OCZ Elixir II Gaming Keyboard

Testing

For testing we used the keyboard for day to day office tasks, including the writing of this review. Unfortunately it didn’t fare to well. First off the funny enter key was rather annoying, with an uninvited # appearing at the end of all our paragraphs. Then there was the poor key response. You have to press the keys a relatively long way down before they respond, making fast touch typing a bit of a pain. Both those coupled together lead to a rather frustrating typing experience; we didn’t just have to adjust to a new keyboard but the layout also took time to adjust to.

Gaming was reasonable, the keyboard worked much better here than it did with office tasks. The relatively slow change between keys wasn’t so much of an issue and the enter key was rarely used. It wasn’t the most comfortable keyboard we have ever used, but it wasn’t bad, especially for something of its size.

Conclusion

We have mixed feelings towards the Elixir II. The typing experience was poor and frustrating, but its small proportions, weight and reasonable gaming experience means it could appeal to gamers with limited space. It could also appeal to gamers on the move, looking for something small and lightweight they can carry around all day. However, having a num pad on the keyboard does mean it is longer than other contenders in the market, which means it is not ideally suited.

To sum it up, we’re not overly impressed with the Elixir II. Unfortunately avaliability in the UK isn’t great, with Aria the only retailer we could find with any in stock. Priced at £12.59, it could appeal to a small range of dedicated gamers on small desks, but to anyone else its not really worth it.

Pros
+ Relatively Small
+ Lightweight

The Mediocre
* Reasonable gaming performance

The Poor
– Odd enter Key and Long key travel make it poor for typing.

Overclock3d would like to thank OCZ for supplying todays review sample. Discuss in the forums here.