An inexpensive keyboard with a ton of impressive features
The Sharkoon Skiller Gaming Keyboard has been around for a good couple of years now, but hasn't shown any signs of fading into the background despite the wealth of mechanical gaming keyboards that are currently available.
There's a kind of snobbishness attached to gaming keyboards, in that a non-mechanical can't ever be as good as its mechanical counterpart. We've seen it a number of times, and it's utter nonsense. Yes, a mechanical keyboard is an excellent choice, but let's not discount the huge price differences and the fact that a modern membrane (or other such non-mechanical) keyboard can offer just as many features.
The Sharkoon Skiller is a rubber-dome switch based, 107-key keyboard with a further twenty additional multimedia keys. It's USB, with a decent 150cm length cable and N-Key rollover for up to 18 keys. In addition, the package comes with a set of rubberised, light blue, W, A, S, D and arrow keys, including a tool to easily pop the existing keys out.
The keyboard has a shiny piano black design throughout, with an illuminated Sharkoon logo in the bottom centre, and the usual Caps, Scroll etc. LEDs in a small strip between the number pad and main QWERTY keys. Along the top, in two separate sections of five, you'll find ten action keys for opening My Computer, Email, Search, Calculator and so on, along with Previous, Next, Wake, Sleep and Power. There are also two strips of five media keys down either side of the keyboard, one side caters for browsing with Home, Favourites, Refresh, Page forward and Back, while the other offers the usual media player functions.
The accompanying software is extensive, and allow the user to setup virtually every key to represent something else or as a macro assigned to a particular program. Amazingly, this isn't the limit of the Skiller; each key has three layers of programming and ten different profiles, which means, essentially, each key on the Skiller has thirty possible other uses other than the letter or number stamped on the key cap.
It may sound extreme, but considering the vast number of programmable keys gamers tend to setup and use for their favourite MMO you begin to see how useful the Skiller really is.
However, as with mice, we find that a keyboard needs to 'feel' right for it be worthy of our gaming attentions. The Skiller has an overall good feel to it, although it's probably a little too light for our personal tastes. Other than that, with the light blue rubber gaming keys in place, the Skiller operated well under gaming pressure, and even in the more sedate routine of regular work.
It may lack the lifespan of a mechanical switch keyboard, and the full key illumination of other gaming keyboards, but the Sharkoon Skiller is a pretty good overall keyboard. The sheer number of programmable keys is simply mind-boggling, but thankfully the software is pretty easy to get a grasp of. What's more impressive though is the ludicrously low price of £15.47.
Considering everything the Skiller can do, and the fact that it's well designed, change from twenty pounds is an absolute steal for a keyboard of this calibre. If you lots of macro functions and programmable keys, then we think the Skiller will be a handy weapon of choice. David Hayward
A good keyboard, with an unbelievable number of programmable keys.