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.
The LAN party is a mainstay of modern PC gamer culture. With the proliferation of high-speed Internet access, high-quality console graphics, and online match-making services, the LAN party might not hold the same place as it once did, but it's still far from dead.
Today, we’re going to examine some of the better keyboard and mouse options for today’s LAN party attendee. We chose to focus on portable equipment that can be easily taken from the desk to the road, while at the same time keeping the functionality and responsiveness needed for competitive hardcore PC gaming.
On the bench, we have four svelte gaming keyboards: the Kensington K72357US, Logitech K800, Razer BlackWidow Tournament Edition, and Siig JK-US0412-S1. While each of these slim-profile keyboards keep with our LAN party theme, the Logitech K800 we tested is the wireless model, since the otherwise identical corded version was not available when our request for submissions went out.
Our mouse line-up includes two entries from Logitech, the G500 and the G9x, the wired/Bluetooth combo Razer Orochi, and the color-changing Thermaltake TT eSports Theron. This selection gives us a couple of different ergonomic styles to choose from, and all four are driven by the latest-generation high-performance laser sensors.
For keyboards, we’ll be testing noise level, activation pressure, ghosting, and key rollover. Meanwhile, we’ll debunk the need for performance testing mice for DPI, polling rate, and acceleration. Finally, we’ll wrap up with a subjective assessment of comfort by bringing in nine test subjects with varying hand sizes to rate the ease of using these eight peripherals.
Let’s get started with a look at the first two keyboards on our list: the Kensington K72357US and Logitech K800.
- Portable Performance Peripherals, Perfect For LAN Party Participants
- Kensington K72357US And Logitech K800
- Razer BlackWidow And Siig JK-US0412-S1
- Results: Volume And Activation Force
- Results: Ghosting And Key Rollover
- Logitech G500 And G9x
- Razer Orochi And Thermaltake Theron
- Evaluating Mice: DPI And Polling Rate
- The Futility Of Benchmarking Mice
- Comfort Rankings From Regular Folks
- Our Keyboard And Mouse LAN Party Picks

Heh, good one Toms... good one.
Heh, good one Toms... good one.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16826104261
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.
I will not recommend that brand mouse to anyone ever again.
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.
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.
i kind of got suckered into this whole gaming keyboard and mouse set up, how it happened to me was for years i had been using a cheap keboard and mouse with my computers, anyway i thought well why dont i treat myself to a new high end keyboard and mouse as this is somthing i have always over looked when upgrading my computer, so off i go to my local PCworld, the first mouse i bought wat the R.A.T 3, looked very different and was on sale at 24.99 uk, was happy with that for the money, bit later i could not help but think about the R.A.T 7 MMO so next day off i go to buy one, got back home and was just stunned by the build quality, looks, feel and infact everything up until i tryed to use it, i had a bad habbit of pressing the right mouse button when i rested my finger on it, also no matter what setup i used i could not find one i was happy with, so took it back and swaped for the razer tai pan
have i noticed any difference to my gaming after spending a whole lot of cash NO lol
if ya not that good at games anyway dont think for 1 second these devices will make you play better,although once you learn the 10 million functions your new devices can do there are handy features that i cant live with out now.
Razer Black Widow Ultimate and Cyborg R.A.T 7 here. I've gone through multiple hundred dollar keyboard/mice before finally settling on these. between the click click click feel of the mechanical keyboard (seriously if you've never had one, try it, it's amazing) to the fit of the mouse with both the thumb and pinky rests fully extended, they rock.
Never skimp on your keyboard & mouse, you interact with them constantly, make sure you get ones you'll really like.
Steelseries 6, Filco, corsair K90.... Those are really good keyboards. Blackwidow breaks a lot, has a very irritating sound, and is overpriced.
Mices... unfortunatelly, best mices are out of production at this point, so you might as well get those.
Those devices operate on a sub-millisecond scale so your time base is completely off.
You need to drag it across 1" in 0.01 second, which is definitely humanly and physically doable on a 10" mousepad. 100 inches/second may sound fast but it is only ~6MPH, jogging speed. Of course, very few people actually move their mice anywhere near that fast under normal circumstances.
I like my wired keyboard and mouse. I can't stand wireless, for the most part...
but when certain circumstances necessitate it, my $8 logitech wireless mini mouse is great!
the cooler master quickfire rapid is superior in quality to the similarly sized/featured blackwidow and offers red, brown, and black in addition to blue cherry mx switches.