A steal for the price
This is a very good full keyboard, with inverted T arrow navigation keys, numeric keypad, home/end/pgup/pgdown/delete/insert grouping, and 12 function keys. It's also backlit with a good variety of lighting modes. So far I'm really happy with it. Could it be better? Sure; it lacks a wrist rest, ergonomic layout like a Microsoft Natural, and doesn't have dedicated media control keys (although this last point isn't a big deal for me since this keyboard is for use with a computer that won't be used for multimedia). However, keyboards are a very personal thing and a big deal these days, so here are some more details to help you understand this keyboard's features. Weight: It's not as heavy as the dedicated gaming mechanical keyboards that seem popular now with gamers and programmers. But it's not flimsy either. Light enough to not be much hassle if you're going to be traveling with it. Key feel: This keyboard is not one of the loud clicky ones. It does feel more tactile than a typical membrane keyboard, and the keys have a nice travel when you press them, but the click sound is very soft. These are regular-style keys, not chicklet keys. Lighting: I wasn't too worried about have top RGB features, but sometimes if it's darker in the room I do like some backlighting. This keyboard is a nice compromise between keyboards that have only white backlight, and keyboards that have a full software control app that let you customize everything. There is no software with this keyboard, it has several modes all configured using the function keys. Here are the lighting modes: - Lighting off/on - Neon mode: multiple colors light up three static zones on the keyboard. There are a few combinations you can select. The colors stay the same in the zones and don't change. - Spectrum mode: 7 colors rotate and fill the entire keyboard continuously. So it'll be lit red, then fade into purple, then blue, then green, etc. - Static mode: You cycle through and pick the color you want of the 7 supported colors, and it will stay lit continuously with just that one color. There are brightness and breathing effects that you can configure for each of the modes. I only use static mode, but gamers might like the other ones. I saw more expensive boards that only did spectrum or only had one color. Key visibility: The keys are not painted so they're a little hard to read in poor lighting if you don't use the backlight. However, I did like that the symbol keys had the correct placement for lower/upper case characters. I have seen many expensive keyboards from Razer, Corsair, Alienware, etc., that often invert the upper/lower case labeling for symbol keys and number keys. If you're an experienced typist, you'll work around that, but it bugs me when I see it. I found out later that this is an intentional design decision so that the more commonly used lower case symbol is more visible when backlit (the lighting doesn't cover the entire key and ends up emphasizing whatever character is in the upper case position). But you won't have to worry about that with the ReDragon. Key layout: After looking at the huge variety of keyboards on Amazon, you'll notice that some smaller keyboards don't have the numeric keypad or the six-key navigation group. Or that some have that ANSI style keyboard with the bigger Enter key but then put the slash key somewhere else. Or some that have compressed distance between keys or even smaller keys to make it more compact. This keyboard has an ISO keyboard layout with 104 full-sized keys. The key spacing is about a quarter-inch, which is similar to other full-size keyboards I've used. For the price, I think this is a great peripheral. Longevity would be my only concern, and I'll update this review later if I run across any issues. Read more