If you ever wondered what it would be like to have a keyboard that knows no limits then the Shift will be right up your street. With customisation as one of the Shift's strongest features, SteelSeries has brought to the market a versatile gaming peripheral. No longer are you bound to just the one layer of customisable keys, but with the handy inclusion of layers there are now even greater options for assigning commands and macros to the keyboard.

The Shift is a practical gaming solution too. The keysets can be quickly and easily swapped out for a keyset of your choice available from the SteelSeries website. The software if at first overwhelming - provides an all-inclusive adaptation. One of the aspects about the software that I found very interesting was the ability to store separate profiles and have these profiles activate when a specific game is launched. The software did have trouble changing certain aspects of the profile diagram as I mentioned in the Software section of this review and I think the overall look and organisation of the GUI could be improved slightly to provide a more helpful experience.



At £77 / €90 / $124 the Shift, compared to other keyboards on the market like the G15 from Logitech for example could be deemed as expensive. These features whilst innovative, aren't revolutionary. Other keyboards do have similar features for a smaller price-tag. If the Shift found itself at around the £50 mark or less it would make it a worthwhile consideration but as it stands its rather steep. What I would say about the Shift is that it does come with a wealth of features and has gaming grade materials throughout not only making it have a strong makeup but allowing it to withstand a phenomenal 15 million keystrokes per key. (A typical keyboard withstands between 1-5 million keystrokes per key) and as with most products I'm sure the set price will alter slightly as the weeks pass by, hopefully in the consumers direction because at the moment it isn't doing it any favours!