Try finding a gaming keyboard that retails at an affordable price and I guarantee your search results will be minimal at best. Want a good mechanical keyboard? One that also performs well? Expect big demands on the wallet. Trend setter here, gaming keyboards today are all RGB lights and gimmicks, less in a way of high performance, and will expend a great deal of cash for it.
So here's the deal, there have to be a gaming keyboard out there that performs well, less with the gimmicky RGB ligting and importantly, affordable. There is such a keyboard, it's made by SteelSeries and its branding name is the Apex M500.
This keyboard design is nothing in the way I would consider spectacular, yet its nicely structured in plastic that's said to be strong and sturdy, adding an all black color scheme. The Apex M500 keys vibrantly lit in LED blue, no fancy changing colors which usually makes the keyboard seem exhaustively over the top.
Source image: Hothardware
Rarely you'll see keyboards with plastic lips that extends above the bottom of keycaps, but this is exactly what you're presented with Apex M500. This form of setup hides the switches from line of sight.
The keyboard is not something you just sit back and admire because it appeals to the optics, there are features within that allows you to exploit certain functions. Simply hold down the Fn key, the F5 through F12 keys gives you full control over illumination, media and audio, and included are five different levels of blue illumination, even while in its off state.
Source image: Hothardware
Impressive this keyboard is, even more impressive is the rear portion of the keyboard is laced with grooves and indents, which you can actually use for cable management. You can neatly route cables through the grooves to come out in the back of the keyboard.
So what we have here with the SteelSeries Apex M500 is a mechanical gaming keyboard like what you already see on the market, yet what stands out with this particular brand is subtracted unneeded gimmicks that involves an over abundance of LED lighting and not so needed features. One LED back light is sufficient, nice simple sturdy design, and according to most of the reviews and write ups I've read, this keyboard does not short change in high performance. Importantly, the price is within reason at $99, you might say $100 for this particular gaming keyboard? Why yes, you have to take in consideration most RGB lit gaming mechanical keyboards that comes flooded with features hover around the $200 price tag.
Don't know about you but I'm definitely going to include Apex M500 into my expanding cache of PC gaming peripherals.
Source: HotHardware and SteelSeries