Great review Jamie!
First my apologies for replying so late. It's weird because I read through keyboard reviews like they were my last. I have a fetish for keyboards. Love this peripheral for some weird reason. But here I was suffering from a combination of lack of memory or feeling lazy.
Your review left me with a few questions...
I loved the keyboard concept. It's quite frustrating that I can only see this type of commitment to innovation and feature-full products on the gaming market. I can never get tired of saying this: Those of us whose keyboards are our main working tool, expect the same type of commitment; the same type of innovation. I'd really love to start seeing keyboard makers concentrate on us too. Just like when typewriters were acknowledged for being examples of technological innovation, keyboards didn't suddenly solve all our typing problems. They are in fact mostly still medieval tools when we think on what could be achieved.
1. ... And one of those things is exactly the Shift ability to change the whole key set. Do you know if this extends to being able to change to other language keyboards? This would be awesome for those of us who work on 2, or 3, and sometimes even more languages.
2. ... The problems you experienced with the Shift key. I confess I searched a bit on the web. I couldn't locate anything similar being reported. Could this be some issue with your particular keyboard? Did you get any feedback from SteelSeries on this?
3. How does the keyboard feel to a typist? Do keys being pressed offer some feedback? Could this be used by regular typists?
...
Two things I loved and hated about it:
Loved: The whole key customization possibilities. An absolute dream!
Hated: Small Function Keys. Again with this nonsense! And especially when the vertical space on thos pictures surely indicate those keys could have been normal size. I don't understand this fad of making those keys small.