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The Cougar 200K is not going to blow your socks off by any means, but it is a solid gaming keyboard that offers a very different feel from the mechanical boards that dominate the line up of gaming peripherals these days. It also represents a decent gaming board at a low price – but it is far from perfect.
While it is a decent gaming board that does not betray itself as a non-mechanical very often, it has a few quirks which run the gamut from strange to irritating. For starters, the placement of the function (FN) key forces you to use two hands for media controls, which means you cannot control them on the fly mid-game without disruption. The lighting also, while nice to have, is a little stark and uncomfortable on the eyes of this writer.
The place where I would really struggle to recommend the Cougar 200K though is with typing. It is not that it is bad, but it is noticeably worse than a clean mechanical board. I say ‘clean', because ‘muddy' is how this board feels because of its membrane connected switches. It might use a scissor design, giving the keys an impressively tiny 2mm travel distance, but the lack of feel you get when you press them really makes you wish for a solid mechanical switch. The feedback just is not there with membrane and serious gamers and typers will really miss that.
That said, if you are a serious typist or gamer, you are unlikely to be spending just £30 on your keyboard, so at that price point, the 200K has almost all of the big boys beat – it just falls down where they are strong.
Other features like the anti-ghosting are nice to see, and the fact that you can adjust the repeat rate is cool, though I do not think it is a feature many people will make use of. That said, some people may miss the lack of macro keys or the ability to remap any of the standard ones for added function.
The Cougar 200K is not a bad product by any means, in-fact for the money it is reasonably good. I just think you should save up a little more cash and purchase an entry level mechanical keyboard.
The Cougar 200K is currently available from CCL Computers for just shy of £30.
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Pros
- Scissor switches have a tiny travel distance, making them fast.
- Comes with media functions and basic, but customisable lighting effects.
- Good to game with.
- Very affordable.
- Quiet.
Cons
- Membrane system is inferior to mechanical in almost every way.
- Typing feels muddy and inconsistent.
- Media keys require two hands to operate.
- Lacks macro keys or key remapping.
KitGuru Says: While the 200K is decent at the price point, we feel a little more cash will get a significantly better product.
£30 for a glorified membrane keyboard? There’s so many better things I could do with that.
This is the only “gaming” keyboard I have ever seen with a double height return key. Is there a reason the rest don’t have one?
It’s the only gaming scissor switch keyboard with anti ghosting features. If noise and lower key profile is what you’re after you’d be hard pressed to find anything better.
Yes, its not standard in the american keyboard layout. Are you from the UK? You need to look up the various ISO standard layouts. There are some gaming keyboads that come in the UK ISO format.
That it may be, but to me it’s still a glorified membrane keyboard.
I use a mechanical keyboard on a daily basis but I do genuinely enjoy scissor switches, Thinkpad and Avertech keyboards are my golden standard for scissor switches, never mind that nobody will read this as this article is almost 2 years old
I read it 🙂
me too!
Here’s my honest late review of the Cougar 200K @ http://www.thelategamer.com/professional-reviews/hardware/late-keyboard-review-cougar-200k/
I’ve been looking for a good desktop scissor switch keyboard – give me more details on this Avertech.
Avertech used to build laptops, now they are in cloud solutions and stuff like that