Keyboard, Mouse, and Mouse-pad recommendations?

[ShikuTeshi]

First off...

>Don't downplay other people's recommendations. Unless you yourself have used the product, I don't want fanboy comments...

>When you recommend something, mind telling my why you are recommending it? I assume you've used it and can tell me about your experiences...

>Nothing has to exactly meet my expectations...

 

My current peripherals...

Keyboard: Saitek Eclipse II (discontinued)

Mouse: Mad Catz MW2 Limited Edition (discontinued, currently worn out with non-functioning mouse wheel)

Mousepad: Some really worn out pad from a dry cleaning company... don't ask...

 

What I'm looking for...

A compact Cherry Brown keyboard without the numberpad. If it comes with an attachable/matching keypad add-on then that's even better. Back-light is very helpful since I game in the dark. Fancy lighting isn't really important since I'm not looking at my hands while gaming. 

 

If you look up the Mad Catz mouse I use, or I can do it for you.

http://www.amazon.com/Call-Duty-Modern-Warfare-Sniper/dp/B002MZZLNW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1438247206&sr=8-1&keywords=mad+catz+mw2+mouse

You can see it's a really bulky mouse. I am a palm grip type person so this works perfectly for me.

A mousewheel with a strong bump feeling helps with weapon switching in fps games, or at least really noticeable. DPI changing helps a lot. And at least one button on the left side that's out of the way for push-to-talk function in my case. I'm pretty sure most gaming mice have a rubberized side. Some are annoyingly textured. A subtle texture feel or smooth rubber is preferred.

 

I don't like those "super gaming" grade mousepad that are super slippery. I really like the traditional mousepads before gaming pads where even a thing. Some people may understand the kind of feel I'm talking about. I can't exactly explain it properly... The mouse-pad is fairly thick as well.

 

I have considered... 

Razer Tournament Edition Products (so many people hate on Razer, but I've tested their products in-stores and they're not bad. The 2015 Mamba is nice and their green switches are nice. Although I find the clicky sound disturbing to people around me and my online friends. Haven't tested their orange switches to see if they have a similar feel but silent operation.)

 

Corsair Sabre Optical Mice

 

Roccat Ryos TKL Pro Keyboard

Roccat Kone XTD Optical Mice

Roccat Kone Pure Optical Mice

 

Thanks for the help. Have a good day.

[xTrekStorex]

Mouse: Roccat Kone XTD (Pure is also good but Kone XTD is best)

Keyboard: Corsair K65 RGB / Ducky Shine 3 TKL (/ Filco Majestouch 2 - no backlight / CM Storm QuickFire TK - numpad-arrowkey-combo)

Mousepad: http://www.pcgamingrace.com/collections/large-gaming-mouse-pads

Dont go Razer..

[SeriouslyMikey]

As for the keyboard, I would seriously recommend the Ducky Shine 3/4. It's a solid keyboard and as Ducky has a great reputation when it comes to mechanical keyboards, you'll find it very hard to go wrong with them. You can get pretty much all configurations with them too, including a Cherry MX Brown switch in TKL layout. Plus the LED backlighting is pretty damn vibrant. I would have recommended a Filco Majestouch, but as that doesn't have any backlighting, the Ducky is probably the next best bet. 

Mouse though, I can whole heartedly recommend the Zowie EC1-A eVo. It's got no drivers and is really damn simplistic. Great optical sensor and from what I am currently experiencing, it's built like an absolute tank too. The scroll wheel is defined and feel great, plus it doesn't have any wobble to the wheel either. Switches are tactile, yet soft enough to be able to spam with ease, but you're able to rest your fingers against them without any issues. 

The mousepad is easy. Pick anything that you're comfortable with out of the Steelseries QCK line up. No matter which one you pick from that, you're going to get a great pad. Soft, perfect glide that will last a long time. I still have my QCK heavy after one to two years of use. 

 

http://www.zowiegear.com/index.php?i=products

http://steelseries.com/gaming-mousepads

http://www.duckychannel.com.tw/en/ducky-shine-4/

 

My experience with Razer hasn't been good. The keyboard I owned from them was cheap didn't feel like a quality product, same for the mouse too. Though, there are people out there that have had other experiences with them. So take that with a grain of salt. 

[Zach's Tech Tips]

Personally I use the razer death adder chroma, blackwidow chroma and goliathus extended mouse pad.

The main reason I love my razer keyboard is the tactile feel you get from the razer green switches it feels and sounds amazing, as en ever you press a key you get this satisfying click to know you have pressed the key. Even my friends just love listening to my keyboard when I'm in a skype call, they ask me to keep typing so they can beat it but the best part in my opinion is the rub lights which allow you to light them up in nearly any config ( you can test some here http://www.razerzone.com/gaming-keyboards-keypads/razer-blackwidow-chroma )

The death adder personally is the best mouse I have ever used, ( and I have used a lot ) the main reason I use it is that it's the perfect size to fit my hand also it doesn't have 12 BUTTONS on the side of like the naga (which is completely oc) also one again you can change the colours!

Finally the Goliathus mouse pad extended. Speed edition, I personally love this pad as it can extend all the way under my keyboard and still give me plenty of room to move my mouse when I'm gaming. It's also better that I can wrest my wrists on it when I'm typing. You can get 2 variants of it the speed and control but me personally recon the control feels really uncomfortable to use when gaming and just general use.

I really hoped this has helped you out in your decision making, though these are quite expensive products as you are paying for a brand

Keyboard: http://www.razerzone.com/gaming-keyboards-keypads/razer-blackwidow-chroma

Mouse: http://www.razerzone.com/au-en/gaming-mice/razer-deathadder-chroma

Mouse pad: http://www.razerzone.com/au-en/gaming-mouse-mats/razer-goliathus-speed-edition

Thanks

Zach

[Zach's Tech Tips]

Dont go Razer..

My experience with Razer hasn't been good. The keyboard I owned from them was cheap didn't feel like a quality product, same for the mouse too. Though, there are people out there that have had other experiences with them. So take that with a grain of salt.

Personally I use the razer death adder chroma, blackwidow chroma and goliathus extended mouse pad.

The main reason I love my razer keyboard is the tactile feel you get from the razer green switches it feels and sounds amazing, as en ever you press a key you get this satisfying click to know you have pressed the key. Even my friends just love listening to my keyboard when I'm in a skype call, they ask me to keep typing so they can beat it but the best part in my opinion is the rub lights which allow you to light them up in nearly any config ( you can test some here http://www.razerzone.com/gaming-keyboards-keypads/razer-blackwidow-chroma )

The death adder personally is the best mouse I have ever used, ( and I have used a lot ) the main reason I use it is that it's the perfect size to fit my hand also it doesn't have 12 BUTTONS on the side of like the naga (which is completely oc) also one again you can change the colours!

Finally the Goliathus mouse pad extended. Speed edition, I personally love this pad as it can extend all the way under my keyboard and still give me plenty of room to move my mouse when I'm gaming. It's also better that I can wrest my wrists on it when I'm typing. You can get 2 variants of it the speed and control but me personally recon the control feels really uncomfortable to use when gaming and just general use.

I really hoped this has helped you out in your decision making, though these are quite expensive products as you are paying for a brand

Keyboard: http://www.razerzone.com/gaming-keyboards-keypads/razer-blackwidow-chroma

Mouse: http://www.razerzone.com/au-en/gaming-mice/razer-deathadder-chroma

Mouse pad: http://www.razerzone.com/au-en/gaming-mouse-mats/razer-goliathus-speed-edition

Thanks

Zach

The conflict

[SeriouslyMikey]

The conflict

 

I'm fine with anyone who likes and uses Razer products, I just have my issues with them and thus wont recommend their products. If you're having a better time that I have had with them, more power to you. The guy earlier gave no reason as to why not to choose Razer, so I'd just ignore that comment.  

[Zach's Tech Tips]

I'm fine with anyone who likes and uses Razer products, I just have my issues with them and thus wont recommend their products. If you're having a better time that I have had with them, more power to you. The guy earlier gave no reason as to why not to choose Razer, so I'd just ignore that comment.

Agreed

[xTrekStorex]

I'm fine with anyone who likes and uses Razer products, I just have my issues with them and thus wont recommend their products. If you're having a better time that I have had with them, more power to you. The guy earlier gave no reason as to why not to choose Razer, so I'd just ignore that comment.

Agreed

OK it seems "The guy earlier" has to explain himself:

I used a Razer Lachesis (still have it), Razer Naga, Razer DiamondBack, Razer Kraken 7.1 and Razer Blackwidow.

Except for the Lachesis I sold or returned ALL of them over the years. Why that?

Because the quality was a joke compared to other brands with the same pricepoint. Sure there are products that are awesome price-to-performance-wise like the Deathadder but everything reaching into Razers high-end spectrum is garbage in terms of price.

The Razer keyboards were too passive for my taste (Razer switches are a joke compared to the original MX), keycaps felt cheap and the whole body of the keyboard seemed like it was made by Alienware (if you know what I mean - huge, plastic, ugly).

Razer headphones are also nothing to recommend since they are bass-heavy, isolated and have a lot of clamping force. Also the quality of the padding is bad so your ears might hurt after 1-3 hours of usage. Thanks to the bass-heaviness music is almost unenjoyable if you listen to anything else than EDM. The mic on the Kraken 7.1 was great but that is not enough for 100€.

And last but not least the software.. modern software is ok by now.. but the software they used to make was garbage. I never had as many crashes in a tool as with Razers utility. Even now the Kraken 7.1 still has some issues with surround settings from time to time (as far as I know - sold mine in january).

If you never experienced the alternatives to Razer (probably thanks to their huge marketing) you will think they are awesome since their products are not bad by themselves. But compared to others they are just not good enough.

The price and their marketing towards fanboys (in terms of exaggeration after exaggeration in their slogans) is what I dislike about them.

Design is OK even when black-green is pretty old by now (I dont know why they swap it for the even older black-red though either..) but quality vs price? No.

That enough?