Razer Lycosa Gaming Keyboard Review - Gaming
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Being designed by gamers, for gamers, this is an area in which the keyboard should really excel. The WASD lighting cluster is a nice touch, but it doesn’t really enhance things in any real way. After all, you’re looking at the screen, not the keyboard when playing. Anyone who’s played a PC game for more than five minutes will already know where these keys are by touch alone.
The game mode switching was useful for disabling the Windows key - other keys can also be disabled through the use of profiles. The anti-ghosting feature is good as well. And while I can’t find any specific reference to the number of key strokes that can be simultaneously processed by the keyboard, I was able to hold down five keys at once and have all of them register. The macro capabilities are useful during gaming; common sequences of button presses and mouse clicks can be assigned to single keys, although I did find that these didn’t always work as intended.
I tested the keyboard with Call of Duty 4 and although some of the gaming features were nice to have, I didn’t notice any overall improvement in game play. That said, there was no period of adjustment, and the keyboard was comfortable and pleasant to use, so it didn’t cause any hindrances either.
General Use
Using the keyboard for typing is a real pleasure. The low profile keys are really nice to the touch, and it feels very much like a laptop keyboard. There are no irritating flaws in the design that are going to limit your productivity, but one thing I was surprised to note is that the keys are not silent. They don’t clack like the keys on a cheap keyboard do, but they’re not particularly quiet either, which I did find annoying for a keyboard in this price range.
One thing that does bring this keyboard down is the built-in headphone socket. I noticed a lot of feedback coming out of both speakers and headphones that were connected to the rear audio output on the keyboard. It’s clearly audible over any sound that is playing and is a real let down considering that sound is of huge importance to modern gaming.
Software
The driver control software that is bundled with the keyboard is designed and presented well. It allows you to set all configuration options, such as the light setting, the media player that the touch pad targets, and the currently selected profile.
Along with setting macros and renaming the different profiles, you can also link an executable file to each profile and enable the auto-switching feature. This feature will automatically switch to the specified profile when the application is launched, then change it back when the linked application is closed or minimized. The macro feature is really helpful because it lets you program up to seven actions per macro. This is done using the bundled software and is really intuitive and easy to do. There are a range of built-in commands that can be easily linked to specified keys in different applications. The mouse clicks can also be included in the macros.
When a key has been assigned to a macro or programmed, it is highlighted in the driver control software with bright red. It’s easy to see at a glance which keys have been configured.
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