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Saitek Eclipse Keyboard

Started by scuzzy, May 17, 2006, 15:03 hrs

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scuzzy

Yesterday I finally broke down and purchased a Saitek Eclipse Keyboard from my local Circuit City.

I am absolutely fed up with most of the other keyboard choices on the market. I'm sick of cheap, flimsy keyboards that require bloated software to run the multitude of useless extra keys. Mostly, I've stuck with Logitech for the lower price and somewhat decent keyboards, but I still found myself replacing them every few months after the keys no longer function smoothly. I've tried Microsoft designs, but I'm not thrilled with them either.

The Saitek Eclipse is an excellent, sure-footed keyboard. The moment you take it out of the package, you know you're holding a high quality product. It has a very nice solid feel, and the keys are an absolute pleasure to type on. I honestly cannot recall a better keyboard in over 20 years of computing.

The keyboard is not loaded with a bunch of stupid, useless features. Since no special drivers are needed, no software is required nor provided. Just plug it in to an available USB port, then give Windows a minute or two to figure out what's going on. You'll find only four extra keys on the top right that are nicely spaced. From left to right, they control volume down, volume up, mute, and keyboard illumination. That's right, the keys are illuminated by LEDs.

The LED illumination for the keys may not be as good as it could have been, but it is effective and works fairly well. The characters on the keys, for the most part, are nicely seen in the dark. The illumination key allows you to toggle the light intensity between high/low and off.

I have two small complaints about this keyboard. The light leakage between the keys can be a little distracting, although I admit that it does give the keyboard a nice, unique look. Unfortunately, it can make it a little hard to clearly see the key characters depending on ambient light. Also, the blue notification lights for NumLock, Caps Lock, and Scroll Lock are distractingly bright, especially at night. I'd love to see them toned down a bit.

The illumination is not an important factor for me, though. More than anything, I wanted a high quality keyboard, and the Saitek Eclipse definitely does not disappoint in that area. FINALLY! somebody figured out how to make a great keyboard.

Here's a couple reviews, which I believe accurately portray this beauty:

ExtremeMhz Review

TheTechLounge Review

Discuss this review here: Saitek Eclipse Discussion Thread
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