Aula Wired Gaming Keyboard (Dragon Abyss SI-863)

I am very pleased with the keyboard. The keys feel great and the overall build quality seems sturdy. As a programmer, I use many utility programs like command prompt and calculator on my computor so having keys bound to these programs has increased the quality of life for my work. A few things to not though: -The keys are cherry mx black. These keys are slightly heavy so bottoming out the keys can lead to strain while typing. -All the packaging comes in chinese. It has translations but they seems to be lazily done through google translate because syntax and wording seems off. -For a while, I spent time trying to change the color of the backlit keys. the backlight is only blue. Don't waste your time like I did because you misinterpreted the features. While the keys dont change color, the logo does change color to indicate which profile you are currently using (profiles each hold custom keybindings). -The Turantula key at the top left corner switches profiles. Each profile also has its own color which is show on the logo of the keyboard. I am saying this because I was wondering why my profiles didn't work and found that, in my attempt to make the keyboard look cooler by changing the colors, I was switching profiles. -mine came in with the 'x' and 'c' keycaps switched. It read 'zcxvbnm' instead of 'zxcvbnm'. Despit this, testing the keys proved that the keycaps were only misplaced and the key layout was normal. -the placement of the backslash ( \ ) character on the keyboard causes the enter key to be tall instead of wide.

After a few hours of use, here is my first impressions. Let's start with the bad. First, the software is a typical generic Chinapp. It's functional but not practical when compared to more mainstream gaming keyboard software. I have to say the software is my least favorite thing about the keyboard. I also hate the placement of the function key. Located as a next door neighbor to the escape key, I frequently cycle my keyboard profiles when trying to hit escape. I hope I can adapt to that. Next, the blue LED seemed cool in the picture but in life it's an icepick to the retina. You can dim it somewhat which makes it tolerable but red is a much better color for keyboards. The manual is so bad as to not be worth even trying to get anything out of it. Now on to the good... The thing is sturdy. It doesn't look or feel like a budget offering. I am a fan of the Cherry Black switches, these seem a bit lighter than I expected. Not a bad thing just not what I expected. The keyboard has good weight and doesn't shift around even up on the stand tabs. The layout is very good and while the feel of the spacebar is shaky, it functions fine. The sound is excellent. Not too loud as I half expected. Perhaps that's due to the heavy weight of the chassis. I could easily have given 5 stars if not for the software. @$53, I feel like it might be a bargain but if the software and owners manual is important to you, you should think it over.

In my opinion this is the most beautiful keyboard out there

A solid keyboard. Allows you to save keystrokes to the keyboard memory. Very nice weight and adjustable backlight levels.