Zboard MERC

There are over a hundred keys on a normal keyboard, but they get boring after a while. Want something different?

Damn! This thing is long. If you happen to be using one of those cheap IKEA desks with the roll-out table for your keyboard, the Zboard MERC is going to gobble most of the real-estate, leaving your poor mouse with nowhere to go. If you can deal with this, please keep reading.

The reason for the extra length is to accommodate Zboard’s custom keypad that provides a larger ‘key’ surface for important controls such as movement, and positioning others like duck and reload in more comfortable places (except for crouch, which seems harder to get to than the default Left Ctrl key). However, this comes at a cost – compression of your standard 101 keyboard to 97. And for normal typing, you’re really going to miss those four keys not being in their usual positions. This is most noticeable when you go for Delete or Home so unless you have a notebook fetish, expect a significant adjustment period.

The keys themselves are very slick, feeling great to the touch and depressing with a soft, barely audible clack. As far as build quality and functionality goes, the standard keys are tops.

Firm rubber grips on each corner of the board make sure it doesn’t shift. It stuck like glue to our ‘review’ desk and simply would not budge at all with even the roughest of sideways shoves.

Without drivers, the board doesn’t do that much. In fact, the additional Zboard keys do all sorts of random things by default, counter-intuitive to the alternate functions printed in small print on each key. Once ZEngine, the board’s software, is installed it works exactly as advertised. Profiles are available for a range of games, including popular titles such as Battlefield 2 and Counter-Strike, as well as the more reclusive Dungeon Siege 2 and Thief: Deadly Shadows.

We loaded up the Half-Life 2 profile and gave the Zboard a whirl in HL2: Lost Coast and it’s competent enough. With the exception of crouch, we found our fingers fell comfortably on the Zboard’s keypad, and it’s nice having functions like quick load and save and print screen close at hand.

The price, size and difficulty to use as a normal typing keyboard hurts the Zboard MERC, but if you’re mostly a gamer, feel free to add another half a point to the score.