If you’ve seen the pictures of the optical keyswitches, you’ve probably noticed they look pretty strange. I myself was wondering whether or not a (normal) custom keycap set would work with them – and let me answer that question: they will. The keycaps themselves, and the little ‘+’ that slots the keycap onto the switch, are identical to the keycaps of other mechanical keyboards. As a bonus, Bloody includes in the box TWO sets of extra keys for Q,W,E,R,A,S,D,F (the gamer layout) and even a little keycap puller tool. One set is clear with black text and similar plastic to the normal keycaps, the other is red with a noticeable slightly rubbery feel and an indent similar to what Logitech puts on some of their gamer-oriented keyboards. Strangely, each type of keycap has a different font; which is certainly interesting. While personally I’m not a fan of the strange keycap shape, I really appreciate that Bloody includes them with the keyboard; I bet quite a few people would be very happy to have them. I have no room to complain here, but I would have liked an extra set of keycaps for the arrow keys; though you can easily use any third-party set if you care about it that much (I certainly don’t).
My keyboard is the “orange switch” model which is described as “tactile and clicky”. If you’re a fan of MX-blues, I think you’ll be happy here. If you’re a fan of Razer’s Razer Green keyswitches, I think you’ll be even happier. I was very, very surprised with how similar the switches felt and sound to my Blackwidow. I can’t speak on behalf of the “brown switch” model, but I really, really love how these switches feel. Before buying, I was worried I wouldn’t like how they felt; a problem I had when testing other keyboards with Cherry MX-Reds, Browns and even Speeds. At least to me, these switches feel as fast as the speeds, as tactile and clicky as blues, without being quite as loud (though they are still plenty loud, which I like).
As for the rest of the keyboard, it feels very high quality. Bloody states that they use a “weapons-grade anodized aluminum” and I certainly believe that they do. I felt very little if any keyboard flex with a reasonable amount of force given to it, and I truly believe this keyboard could hold up to a lot of abuse. The plastic in the keycaps is very nice, I have no complaints about the feel of any part of this keyboard. As for design; unlike older models, Bloody has dialed back a bit on the gamer aesthetic. If the corners were in a perfect rectangle and not the hexagon/octagon-esque shape and the lights on the sides of the keyboard turned off, I don’t think anyone would give the keyboard a second glance in an office environment. With that said, I’m glad they didn’t give up on the gamer aesthetic altogether; I like my keyboards to have a little bit of flair without going overboard. The hexagon/octagon-eqsue corners are very subtle and don’t affect my placement of the keyboard at all. I’m especially fond of the lights on the side of the keyboard which read “Light Strike Gaming Keyboard”, while the words aren’t customizable; the lights behind the text are! The little feet on the rear of the keyboard, for those who choose to use them, are very rubbery and do not slip at all on my desk. Nor do the pads on the bottom (as I don’t typically use the feet).
This brings me to the software and LED customizability, which isn’t perfect, but is very easy to use and I personally found the tool just as easy to use as Razer’s Chroma configurator. I use a 4K monitor, and it would seem that Bloody’s “KeyDominator2” software has a little bit of a scaling issue, but it’s minor and I imagine wouldn’t be difficult to fix in a future update. With that said, like any keyboard configurator you’ll likely only use it once in a great while; so the scaling issue I experienced is extremely minor in the grand scheme of things. I’m not entirely sure how capable the software is to do really advanced animations and the like – but I was able to recreate my custom keyboard animation that I had on my Blackwidow in about 10 minutes; I’m very happy here. If macros are your thing, I don’t think you’ll have any trouble making those either.
There are two ways to change the LED effects on the keyboard; FN + F12 cycles through 6 defined/preloaded animations, and FN + any of the number keys can pick a specific animation you have defined/preloaded. Custom animations you make can be saved directly to the keyboard and used on another computer without installing any specific drivers or extra software. When I plugged in the keyboard for the very first time, it was on and ready to go seemingly instantaneously without needing to install a driver; much like how a lot of Logitech products are.
The last thing that I want to touch on is the packaging that the keyboard comes in. Soft but sturdy white foam surrounds the keyboard inside the box and the keyboard is wrapped in bubble wrap in the middle. It would take a lot of effort to damage this keyboard in shipping, and the extra effort Bloody put into assuring the keyboard would be safe makes me respect Bloody just that much more. The box is also quite sturdy, easy to open and I would recommend hanging on to it if you ever intend to travel with your keyboard. I mention this only because the packaging for my Blackwidow was really bad in comparison.
I really, really love this keyboard and I don’t think my money could have been better spent elsewhere. Bloody, I really hope you keep up the good work and make more gems like you have here. I’m very happy, and I think this keyboard will serve me for a very long time. I’m going to have to look into making the ‘optical’ switch to a Bloody mouse.