What do you think about the Apex Pro Keyboard?
The other day I was in Target and they had a keyboard display, and in that display was a SteelSeries Apex Pro TKL. For those unfamilliar with them, they feature what they call omnipoint keyswitches, which basically means that they are all essentially analogue inputs, which means you can adjust the actuation point in software.
I know there are a lot of keyboard enthusiasts here on Tildes, so I thought I'd ask what you thought about it. While I'm probably not going to buy one anytime soon, I'm interested in it. But I'd also use it almost exclusively for typing, which isn't really the target audience for it. I generally prefer tactile switches but I realized while demoing the Apex that I've been using rubber dome switches so much in recent years that it doesn't matter too much.
I bought an Apex Pro TKL keyboard after trying my roommate's in 2020. It was the smoothest keyboard I have ever tried. He had the full sized one, but I opted for the TKL version for more space for competitive shooters (Counter Strike).
Pros:
Cons:
I'm not a mechanical keyboard enthusiast, and I'm sure there are technically better keyboards out there. But I'm happy with what I got and the features that came with it
I think I have an older version of this keyboard, but I wanted to add another confirmation that the LEDs do die on this thing. I've tried to adjust the color of the keys to compensate but I know it'll never be perfect.
The silver lining I'm happy about is that at least it's purely the looks of the key, and nothing of the functionality is lost with the dying diode
the computer I use the most is actually my MacBook Air, which only has two USB ports on it. And even if it weren’t there is something about the idea of a device in this era using two usb ports that is really irritating.
I figured since I will be prioritizing typing over games it will all come down to how I like the tactile feel of the switches and while they are possibly the best non-clicky switches I have ever felt, they are still non-clicky switches, which is probably the biggest reason why I won’t end up buying it.
Although to be frank I also just don’t want to need to install special software for a peripheral anymore. They almost universally suck. I have Logitech Options installed for my MX Master and it bugs the heck out of me.
I'm somewhat of a keyboard enthusiast so I'll weigh in on this , less the actual keyboard more hall effect switches as a whole. Conceptually I like the idea of hall effect switches and so do a lot of switch manufacturers as they're starting to produce them, its not just the Wooting Lekker switch but producers Wuque, Everglide, Kaihl and even TTC are now making them.
However from what I understand, the gaming benefits of hall effect switches (e.g. snap tapping, counter strafing, etc) is real but limited to certain games that can utilize these switch characteristics and now some games ,the biggest being CS, have banned some features that can only be done using hall effect switches.
In addition most keyboard enthusiast reviewers tend to not like the scratchy feel and chatter-y sound of the current gen of hall effect switches, which is kind of the point of the whole hobby. Throw in the fact that so many of these keyboards are starting to be made by gamer peripheral manufacturers like Steelseries, Asus, and Razer who make overpriced, cheaply made keyboards using dubious marketing claims and there is a bit of a meh reception for hall effect keyboards.
Personally I'm a tactile switch fan so hall effect is a no go. I also hate gamery marketing bullshit from companies like Razer and Logitech so keyboards like the Apex don't interest me. My general thought is if you play certain games you'll likely notice a difference but I doubt it'll make you that much better (still have to work on aim mechanics) and the everyday use of the current gen of hall effect switches seems less pleasant than a good tactile or linear switch which can be far less expensive but far more enjoyable to use. In addition, compatibility with HE switches and socket types hasn't been standardized so a lot of switches won't work with boards despite the board being hot-swappable.
For me, I'd willing to give HE a go once the switch technology becomes more mature (better overall feel/sound/materials, more actuation force options, a tactile option???) , the socket type is standardized (seems like the Wooting socket type is taking over but we'll see), and the barebone keyboard options become better. Right now, buying an HE keyboard feels like a rec league player buying high end basketball shoes in hopes of making them play better (this coming from someone who has high end soccer cleats BUT THIS IS NOT ABOUT ME) : it will likely make some difference but overall, there are probably other skills that need to be developed.
edit: adding some more info and links.
I've been out of the MK game for a couple of years now since I got my endgame (Ergodox EZ with Boba U4T switches and GMK caps), but from what I know about analog switches, they don't have too many useful applications at the moment besides the strafe tapping thing that Valve patched out in CS2 already.
I'm generally only interested in gaming though so maybe I'm overlooking something. I wonder if there's a way to use analog keys to simulate playing an analog piano with music software, that'd be pretty interesting to see.
So, I've got more than ten keyboards and several keypads in my house - my dabble into analog keypads comes from the Razer Tartarus Pro so big grain of salt...
I don't really care for them. Maybe they have some use in PS2 emulation for MGS3 but I prefer my Black switches overall. My fingers are too old and damaged to 'hold' a switch at 50% with one finger to actually use the analog function and hell forgive you if you play with a game that doesn't understand mixed inputs exist. If Target has a decent return policy, give it a try but the difference between my G13, Tartarus, and Tartarus Pro, I dunno, they mostly feel the same on the input which is terrible from a gameplay perspective.
Just like my brief stints with Brown and Red switches, it's all about you. Try them out and return it they're not good for you.
I use a Wooting two HE as my main keyboard. It's great for gaming but not much else.
Gaming
For gaming, the hall effect switches alone (without rapid trigger) don't help much. Ostensibly setting a higher key press threshold (so the key registers at the top of the key stroke) can help you react faster, since there is less physical motion before your key press registers. However (again without a rapid trigger feature) you set the distance threshold for both hitting and releasing a key to the same value, so you have a tradeoff between key press latency and key release latency. Both latencies are equally important in most games, since you likely care about how soon you stop moving as well as how soon you start moving.
The REAL killer gaming feature is rapid trigger (and Wooting has the best implementation). This registers a key press or release as soon as the key reverses direction (i.e. always at the start of your key press or release). Therefore you get the best of both worlds in registering key presses and releases as fast as possible.
So how much does this actually help? Here I recorded a 60 fps video of me hitting a key at what I guessed was a typical speed for gaming. My estimate was you could shave off up to 16.667 milliseconds of reaction time. However now it's the future and I have a phone with 240 fps recording. I re-did the test and found each key stroke was on average 5 frames long, or 20.833 milliseconds. So if you typically set your actuation point to halfway through the key stroke, the real latency reduction is ~10 milliseconds. You would likely only benefit in competitive shooters or other movement-focused games (e.g. Doom Eternal, TagPro, Quake, Rocket League maybe?
Typing
I don't notice a scratchy feel or chatter like canekicker mentioned, but I'm not a mechanical keyboard enthusiast so maybe it's there and I don't know what to look for. Otherwise typing on this will be as good as any other keyboard with linear switches. I personally don't like linear switches for typing, I make way more typos by accidentally hitting extra keys. I much prefer Cherry MX browns.
My advice to the OP is that it's not worth it for your use case. Try some tactile keyboards and find something there you like.
Somethings, like feel, are fairly night and day. For example I started with MX Browns decades ago but have moved onto improved (aka better materials, factory lubed, better construction etc) tactile switches and the difference is stark. Though with a lot of things related to mechanical keyboards, they tend to have a "once you notice it, you can't unnotice it" kind of feel. Like here are a few examples of "chatter", with the worst being this one which has other awful noises as well, especially with the space bar. To me, chatter is extraneous, high pitched/plasticy rattle that's common with HE switches due to how they're were constructed. However, I do feel that they've improved a lot recently and you can hear it here, especially with the Gateron Jade Pros, but to me, they don't sound as nice as a more traditional linear switch. Note Gateron makes the Wooting switches so maybe some of the improvements there have transferred over so maybe your switches don't suffer from the issues others experienced.
Not to derail your point, but I don't think "chatter" probably is the right word for sound that since it means something specific with mechanical switches, especially Cherry MX derived switches (see: https://deskthority.net/wiki/Chatter). I usually see the word "rattle" used for what you're describing and it also drives me nuts and is usually a quick way to see if I think a keyboard is "cheap" or "good" when trying them out.
Agreed, when I was trying to find examples of the sound, I ran across all these definitions of chatter, including the link you ran across. I ended up going with it cause it was mentioned a few times in the videos I linked. That said, I'm the same and if I'm using my keyboard for 8+ hrs a day, an initial small annoyance becomes insufferable after a few days which is why I've gone the full custom route and generally recommend this to people, especially those who work from home. I'm very much a person who believes you should spend more on things you use more often
I'm very much in the same boat and I believe choosing something comfortable, whatever that means for the item in question, is important if you use it all day long like we both do. That goes for chairs, input devices (mouse/keyboard/etc), and output devices (monitor/headphones/etc). It is unfortunately not always easy to get a feel for how these things will be without purchasing them first since there aren't a lot of places you can really try out these things.
Yeah, I figured it's probably better to take a trip to Microcenter and check out their displays before I decide to drop the dosh on one.
Honestly, I've kind of wanted to get a Moonlander for a while, but even with the ability to order it in any number of key switches and options, I really don't want to spend the absurd amount of money they ask for it without being able to try it out first.
Butting in here because, I do enjoy keebs.
If someone asked me about an ergo mechanical keyboard, I'd recommend the Neo Ergo partially because despite being ergonomic, you still have way more customizability, specifically with keycaps, unlike the Moonlander. Throw a set of TTC Matchas, WS Browns or Gateron Baby Kangaroos with some good but budget keycaps and you're probably out like $225+shipping, which maybe set you back at most, $275 ish? In return for putting it together and waiting for the next batch to be made, you save ~$100, have essentially infinite customizability, 100% wireless, and 0 software to install as VIA is web-based. Just a thought.
DIY was another route I had previously considered going through. I’ve got a good 3D printer, I’m a decent solderer, and mail-order PCBs are fast and cheap these days. I think the last time I looked into it I was looking at a design that would end up costing me somewhere in the mid $100s. Software isn’t too much of a concern for me because I enjoy tinkering with arduino stuff.
I didn't love the Apex Pro when I tried it out, but that was mostly a case for me not liking linear switches and I prefer high profile keyboards (aka not "floating keys"). It felt very gamery, which is typical for Steelseries these days, but makes it hard to justify the high price tag they want for it IMO.
As an aside, I think that the neat gimmick of the "analog" switches (generally Hall Effect) isn't going to ever get picked up and well supported long term because keyboard keys have traditionally been simple pressed or depressed and for the vast majority it is going to stay that way. Sony tried out using analog buttons on the PS3 gamepad face buttons and ended up removing that feature afterwards as most people just didn't take to it or get much use out of it as they weren't used to buttons working like that and all the other consoles didn't do it.
I have a pro tkl from before the switch to omnipoints i think cause it has steel series "reds" which are impossible to find anywhere other than their website to replace and it has a 40$ usd shipping charge to canada on a 20$ key replacement. I code for work and two of my vowel switches died long before a million keystrokes or w/e they have in the copy and SS's response was ts so im pretty unhappy with their customer service and experience.
Yikes! OK, between that and the high LED failure rates, I think Steelseries is officially out of consideration.
I've been using the full-sized Apex Pro for almost two years now and I really like it but I do have a couple complaints. I've not had any issues with switches dying, LED failure or scratchy feeling keys like others have mentioned. This board has been used extensively for both work and gaming, and I would guess that I rank in the upper echelon of power-users when it comes to keystrokes-per-year.
I dislike clicky switches and love shallow activation points so the hall effect style is wonderful for me. Overall the feeling of the board is quite nice and I really do enjoy typing on it. One thing I really love is the feeling of the wrist rest; it's very... skin like (I know that sounds a bit odd). I even bought a spare one in case the original wears out, though after two years of heavy use it's still looking quite new after a good wipe down with a cloth and some warm water.
Now onto the downsides. First is no Linux configuration software. Sure, the board works out of the box on Linux and you can do basic setup on the board itself but some things like customizing the (mostly pointless) mini-led screen required me to boot up Windows to use the Steelseries software. Not a big deal but still worth mentioning. Also I should point out that after you have your board customized the way you'd like you can delete the software as it's not required and the changes you've made will be saved to it's onboard memory.
Second issue is the USB port on the top left of the keyboard, it has a crazy bright white LED ring around it that you can't turn off and it causes a reflection on my screen. The only solution is to not have the second USB plugged in which means that added port on the board is useless to me.
Third is the cable, it's thick, very stiff, and you'll never get the factory added kinks out of it. I'm still slightly annoyed at the sight of the zig-zag cable, especially considering price of the board.
On the point of LED failure I should also disclose that while none of my LEDs have failed, I've also only had them turned on maybe 4 times, with one of those instances being right now to check if the LEDs were working as I typed this reply.
Edit: Typos
Among my many keyboards is a WOOTING ONE, it has analog keys as well. It is a nice keyboard but ultimately useless to me. I don't do anything with it that I couldn't do with any other keyboard. The analog features are pointless as the switch travel is so short its hard to consistently use. I ended up disabling them because they require X-input to use and it screws with almost every program in some unexpected way.
That was a long winded way of saying its' a cool toy but a bad tool. I imagine this keyboard to be much of the same.