Archive for April 2013
How To Install Windows 7 or Windows 8 Using a USB Flash Drive [100% working!]
This guide works 100% for Windows 7 and Windows 8 unlike most of the guides out there. I have seen many sites/blogs that have “Install Vista from USB guide” but either with incomplete steps or not working guide. I have also seen some guides that don’t’ use proper commands in this guide. After spending many hours I have come up with this 100% working guide to install Windows 7 and Windows 8 from USB flash drive.
I just did this method on one of my friends machine and installed Windows 7 and Windows 8 . The main advantage is that by using USB drive you will be able to install Windows 7 or Windows 8 in just 15 minutes. You can also use this bootable USB drive on friend’s computer who doesn’t have a DVD optical drive.
The method is very simple and you can use without any hassles. Needless to say that your motherboard should support USB Boot feature to make use of the bootable USB drive. And if your PC doesn’t support booting from USB, you can still install Windows from USB by following our how to install Windows 7/8 from USB drive even if your PC doesn’t support USB boot feature.
Requirements:
- USB Flash Drive (Minimum 4GB)
- Windows 7 or Windows 8 installation files.
Follow the below steps to create bootable Windows 7/Windows 8 USB drive using which you can install Windows 7 or Windows 8 easily.
Procedure:
Step 1: Plug-in your USB flash drive to USB port and move all the contents from USB drive to a safe location on your system.
Step 2: Open Command Prompt with admin rights. Use any of the below methods to open Command Prompt with admin rights.
*Type cmd in Start menu search box and hit Ctrl+ Shift+ Enter.
Or
*Go to Start menu > All programs > Accessories, right click on Command Prompt and select Run as administrator.
Step 3: You need to know about the USB drive a little bit. Type in the following commands in the command prompt:
First type DISKPART and hit enter to see the below message.
Next type LIST DISK command and note down the Disk number (ex: Disk 1) of your USB flash drive. In the below screenshot my Flash Drive Disk no is Disk 1.
Step 4: Next type all the below commands one by one. Here I assume that your disk drive no is “Disk 1”.If you have Disk 2 as your USB flash drive then use Disk 2.Refer the above step to confirm it.
So below are the commands you need to type and execute one by one:
SELECT DISK 1
CLEAN
CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY
SELECT PARTITION 1
ACTIVE
FORMAT FS=NTFS
(Format process may take few seconds)
ASSIGN
EXIT
Don’t close the command prompt as we need to execute one more command at the next step. Just minimize it.
Step 5: Next insert your Windows7/Windows 8 DVD into the optical drive and check the drive letter of the DVD drive. In this guide I will assume that your DVD drive letter is “D” and USB drive letter is “H” (open my computer to know about it).
Step 6: Maximize the minimized Command Prompt in the 4th step.Type the following command now:
D: CD BOOT and hit enter.Where “D” is your DVD drive letter.
CD BOOT and hit enter to see the below message.
Step 7: Type another command given below to update the USB drive with BOOTMGR compatible code.
BOOTSECT.EXE /NT60 H:
Where “H” is your USB drive letter. Once you enter the above command you will see the below message.
Step 8: Copy your Windows 7 or Windows 8 DVD contents to the USB flash drive.
Step 9: Your USB drive is ready to boot and install Windows 7 or Windows 8. Only thing you need to change the boot priority at the BIOS to USB from the HDD or CD ROM drive. I won’t explain it as it’s just the matter the changing the boot priority or enabling the USB boot option in the BIOS.
Note: If you are not able to boot after following this guide means you haven’t set the BIOS priority to USB.
This guide works 100% for Windows 8 as well. Make sure you follow all steps correctly and launch the Command Prompt with admin rights (as given in the guide) to avoid errors. Good luck!
How To Enable & Disable Hibernate Option in Windows 7
In Windows XP enabling Hibernate option was a very easy task. One could navigate to Control Panel, Power Options and then Hibernate tab to enable or disable Hibernation feature. But in Windows 7, we have to follow a different approach to do the same job.
If you are not aware of Hibernate feature, Hibernation is a power-saving state designed primarily for laptops. While sleep puts your work and settings in memory and draws a small amount of power, hibernation puts your open documents and programs on your hard disk and then turns off your computer. Of all the power-saving states in Windows, hibernation uses the least amount of power. On a laptop, use hibernation when you know that you won’t use your laptop for an extended period and won’t have an opportunity to charge the battery during that time.
So if you are really going to use this feature then you need to enable it by doing a simple procedure as mentioned below:
Step 1: Open Command Prompt with Administrator rights. To open Command Prompt, typeCMD in Start menu and then hit Ctrl + Shift + Enter to open the Command Prompt with Admin rights.
Step 2: Next, type the below command and hit enter:
powercfg /hibernate on
Step 3: Type exit and hit enter to close the Command Prompt.
Step 4: If you can’t see the Hibernate option in Start menu then continue with the following tasks:
A. Type Power Options in Start menu and hit enter.
B. In the left pane, open the link labeled “Change when the computer sleeps” and then open the link “Change advanced power settings”.
C. Under the Advanced Sleep options, expand the Sleep tree and turn off Hybrid Sleep.
D. Now go back to Start menu to see the new Hibernate entry. That’s it!
BioShock Infinite Review 2013
There's a bit near the very start of BioShock Infinite where a travelling barbershop quartet rock up to a sunny promenade and serenade a young couple with a few verses from God Only Knows, torturing pleasant, extended harmonies out of every word before floating away on their own personal sky-barge to some other part of this giant, opulent city in the clouds. You can stand there and watch the scene for a few minutes in stunned disbelief: God Only Knows wasn't released until 1966.
But that's probably the point. The 1912 setting of BioShock Infinite is shot through with deliberate anachronisms, some subtle like a Beach Boys cameo, and some that will make no qualms about time-slapping your dumb jaw to the floor. There's a dreamy weirdness that permeates the city of Columbia that isn't explained in the few hours of playtime we had with BioShock Infinite. It riffs on chance, choice, fate, determinism and quantum physics. Coin tosses give improbable results, raffle tickets are called before they're drawn with Derren Brown levels of impunity. Something's very slightly wrong with how reality works in this universe, but nobody seems to notice.
It makes sense, however, that protagonist Booker Dewitt is happy to ignore this crease in reality and just carry on with things: his objective is uncomplicated and singular: he is to infiltrate Columbia, retrieve Elizabeth and hand her over to some debtors who shout at him in his flashbacks.
He'll do this by recreating BioShock's introduction in reverse: Infinite begins with Booker at sea, removing a gun and his instructions from a metal lunchbox before entering a storm-battered lighthouse. Here he collects his ticket to Columbia, activating a rocket-powered launch-pod that propels him above the cloud layer and reveals for the first time the scale and majesty of the impossible city. Columbia is a chunk of turn-of-the-century America, a statue-infested, puritanical town around which airships buzz, clouds creep and flags flutter. It's ruled by the unhinged, hyper-religious and self-appointed prophet Comstock, who promises salvation to Columbia's citizens by shouting at them through loudspeakers every day.
It makes sense, however, that protagonist Booker Dewitt is happy to ignore this crease in reality and just carry on with things: his objective is uncomplicated and singular: he is to infiltrate Columbia, retrieve Elizabeth and hand her over to some debtors who shout at him in his flashbacks.
He'll do this by recreating BioShock's introduction in reverse: Infinite begins with Booker at sea, removing a gun and his instructions from a metal lunchbox before entering a storm-battered lighthouse. Here he collects his ticket to Columbia, activating a rocket-powered launch-pod that propels him above the cloud layer and reveals for the first time the scale and majesty of the impossible city. Columbia is a chunk of turn-of-the-century America, a statue-infested, puritanical town around which airships buzz, clouds creep and flags flutter. It's ruled by the unhinged, hyper-religious and self-appointed prophet Comstock, who promises salvation to Columbia's citizens by shouting at them through loudspeakers every day.
It seems to work, Columbia has as much of a dark cultist mindset as Rapture ever had, and you're seen as just as much a disruptive and unwelcome agent, a unruly first-person cat bouncing around next to a meticulously constructed house of cards. It's Comstock who, having somehow been tipped off as to your identity, orders your immediate death without trial. Meanwhile a rebel group, the Vox Populi, forms the opposing slice of bread in the political sandwich Booker is desperately trying to avoid putting in his mouth during his mission to liberate Elizabeth.
Though caught in the middle of this conflict, Columbia is a resolutely civilised place to explore. More so than in BioShock, more so than in games likes Deus Ex and Dishonored, levels are filled with regular people going about their business, having conversations within earshot, being animated and human as best they can. Columbia isn't abandoned or ruined, it's thriving and you enter it during its heyday, where markets and fairs fill the boardwalks, promenades and gardens with well-attired and excited gentlemen and ladies.
It's a colourful, vibrant and interactive place: you can take part in games at the carnival, which are beautifully disguised tutorials for the game's shooting and magic-casting abilities. You can peer into what you'd expect to be a coin-operated peep show, but turn out to be mini-documentaries showing the foundation of the city. You can wander and absorb as much as the fiction as you care to, like a narrative ghost wandering a storybook graveyard. And you can listen to The Beach Boys. BioShock Infinite is proper virtual escapism, like the kind you hear about in the first line of news reports, when they try to snappily explain what videogames are.
I didn't like the shooting in BioShock, there was a pane of cognitive mind-glass somewhere between my mouse hand and the game's lazily clunking controls that made me feel removed from an otherwise welcoming world. It probably had something to do with mouse acceleration, it nearly always does, but BioShock Infinite doesn't suffer from this sluggishness. It's fast and snappy, your weapons crack loudly and headshots are fatal, movement is swift and sharp, enemy AI is clever enough to force you to move through combat arenas. Those rollercoaster rails that wind and arc between platforms are remarkably easy to use and, thankfully, it's either impossible or suitably difficult to murder yourself while grinding along them. Similarly, Irrational have recognised precisely how irritating it would be if falling into the clouds resulted in anything other resetting you at the position where you fell off. So don't worry about that either.
Your Vigor powers are partly carried over from the previous BioShock. You can summon flocks of crows to pester enemies, which is a lot like that time you summoned swarms of bees to pester enemies. The new Bucking Bronco Vigor jolts enemies skywards, another launches firebombs from your fist, while a more tactical minded Vigor can possess mechanical turrets, temporarily turning them friendly. Certain Vigors can also be placed as traps that activate as enemies walk over them, increasing your options and allowing you to play defensively when the odds are stacked against you.
Elizabeth follows you around too. On your instruction, she's able to open up 'tears' in space and 'pull through' objects from parallel dimensions. In practical terms that means she can make useful things appear at certain pre-defined positions in the game: she could conjure up a turret placement, or an ammo cache, or a sky-hook that you could latch on to in order to access a higher platform. She can only open up one of these tears at a time however, so choosing which ones to utilise can transform the course of a firefight.
Shawn Elliott told us about how these encounters play out later in the game, as the arenas become multi-tiered battlefields pocked with strategic strong points and populated by warring factions. Though it's Elizabeth who's opening and closing these tears, she's never unavailable in a gameplay sense: that is to say, if you give the order for a trans-dimensional turret to be pulled through a tear, it will happen instantly, no matter her position on the map, as if you'd just done it yourself. Your ally in Infinite is entirely helpful, not even an occasional liability. She even throws you ammo and health when you need it most.
You can now also find apparel to wear in a limited number of slots, with each item of clothing offering a new ability. There's a hat that makes you more accurate when shooting from skylines. There are some trousers that let you, erm, hurt people more. The early items were tame enough, but rare. I expect increasingly powerful trousers will be found later in the game.
This sine wave of violent, explosive peaks and peaceful, exploratory troughs are mutually complementary. After rescuing Elizabeth from her tower, you're hounded by the terrifying, mechanical songbird, a twenty-foot tall clockwork avian horror bound in leather skin and powered by arcane motors set behind glowing, staring eyes. It shrieks and trashes as it tries and fails to keep Elizabeth inside the tower: a pitiful monster, a dumb, misunderstood metal giant doing what it must to protect something it cares about. In its tick-tock brain, you're the bad guy. You're the worst guy.
The songbird is Infinite's Big Daddy, minus humanity, plus canary. In a frantic huff it destroys Elizabeth's tower (a monolithic, hollowed-out angel that dominates Columbia's skyline) as you escape, sending you both plunging into the water below. You wash up on an artificial beach, still aboard the floating city (which you only now realise boasts its own miniature seafront, a sandy shore whose fake ocean tumbles over a precipice and falls away into the vast blue sky beneath).
The pace of the game slows here. Elizabeth is missing, but not for long. Infinite bucks the "oh no I lost the person I'm looking for when I fell into the ocean" trope, and she can be found dancing on the nearby pier with fellow beach revellers. Her first experience of music outside of her prison perfectly frames both her childish naivety and Booker's grimly sober-faced approach to his task. That is to say, Booker don't dance. He does, if you want, explore the beach and poke around some bins while the heat's died down. Elizabeth excitedly scoots about, fascinated by the world around her and pelting the oddly stoic Booker with questions.
The locations you then travel to in pursuit of a means to escape Columbia are hugely varied: the city has room enough for sun-bleached gardens, churches with vast interiors, dark museums and foreboding catacombs. Some of the set-pieces feel recycled however: there's a sense of deja vu as you wander through a historical battle re-enactment while a disembodied voice monologues over loudspeaker. And whether deliberate or not, that Booker's backstory is a mystery to the player leads you to question his motives at certain points, creating a sort of cognitive dissonance between your actions as a player and his dialogue as a character. Again, like with the time-weirdness, and knowing how Irrational works, that's probably partially the point.
Also, while I'm thinking about it, looting cash registers and bins and listening to audio diaries isn't fun, it's weird and creepy and antiquated. Nobody has ever kept an audio diary at any point in history, they are the least believable part of your magical flying, crow-obsessed city.
Everything else is fantastic. Without wanting to slip into meaningless hyperbole, BioShock Infinite could easily be the best game Irrational's ever created: an intelligent collaboration of weird Jules Verne futurism, steampunk science-fiction, time-travelling soundtracks, magic hands and clockwork birds. It's a truly fascinating and original setting around which Irrational has built a vastly improved set of shooter mechanics and an ideal vehicle for a clever and intriguing story.
BioShock is out March 26.
Tomb Raider 2013 Review
Tomb Raider is a game about a woman who keeps standing on rotten planks of wood and falling down. It is a game about a woman who is always sliding on her bum, muddily, confidently towards her next adventure. It is a game about a woman who keeps going into rooms that are not properly affixed to the Earth, and then there is an explosion or a rumble or something, and then the room becomes unmoored and begins to lurch sideways and off the edge of a cliff or a waterfall. It is a very good game, full of exciting things to do with falling, and I like it.
In Tomb Raider you find yourself shipwrecked on a mysterious island full of mysterious tombs and mysterious cultists who’ll chase you around ancient ruins, shooting the faces off giant statues and defiling the sacred resting places of dozens of long-dead royals by chucking sticks of dynamite about. If that bit in Aladdin where the guy working on the sphinx accidentally chisels its nose off made you feel a bit sick, Tomb Raider will send you into a lurching fit of prehistorical sadness, such is the destruction wrought upon your delicate and unique surroundings. Imagine a bomb going off during a taping of Antiques Roadshow and Fiona Bruce gets blasted clear over a marquee and skewered on a branch. That is the reality of Lara Croft’s destructive archaeological efforts. That is Tomb Raider as she is played.
As well as being about wrecking tombs, Tomb Raider is also one of those games that sometimes plays itself while you sit back and watch. During certain sequences it’s not clear whether holding down the ‘go’ key is actually achieving anything, and depending on how intently the game is masturbating you can sometimes let go of the controls entirely and watch Lara automatically backflip over some lava. More often however, all of your button presses are simply interpreted as ‘go forwards’, requiring that you at least be sitting at your desk and paying attention to progress. But that’s okay.
That’s okay because during these moments Tomb Raider is a rollercoaster, a thrilling series of surprising twists and loops and tunnels and screams. Lara escapes toppling towers, scuttles through collapsing caves and across buckling bridges. Walls explode around you, Lara is thrown about as rooms twist and floors crumble away with perfect cinematic timing. The loss of control is countered by your fleeting few panicked reactions, the wheeling camera angles and rousing orchestral tharrumph-a-dumph. It looks and sounds more spectacular than it ever could have done had Crystal Dynamics allowed you, with your poor directorial abilities and penchant for running into walls, complete control over your character during these bits. So that’s okay.
It’s also okay because these cine-chunks are so carefully and sparsely set around the rest of the game, which is a game about shooting bad men, interspersed with the raiding of tombs, which arrive in the form of short, neat physics puzzles. Tomb Raider’s island is optionally open-world, a collection of wide, interconnected hub levels through which you can backtrack and fast-travel in order to collect more XP and salvage — the game’s currency for skills and weapon upgrades — or to find previously inaccessible tombs after having discovered the tools required to reach them.
The game is Zelda-like in its drip-feed of new world-traversing abilities: rope arrows allow you to create your own ziplines, a special climbing axe lets you climb up any walls that have the climbable wall texture on them. By the end of the game you’re basically a tomb raiding Batman, having collected all of these useful toys that Lara will probably accidentally drop down a hole at the beginning of her next game.
You can push forwards and ignore the option to double back and find more tombs. You can also ignore all of the Bear Grylls hunting and survival stuff that the game’s early tutorial and pre-release marketing seems to focus on, as animals are little more than roving, four-legged crates of XP and salvage, and you come across plenty of that stuff simply by carving a direct path through enemies.
Shooting men in their heads feels great too, which is worth pointing out at you do it a whole bunch. Lara’s armoury is whittled all the way down to a snappy handgun, clackety assault rifle, blammo shotgun and stealthy bow, the use of each changing the tempo of gunfights in such a way as to stir up variety as ammo expires and weapons become used out of dire necessity. They all pop satisfyingly, though, and each of the four weapons will get a decent airing around such clever enemies as: man with impenetrable riot shield, man who cannot be hurt by arrows and man who runs right up to you with a machete. The bow is used for stealth kills, allowing you to headshot bad men with arrows in such an order that nobody sees you do it. In that sense it's a bit like a puzzle. Some of the later skills you unlock allow you to trigger some brutal melee kills too.
It’s worth piling all of your skill points into melee kills, if only because it so messily highlights the wonderful character development of Lara Croft, a woman perpetually bullied by nature and haunted by gravity. She goes from vulnerable, desperate and shivering to a strutting hailstorm of vengeance-fuelled bullet rage, while never losing her defining ability to look at an urn and tell you which Chinese dynasty it’s come from. Looking at the insides of tombs and having Lara say something clever-sounding is a startling mind-snap back to the very first time you played the original Tomb Raider, that sense of visual wonder and awe in your surroundings makes a subtle but very perceptible return. I only wish there were more of it. I'd like Tomb Raider to be one long, interactive, Brian Coxesque anthropological narrative, interrupted only by ledges breaking underfoot and big slides down waterfalls. The sense of constant amazement at the scenery might be partly down to how rarely the game seems to reuse its own art assets: each long-lost burial site and overgrown, statue-studded crevasse looks and feels unique and, with few exceptions, graphically stunning.
It took me about 14 hours to finish Tomb Raider with something around a 60% completion rating, though I might've spent a load of time on the menu screen while I was in the shower or making sounds at the cat who lives outside my window. So let's say 12 hours on an average playthrough, with a few more on top if you decide to go back and find old tombs you missed, which you should. I haven't played the multiplayer because that ain't my bag, yo. It runs well enough on my mid-range PC, as long as you turn off fancy hair, but I did have some odd graphical glitching caused by post-processing being switched on, meaning I had to endure a fairly flat looking version of the game for the most part. Driver updates and patching should hopefully fix this right up.
Tomb Raider is the best videogame about shooting things and falling over I've played in quite some time, better than at least two of the Uncharted games and better than at least a dozen other Tomb Raider games. It's refreshingly well-written too, deftly rubbishing the expanding polygonal tits and arse of old Lara Croft to make way for a new character entirely, one who can innately side-step the bullshit two-dimensional machismo that plagues the form to become, by contrast of her own violently framed vulnerabilities, one of the strongest characters in games. Genuinely.
Lara Croft should be celebrated, Tomb Raider should be played and Crystal Dynamics should be rewarded.
Top 10 Ultimate Gaming Keyboards 2013
10. Roccat Isku Illuminated Gaming Keyboard
PROS:
Offers up to 25
programmable macros. Easy on-the-fly macro recording. Roccat Talk lets you pair
with another device for enhanced functionality.
CONS:
Integrated wrist rest makes for a giant footprint.
Key labels can be difficult to read in low light. Backlight color not
adjustable.
BOTTOM LINE:
The Roccat Isku is a solid
gaming keyboard with good overall functionality, but a few details about it
might not appeal to everyone.
The Roccat Isku Illuminated Gaming Keyboard ($89.99 list) hits the right notes on the necessities with its swappable profiles and 25 programmable macro keys, and offers additional useful features like Roccat Talk, an app that lets the keyboard work in tandem with other compatible devices (such as a mouse). Unfortunately, the Isku slips on the more intangible elements that make a good gaming keyboard, with plasticky construction, too-slick keys, and a backlight that actually reduced key visibility in some circumstances.
9. Rosewill Mechanical Keyboard RK-9000I
PROS:
Striking
black and white design. Excellent mechanical keys and solid construction.
Available with connections for both USB and PS/2.
CONS:
Lacks common features,
like media and volume controls. No advanced programmable features. Short
four-foot cable.
BOTTOM LINE:
The Rosewill RK-9000I is a very
well-made mechanical keyboard for gamers and typists alike, but the bare bones
design might be a little too basic for most.
The Rosewill RK-9000I ($99.99 direct) is the special edition of the RK-9000, a high-end mechanical keyboard. Ditching Rosewill's usual black and red color scheme for white with black keys, it's a slick looking variation on the basic keyboard, and the back to basics approach will appeal to typists and gamers who don't want to mess with extra features. With solid construction inside and out, the Rosewill RK-9000I is a good keyboard for anyone who wants smooth typing and a minimum of extras.
8. Razer BlackWidow Ultimate 2013 Elite
PROS:
Mechanical switches provide audio and tactile feedback. Backlit.
CONS:
Stylized font on keys is
hard to read. No backlight customization. Poor shielding for pass-thru ports.
Smudge-prone finish.
BOTTOM LINE:
The Razer BlackWidow Ultimate 2013 Elite is a solid mechanical
gaming keyboard, but it has its flaws, like a smudge prone-finish and poorly
shielded connections.
The Razer BlackWidow Ultimate 2013 Elite ($139.99 direct) is Razer's current top-of-the-line mechanical gaming keyboard, and Razer knows the business well—its previous model, the Razer Black Widow Ultimate (2012), earned our Editors' Choice. Since then, other keyboards have come onto the market with competitive designs and a wide array of unique features, but the Razer Black Widow Ultimate 2013 Elite is still one of the better mechanical gaming keyboards available.
7. Mad Catz S.T.R.I.K.E. 7 Gaming Keyboard
PROS:
Super-customizable. Tons of features. Touch screen is handy.
CONS:
Extremely expensive.
Doesn't use mechanical keyswitches. Complicated to hook up.
BOTTOM LINE:
The MadCatz S.T.R.I.K.E. 7 is
an impressive, feature-filled gaming keyboard, but it's extremely expensive and
doesn't use mechanical switches (though its membrane switches are very
responsive).
If the Das Keyboard $125.99 at Walmart.com is the Cadillac of keyboards (and it is), the MadCatz S.T.R.I.K.E. 7 is the Batmobile of keyboards. I've never seen so complicated or full-featured a gaming keyboard before, and at $299.99 (list) it better be. This has everything from an LCD screen and backlit keys to a modular design and customizable macros. Its only weaknesses are its extremely high price and its membrane keyboard design.
6. Razer DeathStalker Ultimate
PROS:
Switchblade UI. Adjustable multi-color backlight. Razer Synapse
2.0. Fully programmable.
CONS:
Mediocre keys. Pricey.
BOTTOM LINE:
The Razer DeathStalker Ultimate
is the only gaming keyboard to consider, if you want to use Razer's Switchblade
UI without shelling out the price of a premium gaming laptop. For everyone
else, however, there are better (and cheaper) options out there.
Premium bells and whistles are expensive under any circumstances, but when it comes to gaming equipment, those extras are sometimes pricey enough to cost an arm and a leg even when paired with middling core features. Case in point: the Razer DeathStalker Ultimate. Headlining with the same Switchblade touch-screen interface seen on the Razer Blade (2012), the DeathStalker Ultimate is considerably more expensive than most premium gaming keyboards (at $249.99), in spite of its crummy keys.
5. Logitech G710+ Mechanical Gaming Keyboard
PROS:
Dual-zone backlight. Programmable macros with swappable
profiles. Built-in media controls and volume knob.
CONS:
Pricey. Plastic construction.
Detachable wrist rest detaches too easily.
BOTTOM LINE:
The Logitech G710+ gaming
mechanical keyboard is a solid gaming keyboard that offers some of the best
features for gaming, but cheap construction makes the price feel excessive.
Logitech has been making keyboards for years, and gaming keyboards for nearly as long, but it's been noticeably absent on the mechanical keyboard front, opting instead for the less expensive silicone dome switches. This all changes with the Logitech G710+ mechanical gaming keyboard, which utilizes Cherry MX Brown mechanical switches, and offers several functions that gamers will welcome with open arms, like dual-zone backlighting, programmable macro keys, and built-in media controls. It's a solid gaming keyboard, but you might want to pick it up on sale—the price is just a little too high.
4. Razer BlackWidow Tournament Edition
PROS:
Quality construction with Cherry MX Blue mechanical switches.
10-key anti-ghosting. Detachable USB cable. Includes travel case.
CONS:
Compact design removes numeric
pad.
BOTTOM LINE:
The Razer BlackWidow Tournament
Edition mechanical keyboard is touted as being travel friendly, but the compact
build only limits the functionality.
The Razer BlackWidow Tournament Edition takes the solid Razer BlackWidow Ultimate 2013 Elite$142.44 at ReStockIt.com—a including the mechanical, backlit keys—and lops off the 10-key pad, making a more compact keyboard that is easier to pack up and take along for a LAN party or tournament.
3. Logitech G13 Advanced Gameboard
PROS:
Ergonomic comfort and superior control. Programmable
22-button keypad with swappable maps and profiles. Onboard memory. Extra long
cable.
CONS:
Steep learning curve. Labor
intensive setup. Not Plug-and-Play. Clickable joystick is difficult to click.
BOTTOM LINE:
The Logitech G13 Advanced
Gamepad is definitely a niche product, but with a comfortable design and wide
array of features, it's a good fit for the diehard gamer.
While gamers have plenty of specialized mice and keyboards to choose from, sometimes you want a device that gives you a little more control. Sometimes, you just don't want an entire keyboard. For times like these, there is the Logitech G13 Advanced Gameboard $49.99 at Amazon, a separate gaming keypad that gives you all of your WASD controls, programmable macro keys, and quick-fire commands, without the bulk of a keyboard and with the added comfort of a use-specific design. If you're looking for a way to step your gaming, this could be it.
2. Corsair Vengeance K60
PROS:
Great typing experience with springy mechanical switches.
Swappable keycaps. Built-in media controls and volume knob. USB pass-through.
Detachable palm-rest.
CONS:
Palm rest is left-hand only.
Silicone dome switches used for some keys.
BOTTOM LINE:
The Corsair Vengeance K60
keyboard is a weapon built to a gamer's specs, with a left-handed wrist rest
and 10 swappable sculpted keys.
When you hop onto the gaming grid to engage in combat, the keyboard you type on for work just won't do. You don't want a keyboard, you want a weapon, crafted for reliability and fitted to your specific needs. Corsair has delivered just that with the Vengeance K60 gaming keyboard ($109.99 direct). It's a solid gaming keyboard that offers a little something extra by way of a specially shaped and positioned wrist rest and 10 swappable keys sculpted and textured to make navigating through a digital combat zone as easy as walking in real life.
Design and Features
The K60 has a two-toned color scheme with a bare brushed aluminum deck studded with black plastic keycaps, similar to its Editors'-Choice-winning sibling, the Corsair Vengeance K90 ($129.99 direct, 4.5 stars). The plastic caps are made of black plastic, and use Cherry MX Red mechanical switches—the same used on top keyboards like the Vengeance K90 $124.81 at Amazon and the Das Keyboard Model S Ultimate ($129.99 direct, 4.5 stars)—for all of the typing keys and the numeric pad, but uses cheaper silicone dome switches under the lesser-used function keys. There's also no backlight, so gaming in low light may leave you in the dark, so to speak.
The K60 has a two-toned color scheme with a bare brushed aluminum deck studded with black plastic keycaps, similar to its Editors'-Choice-winning sibling, the Corsair Vengeance K90 ($129.99 direct, 4.5 stars). The plastic caps are made of black plastic, and use Cherry MX Red mechanical switches—the same used on top keyboards like the Vengeance K90 $124.81 at Amazon and the Das Keyboard Model S Ultimate ($129.99 direct, 4.5 stars)—for all of the typing keys and the numeric pad, but uses cheaper silicone dome switches under the lesser-used function keys. There's also no backlight, so gaming in low light may leave you in the dark, so to speak.
1. Corsair Vengeance K90
PROS:
Great typing experience with springy mechanical switches.
Adjustable backlight. 18 programmable macro keys. Built-in media controls and
volume knob. On board memory. USB pass through. Detachable palm-rest.
CONS:
Palm rest collects crumbs.
Silicone dome switches used for some keys.
BOTTOM LINE:
The Corsair Vengeance K90
gaming keyboard pairs a well-built gaming keyboard with a smorgasbord of
customization, media controls and ergonomic features.
Corsair has long had a finger on the pulse of PC gaming, but with its newest keyboard, the Vengeance K90 ($129.99 direct), it scores a solid victory—the K90 is among the best high-performance keyboards you can buy. Mechanical keyboards are the way to go for high-performance gamers, with top of the line offerings like the Razer Black Widow Ultimate ($129.99 direct, 4.5 stars) and the Das Keyboard Model S Ultimate ($129.99 direct, 4.5 stars) utilizing the springy, noisy keys for their superior performance, long-term durability, and less force needed to register keystrokes. Combine this with built-in media controls, on-board memory, and a whopping 18-keys dedicated to custom macros, and the Corsair Vengeance K90 $124.81 at Amazon is one gaming keyboard that's hard to beat.
CHECK OUT TOP 10 GAMING MOUSE 2013
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