Got mine yesterday and I love it.
Time to take back the Eclipse 1 I got a few weeks ago. Those silver colored keys are kinda hard to see in normal light unless I turn off the backlight…but then whats the point. heh
I originally thought the rotary knob was for the volume, it’s for the backlight dimmer. Volume control is +, _, and mute buttons.
I too have the problem with the rubber feet not touching the desk when it sits flat…but this isn’t a problem for me since I prop mine up with the back feet that come down.
The CAPS, NUM, and SCROLL lock LED’s are blue…even if you change the LED color for the rest of the buttons, they stay blue. Once again, not a problem for me as i am using blue all the time anyway.
~Mike
So I just got mine today and this post is the first test of typing on it. I played with the colors first and I actually like them all. Blue is just my favorite color, red matches my microsoft mouse and the purple is just vibrant. I then tested the media keys, all work perfectly in Windows Media Player which is my main player. The keyboard is actually wider than my old Microsoft Internet keyboard but it is not as tall. No real difference there. The key layout and wrist rest are perfect for me. The audible feedback from the keys is not as loud as I like it. It is actually very quiet. The feel of the keys is pretty good. I think the lack of noise is what throws me off there so it is just a matter of getting used to it. I was concerned about the short space bar but I see now that it has no factor. It is just the same as any other keyboard. Overall, I would say this is a great buy! I can’t wait to make my LAN party friends jealous at the next meet which is probably months away.
Just got mine today. Typing with it right now. Just one issue: Where is my user manual??? Hahaha… doesn’t matter. It’s pretty self-explanatory. Took a few minutes to figure out that the color change button was mixed in with the media buttons.
The blue is cool in that it matches all the blue glow LED fans from my case. Red puts me in the mood to go on a FPS killing rampage. Purple is very vibrant and gives the keyboard that gostly glow. The light comes through the keys just as well as it does from around them.
Aside from the missing manual, it’s a very nice piece of hardware.
I love the backlighting and choice of colors. I really don’t see the need for a dimmer switch, but what the heck the dial is backlit too and it looks kewl. This is absolutely the keyboard layout that I really like. The backslash key is the right size and in the right place and the backspace button is big and in the corner where I like it.
The key resistence is really nice and the keys are quiet. Oh, and! the keyboard is heavy! It doesn’t scoot around like my other keyboards. My only regret is I didn’t buy 2 of them.
Got mine yesterday and I love it. Very heavy so it won’t scoot around the desk. Plenty of lighting while gaming in the dark. Great wOOt.
On a side note you may want to change delivery. Those damn fools threw my package at my front door while I was in the house. It hit the screen door so hard it put a dent in the bottom of the metal part of the door. If they’re taking that much care with my package, imagine what else they’re doing.
Got mine today from FedEx all the way to Maine!! I thought I could get away with plugging it right in the USB to PS2 adapter…NOGO! I then had to restart and make sure my BIOS settings had the USB mouse and keyboard enabled. Finally, after a second reboot Win XP had to load several new HID Human Interface Device drivers which was kinda a pain in the butt. I used to run both mouse and keyboard on ‘old school’ PS2. Now everything is fine. Keyboard is very soft and quiet. The red seems to have less coverage over the other colors. The keyboard does default to blue whenever you restart.
How do you know there are not some hidden features that can be activated with a special key sequence? If you can’t think of anything it could possibly do, how about automatically cycling through the 3 colors for a lighting effect. And don’t bother answering with “I just want to use it as a keyboard and I don’t need a light show” because then my answer will be “why did you buy this keyboard?”
Wanting to know everything a product you have does is not a bad thing. Yes anyone can use it as a keyboard, but if I wanted a normal keyboard, I already have a ton of them.
it’s a small file so i thought i would host it for others who want it. thanks w00t for such a great deal. i figured this one would sell out fast and i was right. glad i jumped on it right away!
I’m digging mine, love the blue especially (but the purple’s nice too) The keys feel good, I like the weight. The volume control’s wonky, though - of course, I’m on a Mac and quite used to specialty buttons on keyboards not working exactly right (if at all) - the weird thing is that the play/pause / stop button (lower left of the dimmer knob) turns the volume off and on, and holding the ‘play’ option turns the volume down. Nothing seems to turn it UP, however. Any Mac users out there find a way to turn the volume up through the keyboard?
I am really pleased with it. My last keyboard was a stock SONY Vaio keyboard. It was heavy, bulky, and on top of that, it had about 98 keys -.- The Home, insert, etc were all stuck on the arrow keys requiring some third function key. (Similar to the Alpha on a TI 83).
I do have one minor gripe, I wish the Num. Lock, Caps Lock and Scroll Lock keys changed colors too, but it is understandable why they don’t.
I am very pleased by the appearance of they board itself. The nice sleek black against silver matches my monitor exactly.
I do find the dimmer switch a little useless, but that’s just me. Purple actually looks pretty good, too bad I don’t have the cajones to use it. :3
I just received mine and have a weird problem. The Q W E R and U I O P keys don’t work. I’ve never seen a problem like this, so I guess the keyboard is defective. I previously bought two Saitek Eclipse keyboards from Woot that worked perfectly.
I just got this keyboard and I have to say wow. The keys are very soft and non-clicky (the way I like it) and it looks really sharp. A big step up from my $19.99 special I was using previously, sure it was illuminated but it has clear keys and at night you just can barely make out the keys, the Saitek has crisp letters and you can see every key.
When people say the dimmer dial is kind of useles, that might not be so true. With the original eclipse 1 people found the 3 levels of brightness from the light button useless as you pretty much needed it at full brightness or off, espcially with them silver keys. But at least with the dial you can adjust it ever so slightly if you need to incase the 3 settings on the other keyboard were never right. Like say someone likes the purple, but since it works so much better than the other colors, the dimmer can help tame that slightly.
You’re the second person who said that certain keys haven’t changed colors. I do not have that problem. When I change the colors, all of them change on the entire keyboard and all of them are lit up too… It looks great a night. Ihave decided to keep purple on.
You change the colors by pressing the the second key from the top on the far right; click the right side and you’ll cycle thru all three colors and off.
I’m very pleased with this; it arrived a day early, too. I’m using it to replace the Eclipse 1 because I’d worn off all the letters on that one, and am glad to see it has black keys, rather than silver; perhaps it’ll be a little more impervious to acrylic fingernails – one can only hope. The purple is definitely the most visible of the three and a distinct improvement over the blue on the Eclipse 1. (It looks really neat in a dark room; oh wow, far out.) The keying is as substantial and satisfying as the Eclipse 1 and is really the reason I pay for these keyboards rather than picking up cheapies.
Exactly, why skimp on a mouse or a keyboard when you use them the most (other than the monitor)!! I am very happy with this. I keep saying this, but it’s true! I just wish I had bought more to share with my family and friends.
I too did not recieve a user’s guide. Where do I plug it in? Do I turn the dimmer to the left or to the right to adjust the brightness? How does the shift key work? And WTF when I press the ‘window’ button does my bedroom window not open and close???
This replaces my $10 Dell keyboard that I’ve had for 2yrs. (I don’t have a Dell, it’s home brew.) I never noticed when I first bought it that it didn’t have an Insert key but eventually I couldn’t live with that any more. Why on earth would a keyboard manufacturer eliminated the Insert key only to make the Delete key twice the normal size??? Maybe too many people couldnt’ figure out how to properly use the Insert key anyways. But I’m old school like DOS, Redhat Linux Manhatan, Winamp Beta, and the days of having to find MP3’s on FTP sites.
I also agree that the mouse, keyboard, and monitor are three things that you DO NOT skimp on. I know people who buy $400 video cards, $100 SATA DVD burners, and 5 cold cathode case lights but use a 6yr old 17in CRT monitor that isn’t even a flat screen!
“You’re the second person who said that certain keys haven’t changed colors. I do not have that problem. When I change the colors, all of them change on the entire keyboard and all of them are lit up too…”
So…you are saying that the three LEDs at the very top/middle that tell you when you have the Caps lock, Num lock, and Scroll lock on…change color too?? You might want to double check that because they don’t change…always blue. They also don’t dim…but thats good.
~Mike
Well I think the keyboard is a failure. The Blue color in at night with lights out and only the monitor it looks like medium-low compared to the eclipse one, basically very very dim, and you have to wait for your eyes to adjust, and still hard to see. So it defeats the whole purpose as a regular white keyboard is 100% visible (I just had to lean in and focus just to hit that % key just to see it) and the Eclipse 2 compare to that 100% visiblitly is 15-20%. It’s like taking a step backwards.
Red is slightly better, maybe 35-40% visible
And purple is 60%
So why does the second version of this keyboard seem half as bright or so as the original? This keyboard practially relies on the the lighting in dark situations because of the greyish letters on black keys, but practically useless most the time with the light.
I feared this was going to be the case as after I ordered it from here there were a lot of bad reviews at newegg about it not being near as bright enough.
