Razer and Playtech recently supplied a boatload of gear to be used by New Zealand's top gamers in the stage PCs at the annual
xLAN event held from July 9th to 11th at the TelstraClear Pacific Events Centre in Manukau City. As an avid gamer I had the pleasure of using this kit a few times, and now I have the honour of presenting it to you, piece by piece for your reading leisure.
Today we will start with the Arctosa Keyboard. Some gamers might remember the popular Tarantula keyboard from Razer - well this got phased out and replaced with the Lycosa and Arctosa, with the Arctosa being the cheaper of the two boards at $79.99.
While it may be the cheaper board, it still kicks a fair amount of butt and is definitely a big step up from your average workstation keyboard.
The first thing you're likely to notice about it is the slim keycaps. A lot of gamers prefer this type of key because of the shorter travel before actuation, plus the Arctosa uses Razer's patented Hyperesponse technology to reduce key latency and maximise response, along with 1000Hz 'Ultrapolling' which sends a signal from the keyboard to the PC every millisecond, where a lot of boards will only send a signal every 2ms to 8ms.
Next on the list of cool things about the Arctosa is anti-ghosting around the WASD key cluster. Ghosting is what happens when you push too many buttons at once and the keyboard won't register the keystroke. It is quite expensive to get around this so it's good to see this feature included in a "budget" gaming board, even if it is only just around the WASD keys.
The board layout is fully standard, with 7 basic media control keys in the top-right corner. There are no USB ports for external devices, no audio jacks, and no backlighting on the Arctosa. It does have a removable wrist-rest though ^_^
Lastly, for you MMO and CS nerds, there are fully programmable keys with macro capabilities and customisable software profiles with on-the-fly switching.
Fancy patented names and features aside, I think the Arctosa is quite good for the price. The keys feel slightly flimsy compared to certain other, more expensive boards, however I spent a good couple of hours pounding them during some Battlefield: Bad Company 2 matches and didn't really have any complaints by the end of it, other than wishing it had backlighting.
The only competition in the Arctosa's price range seems to be the Microsoft X6, which for $20 more does have a whole heap more features like backlit keys and a removable number pad, however if that's $20 you don't have then in my opinion the Razer Arctosa is fully worthy of your consideration.
