rosewill’s Laser Printing, you won’t have to worry about the keys and feel free to use this keyboard as long as you want to.

SteelSeries Sensei Gaming Mouse

SteelSeries Sensei

SteelSeries just released their newest high-performance offering dubbed Sensei. Sensei features a 5700 DPI capable sensor and has an onboard 32-bit ARM processor which handles transmission to and from the PC and can run an interpolation algorithm which boosts the output of the mouse to 11400 DPI or twice that of its native resolution. The visual appearance has changed a bit since the Xai mouse, but you can clearly see that all the main parts have been left relatively unchanged.

SteelSeries' explanation for going with the incorporated ARM processor, besides the interpolation features, is that it allows them to shape the output before it is passed to the PC. This should give a small reduction in delay in the millisecond range.

The mouse sells at $89 which is the same price the Xai was introduced at.

Specifications

• Programmable macro buttons
• Ambidextrous shape
• Driverless plug-and-play
• User defined bitmaps for the onmouse LCD
• SteelSeries ExactSens
• SteelSeries FreeMove
• Menu system on the mouse
• SteelSeries ExactAim
• 7programmable buttons
• SteelSeries ExactLift
• Gold-plated USB connector
• 16 million colors of illumination
• Three zone lighting – Scroll Wheel, CPI Indicator, and Log

Package

Sensei arrived in a flip-top cardboard box. The package is quite durable and lets you feel the shape of the mouse before buying it which is good.

Inside the box you find the mouse and a small pamphlet that describes the features in the mouse and driver suite.

Closer Examination

SteelSeries decided to stick with the shape we know from the Xai gaming mouse, which is a good thing. The paint job on the palm plate is debatable, it certainly looks flashy, but it does provoke a little more perspiration than the normal textured plastic tops.

Shape wise the Sensei leans itself towards those using a palm-type grip. Fingertip control is possible but the shape is not ideal. Carried on from the Xai is also the ambidextrous design, which means that the Sensei is equally good for ordinary people and lefties!

The packaging of the scroll wheel area is reasonable. The scroll wheel can be used without accidentally hitting the DPI-selector. The wheel mechanism feels solid, but the amount of force needed to scroll is on the low side for a hardcore gaming mouse. As a compromise, between everyday use and gaming, it is really good.

SteelSeries went all out in their quest for extra bling. The palm plate features an illuminated "dot" SteelSeries logo.

The cable mount and plug looks great on the Sensei. The braided wire has its pros and cons, but it works alright with the Sensei.

SteelSeries use the same type of feet on the Sensei as on their Xai. The big well placed feet mean that the glide experience is nice and even, and that the mouse sits on the mat nicely. These oversized feet completely remove wobble on harder mats.

A 5700 DPI resolution sensor is featured on the Sensei. It is placed dead center which means the mouse handles very well. Agilent's 9500-series sensors have a very good reputation and do not exhibit z-axis tracking such as Philips Twin-eye sensor equipped mice. The sensor is the best on the market and it seems well implemented on the Sensei.

Lights on! While the Sensei is not the most "blinged"-out mouse we have ever seen, it is certainly in the high visibility category with the lights on. They can be adjusted to any color you like, and can also be switched off.