In which we nerd all over each other about peripherals.

So the P key on my keyboard ceased functioning, leaving me the task of obtaining a new keyboard. I have wanted to try those mechanical ones (Cherry Blue most likely), since my old model M died. My concern is finding one quickly as the only ones likely to be found locally are the Razer Black Widow. Has anyone had an excellent encounter with another mechanical that I should consider, or a less than good one with the Razer?

I had to downgrade the firmware on my Razer BlackWidow for it to work properly. Otherwise I don't have any complaints. Don't use any of their software to control it, and I've read several complaints about those.

I use a Razer Blackwidow Ultimate at home, and it's...okay. It's tactile as fuck; everyone knows that a man is typing when the rat-a-tat-tat of automatic weapons fire the Blackwidow's keys echoes through the house like a horde of berserk Mongols clattering down the streets of a Persian metropolis, swords held high like throbbing members proclaiming their triumphant bloodlust.

What were we talking about again? Right, the keyboard. The wife gets annoyed with it from time to time, so I'll probably replace it soon. Also the 2 key is sticking for some reason probably related to the hellish abuse the thing has been put through over the last 2-3 years.

I had already mentioned that I own one. I love it, honestly. Like Adam says, you can hear my typing from my neighbours house. I tend to ignore the 'programmable' keys (mostly due to the variety of other extraneous buttons on my mouse and doodads I've got hooked up to my PC). Steelseries also makes a mechanical keyboard, and they have a beefier version available. Logitech also recently released a mechanical keyboard as well.

I can't buy Razer products because of the way they spell their name, but now you've got me thinking that they meant their products are vehicles for razing, so it's probably okay.

I believe laser mice are better at reading such surfaces than optical mice. It's probably a dpi thing, but I don't know.

Anyway, to contribute to the thread, my favourite er... system attachment is the Logitech C525 and the C615 is a worthy successor. They're streets ahead of all the webcams I've dealt with. Only really useful if you're using a monitor though. Absolutely tiny though, and they fold such that the lens is inside and can't be scratched. The usb mic is nice for avoiding system noise as well.

Another vote for the RAT series (I have the 7 because I like my mice wired) and Logitech G series keyboards. I have a G15 and a G13 gaming pad thing.

I have two PCs at home and I have a G9 mouse on the second PC. Still nice but the thumbrest on the RAT owns.

Mouse: Logitech G500: This thing is huge, so it's big enough for my large hands. It's also also extremely light so it controls well even in the twitchiest of twicthfests. The three mappable sidebuttons are invaluable to me both in and out of gaming; and the on-the-fly DPI buttons are perfect for those games (or programs) where I need to immediately raise or lower my turn/aim speed for turrets or sniper rifles and the like, or any time when slow and precise will win out over quick and reactive.

This mouse also has a free-spinning mouse-wheel that can be toggled to standard ratchet mode when needed, but I tend to favor the free-spin everywhere but in shooters. It's also corded, because after 12 years (starting with my first Logitech Cordless MouseMan Optical) of replacing/recharging batteries on a weekly/semi-weekly basis I grew tired of it.

Finally, the mouse it built like a tank, and withstands abuse like a champ.

Keyboard: Razer Anansi: The media buttons were a must for me, which seemed to limit my options for affordable gaming keyboards. But, I managed to find this one up on sale for 60% off while replacing a Microsoft Sidewinder X4 keyboard that broke last year. I prefer it to the Microsoft keyboard because the Sidewinder X4 keyboard has smaller-than-standed typing keys. They don't advertise this, and the difference between those and standard keys are minimal, but the difference was enough to help increase the number of typos I regularly hamfist out.

This keyboard also offers 12 programmable keys, and a few different profiles, but I've never utilized all 12 at once, nor have I ever set up more than a single profile. The one annoying feature of this keyboard is that there's a bright beam of light located down in the center of the wrist-wrest that lazers its way into my brain in most situations. The light illuminates Razer's company logo, and it's the brightest damn light in the room unless I keep a piece of electrical tape over it. The rest of the keyboard illuminates too, but it does a really shitty job of it, especially if you choose to use any other color than white -- in those cases you might as well just turn the dimmer all the way off. The keys utilize a cool font though.

Specialty Keyboard: Logitech G13 Programmable Keyboard: I use this for any and all games that require the use of WSAD. the keys line up perfectly, rather diagonally like standard keyboard, and as such I'm actually able to play WSAD games without being forced to remap to WSDX due to finger positioning problems. It can be a bit of a chore to set up a profile for each and every game I play, but it definitely pays off in the end, as long as I stick with the game anyway. Thanks to the way the keys are laid out on the G13, and because of some issues I've had with nerve damage in my left hand, there's no way I'd ever be competitive (with the rest of the typical non-pro gamers anyway) in multi-player shooters if I was forced to use a standard keyboard.

I've mapped, remapped, and have programmed the crap out of mine for various games (some games way more than others), and it's never let me down. If I had one complaint it would be that utilizing the thumbstick for mapped key commands can be a bit of a pain because of how much the directionals bleed over into eachother when using the thing in the heat of the moment. For now, I typically leave the left and right movements unmapped, and only utilize forward and back so that an accidental nudge in the wrong direction doesn't start hurling grenades or something.

The thumbstick can also be vertically clicked, like an xbox thumbstick, but I've never once been able to do that without steering the thing off into some odd direction, once again unleashing arm-fulls of grenades.

Sound System: Logitech Z506 Surround Sound: I use on-board sound, but it features Dolby 5.1 (or something similar, I don't recall, but it's supposed to be surround, anyway). Got these as a Christmas gift last year, and they sound fantastic. I've had two problems with them, one of which I've already solved. The first is that I don't really have anywhere to put the two rear/side speakers, so for now I'm just cruising along in Stereo mode until i come up with a better plan.

The second problem is that the cables seem to be unshielded, and if I place them anywhere even close to a power cable, WiFi antenna, or plug socket I get non-stop chirping, hissing and nails-on-chalk-board bleed-over that is audible at all volume settings. I managed to fix this after a couple days of rearranging cables and utilizing a couple $2 extensions cables I could plug into my computer without the fear of them picking up this type of interference.

Headphones: Audio-Technica ATH-M30: I was regularly chewing through new headphones every six months or so up until I picked these up a couple years ago. These are the best sounding sub-$100 headphones I've ever used. They aren't strictly gaming headphones, so there's no built-in mic, so I just plug in a cheap clip-on mic on those rare occasions I need to utilize voice chat. Since sound quality is so important to me I'm more than willing to make that trade, and since I've never heard a moderately priced gaming headset sound anywhere near this good when used for music and movies the choice was easy.

Now that I have my surround system I don't use these as often, but when my wife's not in the mood for a Converge marathon they still get plenty of attention from me.

Monitor: Samsung Syncmaster P2770: I'd been using a Samsung 17 inch LCD monitor for years and years and hundreds and hundreds of hours, until one day my wife got sick of hearing me complain "I need to replace this thing one day", and picked me up a new one for my birthday (2011). Being a gamer, at first I was I was a bit skeptical about using an un-researched monitor for gaming purposes, but the thing works like a charm, and any concerns I had were completely unfounded.

I never thought I'd have to say this about a monitor, but it's built well enough that it was dropped and tumbled right onto its face while we were packing, and it was none the worse for it. No idea how it would hold up against an electric drill though.

Video Card: ATI/AMD Raedon HD6950: I hate this fucking piece of shit, and I regret every dollar spent on it. Fuck this card and fuck its drivers.

What's with the flimsy ass base on monitors these days? My friend gave me his old Dell 2407WFP:



I could kill a man by swinging the base at his head. The whole monitor is heavy but I would rather have that than the weak plastic bases they put on monitors these days (including, ironically, my friend's new monitor). Also, vertical movement is god damn useful, and I rarely even see that feature. If there's an updated 2407WFP on the market, I'm buying it if this one craps out.

The stem might look skinny but it doesn't feel flimsy to me. The base itself is a metal plate covered in black plastic for what I assume to be cosmetic reasons. In my experience it's always felt perfectly adequate for the job over the last 13 months.

Yeah but when you're forced to throw a hobo into it during a chaotic freak home office accident, your base will be sorely lacking in rigidity.

Really? I've had the ASUS Radeon HD 6950 DirectCU II 1GB since May 2011 and not had any real issues. It's nice and quiet too. My monitor is still only 1680 x 1050 so I don't need anything gruntier till I upgrade* that (mmmm Upgrade!)

I've got a Dell 2208WFP and the stand is very nice - the up and down, plus ability to rotate the screen around is handy. It's also got a couple of USB ports in the bottom and the side, so I plug the webcam into a bottom one and can stick USB data sticks in the side.

* I was planning to refresh the kids family room PC mid this year along the same lines as Tech Report's "econobox". Now I've just had the brilliant thought they can get the hand me down Radeon HD 6950, and I can get a new monitor and card! It will be two years old after all!

Do headphones count as peripherals? Man, do I have too many headphones. By my count, six pairs in regular rotation, and a couple of emergency backups. The quest for the perfect earbuds, in particular, is an elusive one.

I'm sure this would be great. I really need to stop looking at sites for high end IEMs. What I did recently buy and find very nice or a low-budget IEM was the Sony MDREX310SL, which is great for only $60, and cheap enough that I won't be too disappointed when I inevitably break it or lose it. It also comes with an unbalanced cord, so that it goes over the back of the neck, which I like, a short cord, which allows it to work well with the phone in my shirt pocket, but still has an extension cable., and 7 different sets of tips, half standard silicone, and half with foam inside the silicone to conform better to the ear, but not wear as badly as Comply tips.

This is the exact card I use, and I have had no problems at all - I picked it precisely because I wanted power but no noise. Monitor is a Full HD Samsung.

As I said in the other thread, I type on Microsoft Natural Elite keyboards, and I have a stack of them to last me until my hands falls off since they are not manufactured anymore.
I use two mice - one at each side of the keyboard, both are Logitech. A standard wired one and a wireless laser one (forget the model numbers). I don't know anyone else who uses two mice but it's pretty easy to train your non-dominant hand to use a mouse and then the load/damage gets spread over both wrists. I don't even think about it, I just grab a mouse with whichever hand.
Headphones AKG K240 Mk2 (the first generation lasted me 10+ years and had it had a detachable cable I could be still using it).

I don't use two separate mice, but at work I do switch my mouse from right to left hand fairly regularly. I actually want an ambidextrous mouse on my home PC - maybe the Logitech G300? - so I can do the same thing there, since my current gaming mouse is right-hand-only.

I try to keep the spending to relatively sane levels, so the Westones of the world are pretty much out. Most of my headphones fall into the $50-$100 range, with the lone exception of my beloved Grado SR225i.

Not really a peripheral but man I likes me this WD Live media player. In retrospect I probably should have sprung for the model that includes 1TB of storage but eh, that is what a home network is for (plus in another year or less I'll want to add more storage anyway, and the HD-less version is small and easy to find room for on an entertainment center).

It's pretty easy to set up and it's nice having a one-stop solution for DLed media and Netflix especially (there are a bunch of other supported stuff, the usual suspects like Pandora, FB, Flixster, Spotify, Hulu+ and whatnot). I was most impressed with the fact that it'll play pretty much any file type you end up with when you download stuff ill^H^H^HTOTALLY LEGALLY AND WHATNOT cough. Two USB ports, an ethernet port, wifi obviously and HDMI out.

It was only $80 in December, shame the price creeped up a bit. Much thanks to mlatin for recommending it!

I use the cheapest fucking keyboard I can get my hands on, because they don't fuck up the location of the Page Up key. They don't shrink the arrow keys. They don't decide that Return should be smaller than my little finger. They give me a fucking standard layout and when they get sticky, I chuck them out and buy a new one.

Perfect.

Page Up and Page Down are redundant. So are Home and End and Delete. The only reason they are there is because the arrow keys need somewhere to go.

You people don't use Home and End to select a whole line of text? Barbarians.

That's what double clicking is for.

Oh good lord, you move off the keyboard and onto the mouse? How do you people survive out there?

Yeah, as a programmer, I love me my home/end/page up/page down keys.

Home, end, pg up, and pg down are absolutely vital for my non-programming job. I reconcile G/L accounts that have hundreds of thousands of entries in them, and being able to scroll through the list of entries without developing severe RSI in my hands is a plus.

And no ctrl home/ctrl end? i don't feel anger, only pity.

Ctrl insert and shift insert and shift delete for right hand copy/cut/paste is off the board as well.

Holy crap, he doesn't use ctrl delete to erase an entire word at a time. Madness.

The Natural Ergonomic 4000 is about the same thing and has Rich Corinthian Leather (tm).

The mouse I ordered arrived today, the HP X4000. It looked a comfortable shape, and had reviews confirming that. It also has a nice appearance. But now I've got the thing, it turns out it's just that bit too small. All that ergonomic shaping is useless because I can't rest both my palm and fingertips on it at the same time. Do I just have freakish large hands?

So now I'm wondering how I can send this thing back now I've ripped the packaging apart. And how on earth I will find a mouse that's the right size considering no shop lists the size of a mouse, and no manfacturer's image of a mouse includes a hand for comparison.

This was quite useful actually, because the Microsoft site you linked does include the size measurements. From that I can see that the Microsoft Mobile 6000 would also be too small. I can see that the Microsoft Touch and Explorer Touch are a bit bigger, though. But I'm not sure about that touch-scroll thing. Does it even have a middle click?

I don't know or use any shortcuts beyond Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V when it comes to writing... and I write for a living.
I also type using two fingers.

Its a "full featured" scrolly wheel - scrolls, middle click and does left and right as well. It has ambidextrous side buttons too. I don't consider a mouse complete and functional without at last a scroll wheel (with middle click) and a side button for back.

Keyboard : Logitech G15 or Levetron Mech5 Cherry black keyboard.

Mouse : Razer Naga

Headset : I use some generic Logitech headset for my PC, I tend to drop my headset quite often. I rarely even use the Shure SE535 nowadays since for some odd reason I like to swing the ear plugs by their wires..

Monitor : I got a 27 inch as my primary and a 21 inch as secondary.

My favorite Peripheral... : Footrest!!! I'm tired of those tiny footrest, this one is so awesome, I got one for my home and one for my work.

P.S.

it's not label as a footrest, but I use it as a footrest. hmm on second thought, Ottoman kind of count as a footrest.

Ugh, no.

The Elite had the worst arrangement for the arrow keys of any desktop keyboard. Undersized, in that weird cross arrangement. The 4000 was much better.

I've been using the Logitech K350. Not quite as angled or curved as MS keyboards, but good enough, with tremendous battery life.

I really disliked the G500, I didn't like the shape, I found its scroll wheel very awkward to use, and all the DPI settings felt really wrong to me. So much so that in the end I gave it to my cousin. I use a G400, which has a really good sensor with no acceleration, and also a Steelseries sensei. I regret not having gotten the rugged sensei though, the surface on the regular one is too slippery to my likings. The most comfortable mouse I have yet used though is the Deathadder/Mamba, but Razer's build quality scared me off forever. I have never used multiple buttons in a mouse, I find they are usually too small and hard to access anyway.

I use a Razer Destructor as a mouse pad, embarrassing enough I know, but it works well.

My keyboard is a Das Keyboard professional with Cherry blue keys, I wouldn't go without one now. Some people say Cherry blue mechanical keyboards are not well suited to FPS games and other action games but I actually find them just fine, and there's no beating them for typing. I don't mind the noise, I actually find it relaxing. My wife has learned to appreciate it too, amusingly enough.

I use M-Audio M40 speakers which have been discontinued, good enough, though I wonder if it was worth spending so much on computer speakers, in the end it seems to me it cannot be that good.

I have Beyerdynamics DT770 headphones, the 32 ohms version that is more suited to low-powered devices without amps like smartphones, PC sound cards, portable gaming consoles and the like. Very good sound.

I use Crucial M4 SSDs in my desktop, and in my laptops too. Relatively cheap, fast, and reliable, a good choice for anyone who wants an SSD drive.

My monitor is a Dell U2711, and it's probably my favorite of all of my peripherals. Very good matte high resolution IPS screen. I imported one of those cheapo b-grade Korean IPS monitors but the gloss bothered me too much.

I have this Filco with brown switches, though they also have it with Cherry Blues, and they do a full-sized one if that's your thing. Not technically local, but available through Amazon, which is the next best thing. The Filco is pretty much the king of the mechanical keyboards; simple and minimalistic, and very well-made. The keys are mounted to a heavy metal plate, so this keyboard does not flex even a little, and is heavy enough to stay put when you are typing. It can take pretty much all the abuse you can throw at it. I've had mine for a couple of years now, and love it. Highly recommended.

Other peripherals that I'm currently using:

Mouse
Razer Deathadder: You know, I swore that I wasn't going to go back to a corded mouse, but when my G700 died after only a little more than a year's use, prompting me to get something different, this was by far the most comfortable one that I could find. The shape and button layout mimics the old Intellimouse Explorer, my pick for "most comfortable mouse ever made." I got the version that doesn't have silly lights on it; getting one without the silly spelling for "Razor" wasn't an option. Still, it's a really good mouse.

Speakers
AudioEngine 2s, in white. These speakers rock. I once thought I had found speaker Nirvana in my old Klipsch ProMedia set, but these AudioEngines blow them away, even without a subwoofer.

Headset
I'm using the WoW wireless headset, from Creative, as recommended to me by Jason Cross. If there were an award for "tackiest headset," this would win it, hands down. It's a big, gaudy, overwrought crown of plastic with light-up earpieces. But it has great sound quality, is comfortable to wear, the battery lasts a long time, and the mic is removable for those times when you just need the speakers.

Monitor
I'm using an NEC Multisync EA231WMi, an IPS monitor. I've always really liked NEC's monitors, going back to the CRT days, and this one is no exception.

This is good to hear, the 2.1 Klipsch ProMedia speakers I had years ago spanked every other set of speakers I have ever owned, before or since.