Razer Lycosa Gaming Keyboard

We hauled this little beauty home for some intensive testing.

The results were rather impressive. While the keyboard appears a little flimsy at first, it is far tougher than it looks, allowing for a little pounding of keys in frustration without the nagging feeling that a fingertip will punch through to the desktop below. With the online gaming skills of yours truly residing somewhere in the region of the nearest toilet bowl, this is an everyday occurrence.

There are options, if one bothers with the optional software beyond the drivers, to create macros and different profiles for the keyboard. The software is a little annoying to be totally honest and since many of the functions and features of this hardware work without needing too much by way of setup, there isn't a whole load of incentive to go through that. The Lycosa keyboard seems to have been designed with the male species in mind, with no referring to directions prior to hooking it up. There may be something in the manual about altering the backlight profiles that we missed though, since we never read it. There are however a few that can be chosen for all occasions.

The low profile of the board is great for those who are comfortable with some rapid key movement; it can be raised somewhat for the difficult. The backlit sections of the board are geared for the right-handed with no apparent options for the southpaws out there. A great selling point is the non-slip properties of the Lycosa, eliminating that annoying travelling sensation under the heel of the palm while hunting for the reload key in a heavy game of COD4.

There are built-in audio ports on the keyboard as well as a USB port. This accounts for the fearsome looking connector with the keyboard itself, with two USB connectors and the audio jacks which will take up much space on the back - or frontside ports on a user's rig. What does make a little impact is that plugging in the board takes up two USBs, while the board only contains one. A small price to pay for the illusive full speed USB minus the slipped disc.

As a whole, the Razer is a very good-looking bit of hardware, though a tad small for folks who are used to a more hefty gaming setup. This is not a negative point but it does take a little getting used to before one can merrily blast NCPs away with confidence again. While there are fuller-featured gaming keyboards out there, the Razor Lycosa is something to write home about, despite the hairy price.