14 out of 14 people found this review helpful.
Leave the lights out
Date of Review: Oct 5, 2005
The Bottom Line: Does the job that it sets out to do.
I've moved from console back to PC games in the last couple of months. This has kept me at my computer and with on-line PC games there tends to be a bit more keyboard interaction then with even PS2 console games.
While this isn't a problem. What I did notice is that when night time comes it takes me a bit longer to find my home keys. Now the simple answer to this would be to turn the lights on. But who likes simple anymore.
Then it dawned on me. I need a back-lit keyboard. Then I can keep the lights off, save some electricity, and find that key that I need to hit quickly. After doing a bit of research, reading any reviews I could find, and picking out what I considered way over priced competitors I settled on the Saitek Eclipse.
This is a LED back-lit keyboard. So you should enjoy a pretty long life and no extra noise from the EL light keyboards that I've read about. The keyboard is full sized, so you won't have to hunt for keys that have been put in strange places. There are not alot of extras on the keyboard either, just 4 extra buttons. Three for sound (mute, volume up, volume down) and One for the light control.
I found on Windows XP (with SP2 and Media player 10) that the volume control works right out the box. There were no drivers to install (and none that comes with the keyboard anyway). The volume control will control the main volume in Windows. The keyboard shows up as a standard 104 key keyboard in device manager.
The keyboard has some weight to it and feels very solid. The action on the keys are very smooth and seem somewhat quiet. However it would depend on your typing style. I could be very noisy with the keyboard or very quiet depending on how I decided to type (very hard to explain, sorry). Saitek also includes a wrist rest with the keyboard. This rest would be the only part where you may think some corners were cut. While it's attached and the keyboard is on a flat surface it does just fine. However if you had to move the keyboard you would feel that the rest would be broken before you made it to your destination. However the rest is easily removed from the keyboard. I think another down side to the rest is it's simply made of plastic. I think some gel filling may have been in order considering the price of the keyboard.
And then there's the lights. What sets this keyboard apart from others on the market is how the keys are lit. The light comes through the keys. So where the letters were (black letters on a silver background) there are now illuminated letters. These letters show up pretty clearly as well, somewhat... For simple letters (A,B,C,X and so on) the letters are the standard size that you find on all other keyboards. So the light comes through just fine. However on keys that share words (which may be what back-lighting is needed most for) not enough light comes through. Not that the words can't be seen, however they are not as clear as keys with only one letter on them. Another problem that I found is that the lighting seems to be patchy in some places. The main 3 rows with the letters on them (Q,W,E,R,T,Y and so on) are fine. However when you get to the function keys and the top row the lighting seems a bit dimmer in those areas. You will also notice a difference in lighting depending on how you view the keyboard. A straight top down view presents much more light through the keys then at an angle. This could be a problem since I don't know of anyone that types (or at-least touch types) hovering directly over the keyboard. While this cuts down on the amount of illumination that you see through the keys (I would compare it with watching a rear projection television head on vs. off to an angle, you still know what's going on, but your best view is right in front of the screen) somewhat the back-lighting is still pretty effective.
If you need a good solid keyboard, and you need back lighting then this keyboard could be a good choice for you. With everything considered I feel that this is a good choice for a keyboard and it does the job that it sets out to do... just not as good as it could have.
