SteelSeries Shift Keyboard and Keyset Review

Hey There Mr Fancy-Pants

So that split in the spacebar. What’s that about? Well a quick flick of a release latch on the right hand end and the entire keyset will be freed to fold up like an accordion. Obviously if you split your keyboard into thirds you’ll have a break in your spacebar. The only other alternative would be to just fold it in half but then it would be prohibitively large.

      

With the current keyset folded out of the way the underneath is revealed to us in all its glory. The first thing that comes to mind is how useful this is to keep everything clean. I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s dropped something between the keys and fought with a paperclip to remove it.

On the top right hand corner is the connector that recognises new keysets when they are inserted so that the SteelSeries Engine software can assign everything properly. A great bit of design here ensures that even the most ham-fisted person shouldn’t have an issue in the long-term as there is nothing to get bent.

      

Finally back to the world of a fairly standard keyboard there is a large wrist rest supplied which attaches to the front with a couple of push on tabs. On the rear we have two USB ports and a headphone/microphone combo which enhances the usability of the Shift in LAN settings.

   

SteelSeries supplied a StarCraft II Keyset with the Shift, so let’s grab a look at what we have there.