SteelSeries Shift Keyboard and Keyset Review

SteelSeries Shift Keyboard and Keyset Review

Introduction

Ah the humble keyboard.

The marketplace is full of keyboards and they’re split into quite a few types. You have your basic “it’s got keys” models, laptop style low pressure ones, mechanical keyboards that will survive a direct missile hit, and ones that have a unique selling point.

Today we’re looking at the latter of those, a keyboard with a unique selling point, and quite a unique point it is.

Welcome to the SteelSeries Shift.

To all intents and purposes this is a keyboard the same as most others with a hybrid feel that sits nicely between the elephantine travel and pressure needed to activate a mechanical keyboard and the gentle breeze needed by a laptop style one.

The part that really separates it is the ease in which you can switch out the standard key layout for one tuned to a specific title. Before you all leap off your chairs and say “But the zBoard did that, it’s hardly unique” then pipe-down a moment. The concept of the Shift is exactly that of the zBoard, but rather than the ability to switch out keysets coming at the expense of pretty much everything else as the zBoard was, this is very much a comprehensive upgrade.

So it’s the idea of the zBoard, but with greatly enhanced parts to hopefully bring it up to par with the rest of the SteelSeries range.

Of course how useful this ability is to you is dependant upon how much of a slave you are to a certain title. But we’re getting a little ahead of ourselves.

Let’s grab a look at the Shift.