Microsoft Sidewinder X6 Gaming Keyboard with USB Port
by Microsoft
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Our Price: $89.99 Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Category: CE See more product details |
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Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Microsoft Sidewinder X6 Gaming Keyboard with USB Port
Customer Review: Great Keyboard
Summary: 5 Stars
Very comfortable very smooth and quite key feedback, highly recommend it, but the newer version is a little more ergonomic.Customer Review: I love it!
Summary: 5 Stars
I have not used this for gaming though so I don't see any issue for it's basic functionality. I recommend this product.Customer Review: Sidewinder X6 Keyboard
Summary: 5 Stars
Its a great keyboard!!! I have num-pad on the left side and its fantastic since Iam both left and right handed.Customer Review: Awesome!
Summary: 5 Stars
I bought this keyboard for my son who is 15 years old. All I hear is "awesome" from him. He loves it!Customer Review: Decent Keyboard that's typical Microsoft
Summary: 4 Stars
Preface : I am an avid gamer and 60+ WPM typist. I had been looking for an old Logitech G15 keyboard lately and decided to purchase Sidewinder X6. I run 7 instances of WoW with Vista Speech Recognition. This keyboard was to complement voice control through macro keys.
Detail :
1. Ergonomics
Touch typists are very sensitive to key mechanism. Click on the keyboard on the Sidewinder is soft but luckily click has good solid feedback. Each key is not mounted solid and gives a little. Key rocks side ways a bit unlike IBM/Fujitsu type old keyboard.
Keyboards do not have legs to angle the keys. It feels a bit flat to the desk. When typing, it is bothersome. Too many of current keyboards just aren't angled right.
Two Dials that control light and sound is good size and has decent resistance that works well.
Keyboard layout has fatal flaw. Microsoft put this X6 out as a gaming device. But they have placed ESC key in the wrong place. It looks like a compromise that Microsoft took for the looks instead of following traditional keyboard layout. This is fatal. I have clicked the F1 and my finger is wandering too much whenever I need to click ESC and that is fatal. Look at Logitech G15 and see where ESC should be at. If you are an avid gamer, do not buy this keyboard. You will be frustrated by the fact Microsoft so casually misplaced the ESC key.
2. Numeric Keypad
Detachable keypad is a good thing to have. Most of the time, you do not need it and removing it can reduce the space your keyboard takes up. There are 18 buttons including the dedicated calculator button.
Attaching mechanism is well designed. It uses magnet to pull two parts together almost automatically. The connection is solid enough that it will stay in place on the desk but when you lift up the keyboard it may fall off. Attaching and detaching does not affect the computer.
3. Quality
The keyboard is made of cheap plastic. They finished the same sheet of platic glossy in the middle and matte top and bottom. It is put together just good enough. If you press middle part of the keyboard, keyboard bends in 1/8 of an inch. Just to show how cheesy the keyboard is.
Lighting scheme of using orange for macro keys and red for normal keys works well with black keyboard.
4. Software
I was upset when I saw amount of HD space software required, 100MB. But the application did not actually used all that. It loaded itype.exe which was 2.2MB in size which took about 484KB of memory when loaded.
It uses keyboard properties in the control panel instead of using its own utility program. There is no hint of Macro features until you go to Key Settings tab and click on Assign/Manage Macro or Configure key. Then you are presented with Macro Editor.
Macro Editor is another huge disappointment. Macro Editor is just a glorified keystroke repeater. No other feature. You would think it could possible have Macro/Scripting ability. Nope. You will have to rely on third part software still like AutoHotKey.
BTW, there is no printed manual. Help file that supposed to help is not specific for this keyboard but a general help for all Microsoft Keyboard. So is the driver. ;)
5. USB
(Or lack there of). Initially I thought Microsoft was doing something spectacular with USB power that it could not simply spare extra power to give us 2 USB ports on the keyboard. But no, there is nothing fancy going on on this keyboard. 2 USB ports on the keyboard is very practical and it was simply taken out to save pennies for Microsoft. "period". You will miss that extra ports.
6. Conclusion
Microsoft Sidewinder X6 is not for the pro-gamers. It is designed and made for home consumer market. It is a good keyboard even though it is not the best. But if you are paying what they are asking, you should look for best keyboard that you can click away day and night. Its macro feature is a joke you will still be relying on third party software for that. I expected a lot because it was supposedly a product focused on gamers. I believe this keyboard was designed for teens who like fancy looking keyboard instead of providing a true utilitarian keyboard for real gamers. Buy it but without the expectation of pro gamer quality tool.
* Based on quality of its software and design, I believe this product was designed and marketed with sole purpose of diluting recent programmable keyboard market boom for gamers. Without any features that really had any thoughts and actual research in it, this product will quietly disappear into shadows soon enough. What good is macro when it really doesn't macro? Do you think they will let AutoHotKey hook into it? I don't think so. Microsoft isn't about making things work if it doesn't make money on it. I am regretting this purchase. I will update when other third party program actually make this keyboard useful.
** (Update) My keyboard driver crashed while playing WoW. Below is the error message I got. I am sure I am at fault not Microsoft. Poohaha.. How in the world they manage to crash the keyboard driver. So what happens when your X6 keyboard driver crashes? All your non-standard key don't work. Keypad don't work. You have to restart your computer.
"Runtime Error! Program****itype.exe R6025 - pure virtual function call."