Cougar Vantar Scissor Gaming Keyboard Review

Introduction

Whenever a keyboard arrives in our offices it is, 99 times out of a hundred, a mechanical one.

Mechanical keyboards are long lasting, full NKEY rollover, just quality items in general. However, ask most people what they type on and the answer will be a scissor switch keyboard. Their ubiquity on Laptops alongside the popularity of a Mac keyboard on a PC means that they are arguably more popular than mechanicals.

Which does beg the question, if so many people are used to the short-stroke, silent nature of a laptop style keyboard, why do so few manufacturers produce gaming models? This is a something Cougar seek to take advantage of with the release of the Vantar, a scissor switch keyboard with multi-colour lighting.

Tired of the clack, weight and sheer size of a mechanical keyboard? Let's find out if the Vantar is a good alternative.

Technical Specifications

As a keyboard which doesn't utilise software controls, nor offer any extraneous features beyond those that we've come to expect from a keyboard (media keys, lighting controls etc) the specifications are brief. It's worth noting how light it is though. 600g is about three mice. Way below a mechanical keyboard. The footprint is similarly tiny, with barely and deskspace taken up beyond that of the keyboard itself.

There are a few lighting options available and a few basic colours to use. The customise option splits the keyboard into 6 vertical bands and allows you to assign colours to them as you wish. Not fully customisable then, but better than nothing.