Thermaltake ESports Challenger & Challenger Pro Keyboards review

1. Introduction2. Thermaltake Esports Challenger Keyboard3. Thermaltake Esports Challenger Pro Keyboard4. Thermaltake Challenger Pro Keyboard and Software5. Using the Challenger Keyboards6. Closing Thoughts7. View All Pages

I like playing games, but recently I haven't had much time with the amount of hardware I have been reviewing on a daily (and nightly) basis. Reviewing these keyboards was a good opportunity however to give myself the excuse that I was actually ‘testing' them, rather than wasting a couple of hours playing first person shooters and a mixture of strategy titles.

Both keyboards are certainly well made, there will be no one who could complain about the chassis design and the attention to detail. Gaming in Left 4 Dead 2 online with a bunch of loudmouthed American 17 year old kids juiced up on Cola and sugar laced ‘candy' … I still got my ass handed to me, but I think I maybe died a few times less than I did with my ordinary Microsoft gaming keyboard. I even won a few rounds which is surprising as I am almost 40 …. and feeling it. My online name though was changed to ‘Sexy thong bird' … so maybe that was distracting the spotty gamers enough to land me a few kills of my own.

I would love to say I was a pro with World Of Warcraft, but I have never played it (or understood the passion of spending hours ‘grinding' to level up a character), so I gave it to my young brother who has an online persona who is apparently maxed out and ‘badass'. His Warlock character looks a little like Ozzy Osbourne so I guess he could always break out into ‘Mr Crowley' after butchering some newbs.

Anyway he played around with the macro buttons on the Pro board and said they worked as advertised, but he was more used to his Razer Naga so I think it was slowing him down. At least we know the macro functions work well, so thats another thing to tick off the list.

I fired up Call Of Duty 2: Modern Warfare and had a good time in single player mode, replaying some of the levels which I almost forgot about. Slaughering the women and kids in the airport level with a bright red glowing keyboard in a dark room, I swear I could almost have been mistaken for Satan himself. Or an aging, balding version of him anyway.

Putting gaming aside, I decided to try replacing the love of my life, the delightful DAS Keyboard which I have been using for about 2 years now. Unfortunately I could not get used to the feeling of the keys and found my typing rate had dropped from around 110 wpm to 70 wpm. I am sure with more practise I could have raised my game on the Challenger a little, but I am too set in my ways. To get maximum speed I go for long travel keyboards such as the DAS or even the Steelseries 7G, which isn't quite as good as the DAS for typing, but a reasonably close second anyway.

If you like keyboards with little key travel and a soft spongy feeling these would be fine for typing, but personally I couldn't use them long term, not outside their intended environment, which is gaming.

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