Four Keyboards And Four Mice For LAN Party Gamers, Rounded-Up

Round-ups
By Daniel Starkey
published

We have four portable keyboards and a quartet of gaming mice that could turn heads at your next LAN party. We put the boards through a number of performance-oriented metrics, and handed the hardware off to some gamer friends for their opinions, too.

Our Keyboard And Mouse LAN Party Picks

Keyboard

Looking over our data, the recommendations we'd like to make are pretty clear. If the lack of a number pad and its $80 price tag don't bother you, Razer's BlackWidow Tournament Edition mechanical keyboard scores the win.

If you aren't willing to spend that much cash on a keyboard, Kensington's $30 K72357US is a reasonable budget-oriented option.

Although it's built solidly, the Siig JK-US0412-S1 is not well-suited to hardcore gaming because of its severe ghosting issue. Combine that with a high price tag and Siig just can't compete with the other three contenders in any objective measurement.

Razer’s entire BlackWidow line is fantastic, and the Tournament Edition is no different. We've used several BlackWidows, and they all have that satisfying response you can only get from a high-end mechanical switch keyboard. While we don't buy into the idea that a more tactile key press will improve your gaming performance, we certainly can testify that it helps with general typing more than you might expect.

As such, the BlackWidow Tournament Edition earns our Approved award for rising to the top of today's field.

Mouse

As far as mice go, we can say that we’ve become thoroughly obsessed with the Logitech G9x (Ed.: Coincidentally, this is the mouse I've been using on my personal gaming rig for a couple of years now). The G9x's feel is what sets it apart, and unfortunately that needs to be experienced first-hand. Particularly since it's selling for $20 less than when we started this story, the G9x also deserves an Approved award at $60.

While Thermaltake's Theron is quite nice as well, the placement of its DPI buttons and odd shape detracted from otherwise-excellent performance. It's just too easy to accidentally change settings, and we can see that being a big problem for gamers.

While we wouldn't malign the Logitech G500 or Razer Orochi as much as our panel of testers did, neither would be our first pick either. Due to its small size, my hands tended to cramp after gaming with the Orochi for a couple hours.

But, as we already mentioned, peripheral choice ultimately comes down to which device feels the best to you. Objectively, the mice are more or less equal, and other than the Siig, none of the keyboards should give you too much trouble either. Whatever you decide, this kind of portable gear helps keep the spirit of LAN parties alive, and that’s what really matters.

Daniel Starkey
64 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Hadoe
    "high-quality console graphics"

    Heh, good one Toms... good one.
    Reply
  • atavax
    i wonder at what dpi's they tested acceleration. It was my understanding that a lot of mice have acceleration issues at different dpi's. I have seen multiple sources that say the G9 has negative acceleration at low sensitivities.
    Reply
  • samwelaye
    I've had my g9x for quite a while now, love this mouse!
    Reply
  • Trewyy
    G9x now down to $55 on Newegg :) I should mention that it was a good review, as always!

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16826104261
    Reply
  • ShadyHamster
    Five programmable buttons near the thumb rest, a mechanical button below the scroll wheel, and a battery indicator set the G500 apart from standard mice.

    That should be DPI indicator not battery.

    And whats up with pitting 1 mechanical keyboard up against 3 membrane keyboards? Before even reading the article i knew that the mechanical keyboard would be the clear winner, who would care about the loudness of the keys at a lan party, 99.9% of people would have headphones.
    Reply
  • Swordkd
    Before I bought my Razer mouse(Imperator 2012), I read reviews on newegg and decided to discount the issue that they seemed to be having. After a few months of use, the mice would start to double-click from a single "click". Sure enough, less than 6 months of light to moderate use, my mouse now suffers from this malady once out of every 20 clicks or so. Enough to annoy me.

    I will not recommend that brand mouse to anyone ever again.
    Reply
  • Soda-88
    No 6Gv2?
    Reply
  • kitsunestarwind
    Logitech G9X is a fantastic mouse, been using mine since they first came out, never a complaint and has led to me having very sharp and accurate aim in games like BF3. Buy one it is worth it!
    Reply
  • alidan
    das keyboard professional
    razor naga

    that's my setup...

    that said, sound and weight to press are not lower or higher is better... they are prefferences, i personally love the sound that a cherry blue makes and wish it was a bit louder because i make more sound on each key by bottoming them out apposed to activating the switch.

    and weight, i hear it more often than not that for gaming heavier presses are better because its less likely to accidently activate.

    now, impersonally just because of prior things i have had, i can never recommend razor... but at the same time i use a razor because i want that 12 key pad, and Logitech mouse is even smaller than the already small naga, and i cant get use to its bad form factor... its really the only razor anything i recommend just because there is no other competition that i can tell people to go with outside the small logitech and only if they have small hands.

    also, i dont know if it was mentioned, but the razor keyboard from what i remember has such a strict policy, that if you remove a key cap, you void the warranty. there are story's of the s and j key switched, but because of razors warranty, they have to send it in and get it replaced that way, and its a razor product, you know it will fail... the keyboard doesn't have a mounting plate, so its more likely to fail than other mechanical keyboards because of the solder point stress before the keys naturally give out.
    Reply
  • blubbey
    'The G500 was reported to be too long,'

    I know of course this is personal preference and everyone's different, but either their hands are small or mine are of reasonable size because I can almost cover the entire mouse (fingertips and base of my hand can just about hit the mouse mat at the same time). Unfortunately I don't have much else to compare it to, only random mice however it is larger than any I can remember, so I might just have larger than 'normal' hands.

    Something else you might want to consider that others have found is that the scroll wheel is very 'light' to use. I'm indifferent about it seeing as I'm used to light scroll wheels but a few people have raised that point in reviews that I saw before buying it (~$45 on sale). I've also found that the weights are prety much useless, it's already quite a weighty mouse so an extra few grams really didn't matter for me.
    Reply