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Cougar wants to change the image of membrane keyboards

In the past half decade or so, the world and his gaming dog have decided for the most part, that mechanical keyboards are great and that membrane boards just aren't up to scratch. It's a difficult thing to explain to someone that's never used a mechanical board for an extended period of time, but it's certainly hard to go back. Still, that doesn't mean there aren't advantages to the membrane interface, like cost, which is why Cougar is looking to provide for those that can't or won't spend the extra for a mechanical, by making a gaming membrane board as good as it can be.

It's called the Cougar 500k and it has all of the usual gamer-centric features of a mechanical board, like NKRO so that you can press as many keys as you like at once, as well as dedicated macro recording functions and specifically placed macro keys for remapping. There's also profile switching and windows key lockout, as well as media keys.

cougar500k

This is all pretty standard stuff on most gaming boards, but most gaming boards also come with mechanical switches. This board should, when its released, turn out to be a lot cheaper than the competition that have to pay Cherry MX a premium for its switches.

The question is, whether you buy a keyboard for its gaming features, or its switches.

Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.

KitGuru Says: Personally, I run a Steelseries 7G, which has almost no “gaming” features but has some nice black switches. That's why I have a mechanical, but maybe you guys are different.

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9 comments

  1. Started using an my cherry red recently, massive difference, still becoming accustomed to the sensitivity. It glides.

  2. I went from a Logitech G19 to a Steelseries 6gv2, immensely improved my reaction speeds, took a while to get use to, its not fancy, but damn you can tell the difference

  3. My Cherry Brown Ducky Shine 3 was hard to get used to, but now I’ll never go back to membrane keys. MSI, is believe just came out with a laptop sporting a mechanical keyboard. I hope other manufacturers follow suit. With the right (for me, that is) components, I’ll happily buy one.

  4. I am using MX Blues right now but before this I was using the MX Reds. The MX Reds are buttery smooth!

  5. Gavin Alexander Rushworth

    MX Blacks here on my Mecka G1, before i had a Razer Lycosa mirror, the board looked pretty but these MX Blacks are far far better

  6. Doesn’t matter how many fancy switches and lights is has, there is only one question that’s important with a membrane: “does it cost less than £20?”

  7. im a long time logitech membrane user, and i have used G15 till the latest iteration, G510S.
    then I bought a G710+ for office use… never looked back.

  8. I use a Logitech G710+ and love it (brown switches) However im very interested in trying out that new orion spark with their proprietary mechanical switch that they developed in-house (at least from what i heard its their own creation)

  9. I’ll be sticking with Roccat gear, now if a can only afford to purchased it.

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