Surely the purpose of a lighted keyboard is to assist game players in locating keys in the dark or semi dark at night and typists like me who still haven't mastered touch typing. In a well lit room that's not a problem as key and legend are clearly visible?
That's a bit of an "Ehhhh...." thing; the symbols aren't bright white, but rather a dull translucent grey on black keys. This is the beam of one of my tactical flashlights to simulaTE A worst-case scenario; sunlight falling across half of the keyboard. To have white-white symbols, you have to use whiter plastic underneath the caps. This requires an individual LED under each key to get adequate illumination. This of course costs much more, so the keyboard isn't as affordable. You get the idea; everything's a trade-off.
As a former somewhat heavy gamer, albeit nearly 20 years ago now, back before I got married and had kids, it’s mostly about the cool factor. And there’s nothing wrong with that
My current “actually doing stuff” keyboard is a Cherry G83 business line unit in boring “white with crud” scheme.
Yes and no. Modern twitch-trigger FPS gamers develop reaction times in the single-digit-to-teens millisecond range; (Seriously!) they're operating entirely by muscle memory and the feel of the keyboard, whether the keys are "non-interfering" (a big problem with membrane keypads), and quality of keystroke is a VERY important factor.
There is a whole industry now around making keyboards that FEEL and respond essentially like an old IBM board with the Cherry keys; they grade them by the colors Cherry used to use for their mechano-magnetic individual switches with a reed switch inside based on the firmness, how heavy the detent action is and how effing noisy they are. They even make keyboards now where you can change out the individual switches so that the ones you usually mash the crap out of in a gaming scenario have extra-firm action.
Guys like me who've been around since IBM still actually made a PC know and long for keyboards with that "IBM Selectric" feel; typing on anything less kindof feels like wearing two condoms. When you're a bareback guy.
This last 20 years of "Race to the bottom" in terms of cheapest possible PC hardware means that keyboard quality has been a muddle of misery for me and folks who actually know the difference.
For two decades I've kept various old IBM and IBM/Lexmark keyboards alive with 5-Pin DIN/PS2 dongles, rewiring keyboard cables and generally putting up with a dingy and yellowing "greyeige" colored desktop with a huge footprint on the keyboard. My last one was one of the first IBM/Lenovo keyboards actually made in black (How long ago was it that Lenovo had the
"Black is the new black!" campaign?); it has the brown switches in it (Not as firm, about half as noisy as the really firm blue ones that gamers tend to prefer) and I personally couldn't care less that my typing sounds like a constant rattle of marbles dropped on a concrete floor.
However... since those noisy-ass gaming keyboards have hit the mainstream, ordinary folks who just type a lot started buying them... and so formed a whole counter-current in the workplace against "keyboard clatter". This is where keyboards like mine have developed a niche; a reasonably quiet keyboard that just has a halfway-decent feel is again available, and at a reasonable price so folks don't mind taking a gamble on buying their own for a work PC. I have my PC in the corner of the living room so I can play my Flight Sims on the big screen; as a result, I've had to come to terms with family members who just want to be able to hear the effing TV when I'm doing my groups.
Since they're still marketed as a "gaming" keyboard, backlighting is pretty much a must-have. It's like a "minimum requirement" to be called a gaming keyboard now; both for the "dimly-lit visibility" angle and the bling factor.
The backlighting is important for me because old eyes & poor lighting in the corner; I got used to backlit back in the days when I lugged a modded ToughBook around, and I MISS it. But I wasn't prepared to spend more than $50 on ANY keyboard that didn't at least come close to the feel of my old black IBM/Lexmark. That's really impossible with a membrane keyboard, but this is one of the best I've used.
Redragon makes
the same keyboard with individual mechanical switches; they're Cherry clones, but that's to be expected at the $50 bracket. I may upgrade to that one as a second keyboard... it looks like the backlighting is a bit crisper.
mnem
*muted clickety-clickety-click*