A4 Tech Professional Gaming Keyboard - G800V

A4Tech is known for providing quality products with affordable prices. So, here we are with another gaming hardware review yet again. Today we’ll be reviewing the A4Tech X7 G800V Programmable Gaming Keyboard. Some people might think that a keyboard remains a standard keyboard and there are no such thing as gaming keyboards, they also think that its a marketing strategy of the vendors. To those people who think like this, they are totally wrong. Keyboards do have the gaming class and the standard class. The most common difference which people may know that the gaming keyboards are very costly as compared to the standard keyboards. Today we are gonna see that why is that price difference happens between standard keyboards and the gaming keyboards. As I said before, the gaming keyboards are costly as compared to the standard keyboards and most of the people don’t buy that gaming keyboards after watching their price tags. But A4Tech sure made an exception out of these gaming keyboards by launching their X7 G800V Programmable Gaming Keyboard.
Main Layout:
The main layout the keyboard is standard QWERTY pattern with 15 extra fully programmable gaming keys located at the gamer friendly locations so that you can perform those rough and tough stunts and moves with ease and dominate the play without any effort. The W,S,A,D & UP, DOWN, LEFT, RIGHT arrow keys are made of red colored no-slippery rubber so that you get full control 0f your game and never miss any opportunity.



The keyboard is USB powered unlike its counterpart G800. The main difference between G800 and G800V is that the G800 has three different modes pre-built to shift between response time of the keys and its maximum response time is 7.92ms, on the other hand the G800V doesn’t have the preset modes to shift between response time but you do it in a more professional way by programming the individual keys through the supplied software “X7 Oscar Keyboard Editor”. On the top of the numpad of the keyboard are two buttons. One with the “M” written on it and the other one with the widows icon and a cross over it. By pressing the second button the keyboard disables the windows key on your keyboard so while playing game if you accidentally pressed the windows key then your game doesn’t get minimized and you don’t get disturbed while playing the game. The other button with “M” written on it actually switches between the modes you created while using the supplied software. I was surprised to see that the response time of this keyboard is 1ms, its 3 times more faster than its counterpart the G800. On the right side, besides the numpad are the multimedia keys which controls play, pause, next track, previous track, mute, volume increase and volume decrease. These multimedia hot keys works like a charm whether you are playing a game, watching a movie or listening to the songs. They work perfectly in all situations. The space bar of the keyboard is very short and this is the main flaw of the keyboard because when you are playing an online multiplayer game like “Modern Warfare 2″ then you’ll have to jump time to time using the space bar. And if you don’t, then you’ll die. I had a really hard time to get used to this small space bar, but when I got hold of it, this keyboard became my dream gaming keyboard. On the left, right and below the space bar are more gaming keys and they are also located in a very gamer friendly locations. On the left of the keyboard are more gaming keys and these I must say are very useful, specially while playing “Grand Theft Auto IV” because this game have very difficult controls on the keyboard and this keyboard made them easy for me. In other words an all-in-one gaming keyboard in affordable price.

Using The X7 Oscar Keyboard Editor:
The main screen of the editor looks just like this.


As you can see that we can customize the keys of this keyboard according to our needs, depends on what type of game you are playing.

Following is the programmable portion of every individual key on the keyboard.

The
programmable portion allows you to program the response time, delay time, and execution of any key through the basic loops and if-else statements of the C/C++ Programming language. And I must say that after individual programming of the keys, you’ll never lose in any of the online mutiplayer game. I can say that because I tested this keyboard after programming it’s keys and playing “Modern Warfare 2″ Online Multiplayer and this keyboard blew me away with it’s stunning performance.

Final Conclusion:
A4Tech X7 G800V Programmable Gaming Keyboard is an awesome product for gamers and those people who like the multimedia controls on their keyboards. The programmable feature makes this product standout among the other costly programmable keyboards. I’ll recommend it for all gamers who want an all-in-one gaming keyboard which will not make a dent in their pocket