A month with the Tt eSports Knucker keyboard Options

[Zardoz]

The Courier of Many Things paid us a visit recently bearing gifts from Tt eSports. WIth excitement, we ripped open the courier bag to find a Knucker gaming keyboard and a Theron Blazing Red gaming mouse.



So we spent a whole month with this keyboard plugged in. It was used for a variety of tasks - typing documents, playing Counter-Strike Source, Quake Live and a bit of Team Fortress 2. It went to Respawn LAN v27 where it was used to destroy a Piñata. And it's being used to write up this very article.

The Knucker, Tt's budget gaming keyboard, can be had for a mere $45, bringing quality gaming keyboard action to everyone. Tt eSports pitch this keyboard at being a suitable compromise between owning a mechanical keyboard and actually paying for a mechanical keyboard. Using membrane plunger switch technology, the keyboard gives a soft, tactile feel while producing an audible clicking noise.

The keys are rated to up to 15 million keystrokes. Unfortunately, we don't have the time to test this so we'll take their word for it.

Design.



We take a look at the keyboard and realise that yep, it looks like a keyboard. This was not unexpected. We get nice big long red LEDs for caps lock, scroll lock and num lock, making it obvious when caps lock has been accidentally (or intentionally) pressed.



On the integrated palm rest (which won't snap off as it's part of the design - something we like), a red LED that lights up with the Tt eSports Battle Dragon.



Dragons are cool.


The dragon is illuminated by default and can be disabled by pressing the Fn+F12 key combination - however be warned that this sends the F12 key to the PC. This also does not get 'saved' anywhere so the keyboard will return to lighting the LED Dragon the next time the keyboard is powered. Pressing this key combination again will "wake up the Battle Dragon", according to the Tt eSports documentation.



The illuminated dragon was well placed and did not appear to annoy us even in dark lighting conditions and we saw no reason to disable it.



The cable is braided and includes a velcro strap for tying your cable together when the keyboard is transported to a LAN party or gaming event. The cable plug is gold plated.



The keyboard is built with plastic red lines on each side to give it a little style and the keys, a cyan colour show up reasonably well in dim lighting conditions. Tt eSports refer to this as "Electric Cyan", which sums up how it looks - the keys will look like they have a slight glow to them.



Underneath, the keyboard has four rubber feet - and the two latches which will stand the keyboard up at a slight angle feel solid and have large rubber feet that cling to the desk well. Rubber feet will keep the keyboard still on a table in either latch up or latch down, however be careful to not push the keyboard forward as the latches will collapse.



The keyboard comes with a set of WASD and cursor keys in red and a tool to replace them. The tool was very easy to use and did not break anything; the keys come off easily and the new ones just clip in place, giving two red clusters of keys on the keyboard for a true gaming feel.







The specifications refer to there being 7 multimedia keys but we could not find them.

The first attempt of using this keyboard was by plugging it into an Apple Mac. Unfortunately, Mac OS X was unable to identify the keyboard and threw up a dialog box asking us to specify exactly what sort of keyboard it was. After we were done with this process, we were good to go.

For Windows systems, you will just plug it in and go. Both USB and PS2 are supported - and note that the repeat rate can only be adjusted when a PS2 adapter is used.



This is a gaming keyboard. A popular gaming feature is to eliminate the left-hand windows key just in case you accidentally hit it mid-game and return yourself to the Windows desktop just as you're about to get owned. Now, I don't know about you but I'm not uncoordinated to the point where I'm going to hit a Windows key accidentally - and if I do, I deal with it - or alternatively, map it out of the keyboard using software. Some keyboards have the ability to lock or disable the left windows key in hardware.

This is a common trend - and a trend that we don't like here.

The story got worse when this was plugged into a Windows PC for some gaming action as we quickly realised that almost all of our interactions with Windows involve a Windows key, on the left-hand side of the keyboard, at some point or another.

After using the keyboard for a month, however, we got used to the idea. It's still annoying but less-so, and it's something we could live with. Still, this is a personal thing - some people may like it, some people may not.

Durability.

Firstly - our disclaimer. The generous two-year warranty offered by Tt eSports will not cover improper use of the keyboard. This pretty much includes anything described in this section but sometimes it's nice to know that if you do accidentally drop your keyboard, you won't have to race down to the PC store to buy another one.

If you're going to invest in one of these keyboards, chances are that you might want to take it about the place, especially to LAN gaming events. we gave it the usual test - had it "carefully" perched in the back of a car to/from a Respawn LAN event (where it perhaps wasn't as carefully perched in the back as we would care to admit) and we gave it a Piñata test:


Then, we handed the keyboard to trained keyboard destroyer Missingo, who came down to Sydney to try and beat everyone at Blur, Flatout 2 and Quake and to give this keyboard a bit of the ol' friendly treatment:



The keyboard held up well, with no breaks, lost keys or any ill behaviour - and still works absolutely 100% after introducing it at high speed to a paper mache structure containing enough candy to keep the Dental industry busy for the next six months.



The word "Knucker", according to Wikipedia, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knucker) is a form of sea dragon. So this got us thinking… what would happen if we poured an entire glass of water into the keyboard?

Conclusion.

The Tt eSports knucker represents brilliant value for money. While it doesn't match the solid feel of real mechanical keyboard, it's a great piece of technology in its own right and offers a great compromise. Enough for me to break from writing this review in the third person to say that if it wasn't for the lack of left Windows key, this keyboard would remain on my main gaming system.

It's well built, has a great set of gaming features only typically found on higher end keyboards and it looks tidy and neat.