Final Analysis
It is not an insult to say that the Patriot Viper V760 is almost a commodity keyboard. As we mentioned at the top of this article, there are scores (if not hundreds) of gaming keyboards on the market right now that are strikingly similar in terms of design and features, and this is one of them. However, no matter how you slice it, the V760 is a solid keyboard--just as good if not a little better or worse than a vast amount of the competition.
One of the main selling points in today’s commoditized keyboard market is brand. Companies that have a good reputation for X product are now producing keyboards and mice, and the logic is that if you like what the brand has made before, you may like what the brand is now making. One of the hooks is pairing a mouse and keyboard together, giving you a branded one-two peripheral punch. To that end, the V760 should go well with the existing V560 mouse or the upcoming V570 or V530 mice.
It’s funny that Patriot’s lighting design could be a pro or a con, depending on how you look at it. On one hand, it’s great to have so many lighting controls available via (labelled) keyboard shortcuts, making the V760 a plug-and-play device with lots of onboard capabilities. On the other hand, who will remember what all those secondary characters mean and which combinations do what? And besides, you still need the software to change the colors.
Based both on objective measurements and subjective observations, V760’s build quality is average. Although the plate-mounted design makes for better audio quality and reduces flexion, the plate is aluminum, not steel, and it’s somewhat thin around the edges.
The price of the Viper V760 is right about where you’d expect it. It is true that you can find a number of keyboards for much less than $120, but considering the plate-mounted design, onboard features, removable wrist rest, and the extra software-enabled capabilities, that’s a reasonably competitive price in the current market.
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That's a fair question. The answer is nuanced. Our goal as a publication is not simply to review the coolest stuff; we want to examine as much of each market as possible--the gear people are spending their hard-earned money on, and the gear that stands out as truly remarkable. Sometimes that means reviewing less sexy gear--as you (probably correctly) call them, "commodity keyboards". Because maybe the commodity stuff is actually really great. Maybe it's garbage. But we won't know until we review them, and in the meantime, people are buying them.
Further, we're not just in the business of reviews, we're in the business of *comparative* reviews. So taking a look at a bigger range of the market means we can do a better job of comparing these devices to one another.
Finally, fear not--there's more diversity and some really interesting stuff coming soon. :) And we'll put the XMIT Hall Effect in the queue as soon as he sends me one! :D
A great article with tons of information. Kudos to you for doing a great job with it. After reading your previous article on How you test the keyboard switches I was slightly worried that the graphs would be difficult to grasp but your explanations relieved that worry.