Saitek Eclipse Keyboard Review

At first glance, Saitek’s Eclipse keyboard looks a lot like any keyboard. It has the normal keys, nothing extra. The body of it is black, and the keys are a slightly glossy silver paint, with what appears to be black letters painted on them. The cool thing about Eclipse though is that the letters are not actually painted at all, they are transparent. On the corner of the board, there are four buttons. Mute, volume up, volume down, and the light button. This toggles the lights on the keyboard between bright, dim, and off.

The lights are inside the keys, and because the letters are transparent, the letters on the keys light up, instead of the silhouette of the keys like other light-up keyboards. This makes the light up feature less of a flashy effect and more of a useful effect for typing in the dark. During the day, the keys look like black on silver, and during the night they look like glowing blue on black, so the keys are easy to see in any light.

Aside from features, the keyboard is quiet and responsive. It’s not the most quiet keyboard in the world, but it very well may be the quietest gaming keyboard on the market. I have noticed no problems with the response of the keys, all working just as expected, and the LEDs have shown no wear whatsoever. On the downside, however, the USB cable is a little bit short for my liking, though it may be “average” length, I think they should have added a couple of feet just for good measure (no pun intended).

Although it has the volume and mute buttons, I would have liked another row of extra buttons for track skipping and play/pause/stop, as some gamers listen to music when they’re in-game, and understandably don’t want to minimize the game every time they want to change tracks. On the other hand, lots of gamers like the fact that the Eclipse doesn’t have a lot of extra keys, giving it the “strictly business” (in this case gaming) look. With a $60 price tag, it’s not for the casual gamer, but if you are ready to step up your game, the Saitek Eclipse is a good place to start.