SteelSeries Shift Review

👤by David Mitchelson Comments 📅17-10-10
Performance

There are no hard and fast rules for determining if a gaming peripheral is better than another but I have thoroughly tested the Shift over a period of 3 days in order to give quality feedback both in-game and within Windows.

Windows based tasks
Whilst the Shift is categorised as a gaming keyboard, there is no hiding that this keyboard will be used in the Windows environment to type messages, web addresses and other such tasks. I used the Shift for general web browsing and talking to friends over Live Messenger. Using the keyboard in this environment reveals the keys have soft feedback to them. One thing that seriously disadvantaged quick and efficient typing was the un-needed length of the caps lock key. The letter 'A' which is beside this key is frequently used because it is a vowel and I forever found myself accidently knocking the caps key which inevitably forces all proceeding keys into upper-case format. It became quite a hindrance. On a traditional keyboard as shown below the caps has a cut-out or is smaller in length so that it doesn't interfere with fast touch typing. SteelSeries ought to have thought about this prior to producing the Shift, I know this is a small request, but it has big implications and can be adjusted so easily without too much hassle.


Dell keyboard on top of SteelSeries Shift. Showing the caps keys are different


The multimedia buttons on the side of the Shift are a nice touch, using these whilst watching YouTube, listening to music or watching a movie reveals just how useful they truly are.

Gaming
This is where the Shift shines, being a gaming keyboard its only fair that the Shift has a chance to flex its muscles in the gaming arena. Standard games became very easy throughout, applying some macros and adjusting a few commands through layers was very easy via the SteelSeries ENGINE software. To put the Shift through its paces I played Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 for many hours. I assigned buttons surrounding the WASD area with commands such as throw grenade, flash bang and change class. Without any hassle at all these simple tasks were made possible.

The Shift is a solid unit, it rests comfortably on the desk and with the 3 levels of height adjustment on the feet you can adjust the keyboard to whatever height is best for you.


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