SteelSeries Apex 9 TKL Review

Part of the main tools when playing are keyboards, innovations are always just around the corner and this time we have a new opponent in the world of TKL. The Apex 9 Pro TKL from SteelSeries seeks to demonstrate what it was really made for, to make you win games.

It’s no secret that the market for mechanical keyboards is somewhat saturated. To stand out, manufacturers tend to include at least one or two unique features that will elevate their products above the rest. In this review we will know if this new keyboard stands out or not and of course my experience in several hours of use.

The backbone of mechanical keyboards are the switches, these are literally everything for everything. This keyboard has the OptiPoint switches, giving us the ease of choosing how much we want to press a key to generate the action. To get a bit deeper, typists prefer switches to actuate deeper to avoid accidental key presses but we gamers prefer a much higher (or faster) actuation point and this is where the new system comes in. in Game.

I must admit that this combination is quite attractive and feels satisfying as it really does its job. Having the ease of playing with a system that allows quick key presses helps a lot in competitive mode. I could literally tell the difference to other mechanical keyboards that lack this option but before we get any further into my experience, let’s take a look at the product specs:

• Switches: OptiPoint Linear Optical Switches
• Actuation Height: 1.0mm or 1.5mm
• Response time: 0.2ms
• Lighting: RGB per key, customizable
• Integrated profile storage: Yes
• USB-C to USB-A connectivity cable
• Materials of construction: Plastic and aluminum
• Height adjustment: Yes
• Form factor: TKL

OptiPoint optical switches are the future

This keyboard has the Linear version in terms of the switches, honestly they don’t feel any different compared to the Cherry MX however instead of using metal contacts they use small beams of light that when interrupted trigger a key press . This reduces potential wear and tear caused by physical contact and provides response times as fast as any modern hardware can deliver.

Actually the depth of travel is quite short and direct, the actuation point can be raised up to 0.5mm from the position where the key rests. This gives us a pretty big reduction giving us the promised response time of 0.2ms. Moving around with this keyboard feels pretty good, the tests carried out are in typical competitive games like Call of Duty: Warzone, PUBG: Battlegrounds, apex legends, Fortnite among others.

Inside the box comes simply the keyboard that in the back brings the tool so that we can remove the keys if we want to make any changes. Those are these types of details that make us feel taken into account in some things. On the other hand, we have a braided USB-C cable that we use to connect our keyboard, of course our user manual so that, if at any time we have doubts (I know that nobody reads it).

The RGB lighting is quite rich and special. SteelSeries really has always known how to add excellent lighting to the keys giving us one of the best visual experiences I’ve seen. It does not disappoint in that section since we can configure each individual key without any problem, create our own color profile for each game and things like that.

The boast is quite good but these keys have a theme and that is that at times it feels quite simple and since the construction material is plastic with aluminum it gives me a feeling that for some reason everything is twice as loud as it should be . This is the price of having high-response switches and with this uncomfortable noise of each key that I press to write this review it becomes more and more noticeable that this is a pure mechanical keyboard without taking any care in this detail I can say that it is a very raw experience.

In this TKL keyboard we have a multimedia area that allows us to raise and lower the volume along with a button that actually pauses/plays what we are playing. My main issue with this media area is that this button must have had a way to manually configure it to our liking. There is no way to assign any additional action to this button other than what it is designed for. Something uncomfortable because this button does not really have a special assignment.

On the other hand, the volume wheel feels excellent quality and allows us to control how much we want to increase the volume without having to increase it suddenly or touch it with little sensitivity. The keyboard has two options to adjust the front height, typical of SteelSeries keyboards and as I mentioned earlier on the back we have a compartment for the key removal tool, in case we want to do a cleaning or replacement.

In conclusion,

The Apex 9 TKL It can be considered as an input peripheral for those who would love to try a mechanical keyboard, however, from the outset we must understand that this uncomfortable noise will be on your desktop every time you decide to press a key, but like other products from SteelSeries this 2022, the internal characteristics of these are of devices that can be classified as premium and that can be adapted to our pocket. I would not stop recommending this keyboard to someone who wants to have the experience of the new OptiPoint keys and thus be able to make adjustments to their own taste of pressing along with the style of play, but other devices can really give us the same option at almost the same price. This review was done with a mechanical keyboard provided by SteelSeries.