Cougar's 200K Gaming Keyboard Has Scissor Switches

By Niels Broekhuijsen
published

Cougar's latest keyboard takes non-gaming switches and puts them on a gaming keyboard. This is the result.

Mechanical keyboards might have been grabbing heaps of attention over the past couple of years, but that has left those of us not willing to spend as much money on a keyboard in the cold. Cougar, however, has noticed this, and is giving non-mechanical keyboards some gaming-quality love. Today the manufacturer announced the 200K, which is a gaming keyboard with laptop-style scissor switches.

The keyboard has a very compact design, with the standard 104-key layout. Media functions and repeat rate adjustments are done through additional function switches. The electronics have anti-ghosting built in for 19 of the most important keys for gaming, ensuring that you're not bogged down the way you might be on various non-gaming oriented keyboards where certain key combinations don't register correctly.

Being a Cougar keyboard, the theme is black and orange, but Cougar has also equipped the keyboard with 7-color backlighting. This backlighting doesn't shine through the keys, but rather past the sides of it, so it's mostly for looks. You can cycle through these colors, and you can opt for a breathing effect on the lighting.

Cougar didn't reveal what the MSRP is, but the keyboard is listed on Newegg.com for $29.99.

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Niels Broekhuijsen
Niels Broekhuijsen

Niels Broekhuijsen is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware US. He reviews cases, water cooling and pc builds.

9 Comments Comment from the forums
  • thor220
    At first I thought this would be aimed at laptop users for it's low profiles keys but why would you pay for a separate keyboard that has poor switches when one is built into your laptop?

    The only notable features are lighting and the number of key presses. Still though, at that price, I can get full width keys with the same features.
    Reply
  • mikenygmail
    After seeing the "200K" title, that seems cheap! heh
    Reply
  • Fishwithadeagle
    In all honesty, my scissor switch keyboard just broke and was either going to get this one or the one from perixx. I find that I like typing on the low profile switches a lot more than the mechanical keyboards, which is why i go with them. I just happened to see this on newegg, but thought it was a cheap chinese brand. We'll have to see what kind of reviews it gets
    Reply
  • someguynamedmatt
    At $30 with 7-color backlighting, there's not much reason to complain. I don't mind scissor switches - everyone has their own preferences, and I can understand why a lot of people would prefer the lower-profile keys with a really short travel distance. I have a full-size keyboard, and I don't necessarily consider it 'better' than a smaller one. It's just different is all.
    Reply
  • fuzzion
    Does the company even know what "cougar" means because thats some funny sh*t
    Reply
  • carcharocles_theory
    In all honesty, scissor switches need more love. It's nice to see someone paying attention to them. Not everyone can afford a mechanical keyboard, and most rubber dome keyboards are mushy garbage. But if your only complaint about mechanical switches is how tall they are, you really should think about going Cherry ML. They have about the same height as a scissor switch, but the feel of the more common Cherry MX.

    15106586 said:
    Does the company even know what "cougar" means because thats some funny <Mod Edit>

    You mean this?
    Reply
  • demonkoryu
    It's a <Mod Edit> cat. So to speak oO'
    Reply
  • D_McG
    Backslash key is in the wrong location; should be between Backspace and Enter on the second row next to the brackets/braces. That's a deal breaker right there for me.
    Reply
  • hartss300
    I bought this and am typing on it right now and I love it. It has anti ghosting and has 7 different colors orange, blue, green, purple, light blue, lime, and a even lighter blue. It also has a mode where it cycles through all the colors. Oh and It also has a mode where its just off. But for a entry level gaming keyboard its great. I mostly got this because I have the bigger keys.
    Reply