This cuts down your reaction time, because you don't have to hunt for the appropriate key and remember that you programmed, say, M for grenades and S for reload, the way you would with a standard QWERTY keyboard. Plus, around the butterfly are the rest of the gaming keys, all within reach of the left hand. First, the size and positioning of the movement keys is a huge improvement over trying to play a game using letter or arrow keys. I'm a big fan of shooters, and during a couple of such marathon sessions of Battlefield 2 and Doom 3, I found the Merc had two main advantages. The butterfly design is the key to the Merc's appeal.
These extra-large, stylized keys control forward, backward and side-to-side movement, as well as strafing, and they're angled outwards slightly so that they match the way your left hand will naturally want to sit on the keys. The gaming cluster is built around a set of main control keys that Ideazon refers to as the "butterfly" because of its distinctive shape. Players who mouse with their right hand will love this cluster of 34 dedicated gaming keys on the left side of the keyboard, topped by audio playback controls. The Merc is basically a quirky QWERTY keyboard - picture a standard keyboard, but with a built-in gaming keypad stuck permanently to the left-hand side the way the number pad is usually built into the right-hand side. It's a single keyboard aimed at players of any game, but the hardware layout is designed specifically to give people an edge in role-playing titles and first-person shooters.Ī lot of thought has obviously gone into the Merc, and the result is a piece of gear that is head-and-shoulders above the average keyboard when it comes to gaming. Zboard featured keyboard overlays that snapped onto a standard base, providing custom key layouts for specific titles. Ideazon grabbed headlines in the gaming world a few years ago with its Zboard gaming keyboard, and the company is trying to score big points again with the new Merc. The Verdict: There's room for improvement, but the price is decent and it offers benefits to hard-core gamers.
The Bad: Keyboard's feel isn't great for straightforward typing, with things like the delete key integrated into the number pad lefties are out of luck no backlight no way to customize orientation of hardware important functions won't be available until the company updates the drivers later this year.The Good: Dedicated control keys can give gamers a big performance boost integrated audio controls located directly above game controls programmable game keys with downloadable key profiles for popular games.Also available for: Windows 32- and 64-bit operating systems.Reviewed on: Intel Pentium D840 dual-core system with 2GB of 667 MHz memory, Windows XP Professional and an ATI AIW X1800 video card.
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