Merc Stealth Keyboard - 1 Month Later

We've had the 2 Merc Stealths in place for a while now so I figured it's time to post an update on how they are doing.

We purchased two of them and put them into primary use on our Gaming PCs at home. Here's what we notice a month later:

Keyboard 1
This is the one that gets more use. Probably roughly twice the hands on time as the other one. Normal position is left hand on the extended left-hand portion of the keyboard on the butterfly keys, right hand on the mouse.

What we noticed is rather odd. The A and S keys have begun to flake off their black coating, letting more light through and obscuring the glowing letters. This is pretty odd to me as I'd have assumed that the keys were not translucent and that only the letters are. As it turns out apparently the entire key-top (or perhaps the entire key) is translucent and is coated with black paint on the outside of the key. And while the white portion that paints in the letters is not flaking off, the black pain is.


Keyboard 2
This keyboard has it's own, but different issue. One of the buttons, the "up and right" button on the butterfly control tends to stick down quite often. And by quite often I do not mean a few times a night. I mean every 2nd or third press. To unstick it you must pound on the key a few times to shake it loose. This totally unacceptable for a primary movement key on a custom gamer's keyboard.

Conclusion
Other than these two problems, one strictly cosmetic and one game effecting, the keyboards continue to work well. Unfortunately these are premium keyboards costing over $80 each and a goodly portion of that is for appearance. No one buys a backlit keyboard and isn't in it partly for the cool appearance.

I'd have to demote our previous buy recommendation on this keyboard to a "get it if you like the Mercs but be aware they are not flawless". I'll be putting in a support call when time permits to find out what they have to say about both keyboards.

Merc and Merc Stealth Keyboard Review

My wife and I have used a variety of keyboarding solutions over the years. I’ve suffered from carpal issues for a decent amount of my adult life and I’m an active gamer. That makes keyboard and mouse comfort an important topic for us.

My personal issue is that most games are built on the concept of having the left hand on the keyboard and the right hand on the mouse. If I’m engaged in a Quake deathmatch that is pretty easy to maintain as you can simply reposition the keyboard from it’s traditional front-center location to an angled left side position that lets you put your fingers where they need to be without unduly twisting the wrist. The problem came in several years ago when I moved from less FPS-Shooting play to FPS-MMO play. The keyboard designs and key assignments remain basically the same, but the need to constantly shift from active play to normal typing, even mid-combat makes it far more difficult to accommodate a keyboarding position that does not add wrist strain on the left hand from it being angled to match the centered keyboard.

I’ve used gamepad style keyboard add-ons like the Nostromo Speedpad N52 and some others and frankly, they just never really gave me the total experience that I was after. Party because while they did offer the ability to place the movement keys (and a collection of action keys) on the left side of the standard keyboard, they were never that well designed for finger layouts. They also increased the total footprint of the keyboard quite a bit, adding approximately a third more space to the needed over a keyboard alone.

Enter Ideazon
Over a year ago I picked up an Ideazon Merc Gaming Keyboard and I’ve been in love with it ever since. What it does that wins my heart is that they started fresh with what a gaming keyboard should be. They did away with the dual right side key areas of a conventional keyboard, merging them into one pad. This allows the conventional portion of the keyboard to be condensed. Then on the left side they added the gaming keys and their signature butterfly movement keys.

Here’s the Merc compared to a standard Logitech keyboard and a Nostromo Speedpad.

While larger than a normal keyboard, it offers quite a bit for gamers. And it's still a smaller footprint than a conventional keyboard and a gaming keypad.

Gaming Keys
The Merc has more than just some extra keys, it has keys laid out for active FPS play. The “butterfly” layout of the movement keys is exceptionally comfortable for the fingers to rest on and without ever having to wonder where the right keys are, your fingers always hit the right keys for movement. To me this means a lot. On solutions such as the Nostromo keypad, this was never such an intuitive exercise since the keys there are uniform and packed into a few dense lines.

If you lay your left hand fingertips on the "butterfly" of red movement keys, your thumb rests naturally on the first side row of action buttons which can be tied to any given game command. The top of the three thumb buttons has a rounded top, with the one under it having a concave top. In the frenzy of battle, you'll never doubt which one your thumb is on at any given time. The one third one down is wider left to right, giving further distinctiveness to the buttons.

The two rows above the butterfly easily translate to the F1-F12 keys. Down the left hand side of the butterfly you have another column of keys for the pinky to easily rest on and activate with a mere twitch of the finger.

All of these keys come with a default assigned, making them usable out of the box for nearly any FPS game. But in the included key manager software, you can reassign any of these key values.

Angle of Attack
One of the nicer touches on the Merc is that they angled the gaming key areas every so slightly to point downward and to the left. This small adjustment from the standard straight up an down, combined with the left side placement of the keys means that your left hand can rest naturally on the keys and use them for 3, 5 or 10 hour gaming session without straining the wrist like normal keyboards do.

And Now The Stealth
Recently I found that I’d just plain worn out one of the keys on my original Merc and the next time we were at Fry’s we peeked in the keyboard isle to see what was new, with the intent of picking up something new for me to use or to get another Merc if nothing newer and cooler popped up. I’d looked longingly at the illuminated keyboards for a long time. We play in a darkened room and I’m not a touch typist. Plus they are just dead sexy.

I didn’t see any Mercs at all and was staring at another illuminated keyboard when my wife pointed at some boxes laying flat on the top shelf and there they were. Not just Mercs, these were Merc Stealths.

Same Great Layout
To my relief, they keyboard layout stayed the same. The things that make the Merc number 1 for us are all still there. I was terrified that they would try and improve things by fiddling with the layout but how does one improve perfection?

Now In Color!
The Stealth has four settings on the lighting, Purple(honestly it’s a tad pink), Blue, Red and off. For each of the three colors you can choose brightness as well. Selecting these is all done with a few new buttons on the top of the keyboard so it’s easy to switch. As a side note, the illumination stays on even in sleep modes, so in our darkened gaming room, the keyboard is always on for us, which is fine since if we’re in there we’re at the computers. For those who want the dark, just tap the selector key and toggle the illumination off. Despite the promotional pictures on the box and the website showing the keyboard illumination as emanating from between the keys, we don’t find that to be the case. I run mine in blue and she uses hers in the purple/pink and neither of us notice any substantial illumination from between the keys.

The illumination is from the letters on the keys themselves which is what we want in an illuminated keyboard. We don’t want a glowing grid at our fingertips, we want glowing letters. The glow is a comfortable level, not too dim, not too bright.

Drivers
We’d both had the original Merc drivers on our systems, including programmed keysets for different games. We both picked up Stealths and when we crossed our fingers and connected them we found that they worked just fine with the existing drivers and configuration software. This was a nice benefit since we were both more interested in getting online to play with the new keyboards than in loading new drivers and software.

Keypad Only
Ideazon also offers an add-on pad with just the gaming key area, the Fang gamepad. It’s still got the features that make the Merc such a winner: the butterfly keys and programmable action keys, just packed into a keyboard accessory instead. This is the best bet for you lefties out there. No illuminated version of the Fang is available.Wired Only
The Ideazon keyboard lines come in wired versions only. I’d been on a wireless keyboard kick for awhile when I got the first Merc and it was definitely a check in the “Con” column for me. But what I discovered that part of the reason I wanted wireless is that I had to move my keyboard so often. Shove it to the left to navigate, flip it to the center to type, then back to the left to navigate. Repeat that a few dozen times per hour and it makes you start to dislike cords. The Merc lines have a cord, but it doesn’t matter because they eliminated the problem that made me move my keyboard so often to being with. My keyboard stays in one place now and corded is just fine.

The ZBoard
Ideazon is probably more well known for their customizable keyboards in the ZBoard lines. These are those nifty gimmick keyboards where you can take out the strip containing all of the keys and instead drop in a custom physical layout geared for the particular game you are playing. From a marketing standpoint this is simply brilliant. Having a keyboard that has a World of Warcraft background and custom key layout for WoW must be the best possible way to play, right? Right? My own experience with these is that they are not as comfortable as a conventional keyboards. Being as the keys snap in and out as a set, they never felt as responsive as normal keyboards. The specialty round keys seemed even less responsive.

To make things less compelling, while the standard Zboard comes with the Butterfly keys, they are not angled like the Merc. But on the game-specific key inserts, the butterfly is not even present on the games we most want to play. Here’s the World of Warcraft layout as an example.


While the gimmicky coolness of the ZBoard model keeps it in the conversation, I can’t see using one for long gaming sessions. The simple Merc wins hands down.

In Conclusion
The Merc is a true winner for any gaming fan, and doubly so for any MMO player. I recommend it to people constantly and I can do so with no reservations at all. For me, it’s the freedom from wrist pain that had plagued me through years of gaming and dozens of keyboards. At only $39 it is easily the best gaming keyboard we’ve ever seen.

The Stealth, while pricier at $89, adds all of the sexy that illuminated keyboards are bringing these days. It’s still our best find for gaming comfort and features, and now it glows!

Updated

See our "one month later" update for some less than thrilling information.

HDMI Switch Review, the Psyclone PSC47

Now that my HD HTPC is up and running, I must face the challenge of getting it hooked up into our home theater system by tackling one of the problems of the digital revolution: no system comes with enough HDMI ports!

I’m sure it must cost more for manufacturers to add HDMI ports, and yes, I concede the point that most consumers will not use more than the one or two ports that appear on most TVs or AV units. But there are plenty of us out here that want to use more than that, right? Enter the HDMI Switch.

Two years ago when I was speccing our home theater system, I looked into HDMI switches and it was shocking. Basic 2 to 4 port switches went for anywhere between $800 and $2,000. The industry was young, and we’d already hit our budget for the theater so I decided to bide my time. I knew that with the advent of the HDMI game consoles that a more affordable switch would enter the market eventually and the switch from niche need to mass appeal product would drive down costs. Luckily that time has finally come.

Enter Psyclone and their PSC47 HDMI Selector switch at only $199 for a 4 port switch. But wait, there’s more. This switch not only handles HDMI but also digital optical audio. What’s not to love, right?

Price
I’ve seen cheaper 2 port switches, but I just can’t get interested in them. I know I have enough equipment to immediately occupy 3 of the ports and while I could make do with only 2, why not go all digital and have a port leftover. Always leave expansion room for that next piece you’ve been longing for.

Availability
I was hesitant to mail order a switch because any Google search will tell you that there’s a huge number of folks out there with switches that turned out not to work with their equipment. In particular, the PS3 is extra troublesome it seems, and of course I want my PS3 hooked up. So I wanted a switch I can try out and easily return if it’s not going to get the job done. Luckily for me, Best Buy carries the PSC47. So I could get it and try it out with some confidence.

HDMI 1.3
Lots of these compatibility issues can be resolved if you stick with HDMI 1.3 switches, because the more detailed standards help overcome many of the compatibility issues. If any of your components are 1.3 and you get a non 1.3 switch, you are probably in for some hassles. The Psyclone switch is 1.3 so that’s another box checked off on my requirements list.

Discreet Remote Codes
Another item on my requirements list is that the switch must have discreet remote codes. What does that mean? Well, some switches have plus or minus keys to rotate through ports. But when you are using a universal remote to control many pieces of equipment, you need the ability to reliably choose which port is active. So the system must be able to receive a command to “go to port 3” for example. Without discreet codes for switching to exact ports, there would be no reliable way to program one button on the remote to start the DVD player, turn off the VCR, and switch to HDMI port 3 all at once. The PSC47 has discreet codes for direct port switching, as well as plus and minus port switching, gain control and power.

I’m using a Universal Remote MX-850 and I was able to learn the codes from the PSC47 remote in under 5 minutes and get the switch integrated into my universal remote.

Putting It In Place
Hooking it up was a snap, as one might expect. Pop it onto the rack, plug it into the conditioned power supply, hook up the cables and you are pretty much done. Depending on your devices and how they were configured previously you may need to tweak a few settings. For example, my PS3 had been outputting via composite cables pending getting the HDMI switch.

Working With an AV Unit
My only troubles came with I started configuring my master AV unit, a Denon AVR-2708 for the changes. Where previously I had each of the units on different inputs and could configure each separately, now that was no longer the case. When they were separate inputs, I could designate that my DVD player is outputting 5.1 audio and the Blu-Ray player was outputting 7.1 audio. But now, they would all be coming in on the same cable and unfortunately the 2807 will not let me choose the same input port for more than one group of settings. That means that I have to choose one setting and everything from the switch will be treated the same way. I’m not wild about that but it’s not a deal breaker. While I’m sure that many AV units have this same problem, most people will likely not be using the switch in conjunction with AV units instead of feeding to the TV directly.

HDMI –VS- Optical
Due to a complexity on one system component, I really needed to use Digital Audio on that component. I didn’t “need” it on the others. Due to the nature of the settings on my master AV unit (see above) I was unable to verify this, but I got the impression that if you use Optical audio from the switch to the AV unit, you had to use it for all of the components. That wasn’t a problem for me, as I was planning to pick up a few more optical cables and go all optical digital audio anyway.

The PS3
The piece I was most fearful of hitting compatibility issues with was the PS3. After a quick reconfig on the PS3 to the new cabling arrangement, everything worked great!

HDMI Switching and HDCP Tokens
It’s important to keep in mind that a HDMI switch does not work like the traditional component AV switches used in theater equipment or game switches. In component switches, the single is simply redirected to a new path and the signal is completed. HDMI equipment has more complexity. Each device in the HDMI chain from start to finish (the DVD, the switch, the master AV unit and the projector or TV) has a chip. When you power on the DVD, it is going to locate the chip on the next piece in the chain (the switch in our case) and complete a handshake. Think of it like a dial up modem looking for a receiver. If that handshake gets dropped, the signal is interrupted. Resetting that signal usually is done by powering off the device and then powering it back on to reinitialize the handshake. A HDMI switch must maintain live handshakes to each shared input component plugged into it and then renegotiate a handshake to the unit it is outputting to when you change ports on the switch.

What does all of this mean to you? If you wind up getting stuttering in the picture or audio, or if you lose the signal entirely, you probably need to reset the handshakes. In most cases this can be done by powering off the device having troubles so that when it powers on, it can create a new handshake to the switch. I suspect that many problems that people encounter with HDMI switches are actually handshake issues that are misunderstood.

Costs and Cables
The switch cost $199 and comes with one HDMI cable. This is reasonable as the manufactuer can assume that if you have a DVD, PS3 and DVR already using HDMI, you probably have cables already. I much prefer a $199 switch with one cable over a $299 switch that has 4 cables of which I need only one. The other cost factor for me was in switching to all optical digital audio. Tally up the cost of a set of HDMI cables, even the cheap ones, and the 5 digital optical cables, and the cabling cost alone can rival the cost of the switch itself. Switches are now affordable, but cabling costs still needs to come down in general, in my opinion.

Final Thoughts
The Psyclone PSC47 is getting the job done. It met all of my requirements, even though I was more demanding that it’s intended audience of gamers. It is switching my PS3, DVD, Direct TV DVR and HD Home Theater PC all flawlessly. The digital optical sound is coming through clearly and the system integrated into my universal remote with only 5 minutes of effort. Give the opportunity to start over, I’d buy the same switch again.

If you have any questions about the switch or have any comments or info to share, please leave a comment below.

Abit AN-M2HD Motherboard Review

There’s a lot of websites out there that review motherboardsand that will have a ton of technical information and statistics and benchmarking in their reviews. What I always wanted to see were reviews about how easily the motherboard integrated into a system, challenged faced and how well it does overall.

I recently decided to build my own HTPC supporting HD. The foundation of this system was to be the Abit AN-M2HD motherboard. This attracted me primarily because it has native HDMI support on the motherboard and HDCP support. To me, this means I could build my HTPC without needing an expensive add-on video card with HDMI support. I’ve been turned off by add-on video cards supporting HDMI previously when they came out with HD support but the cards rarely actually worked as advertised.

The AN-M2HD seems marketed at a slightly different audience then other motherboards. Instead of coming in a plain brown box or a box covered with hi-tech designs, instead it gets a retro treatment seemingly intended to attract people interested more in the results less than the motherboard specs.

I’m mounting all of this in a Lian Li PC-V350A case which was well suited to my needs. The case is a MicroATX form factor like the AN-M2HD itself. I've got a review of the PCv350 case if you want more information.

The complete hardware list:

Abit AN-M2HD Motherboard
AMD Athlon 64 6400+ Windsor 3.2GHz Dual-Core CPU
Lian Li PC-V350A case
GSkill 2 X 1GB DDR2 800 SDRAM (PC2 6400)
Samsung 500GB drive
Thermaltake 500wt ATX power supply
Lite-On DVD ROM

That’s it for now. I won’t be needing a video card, and for my use I don’t need a TV Tuner card. I’d planned to add on a HD-DVD player, but recent news about Warner and Paramount switching to Blu-Ray has made me pause on that purchase. I can play Blu-Ray discs through my PS3, so for the time being the HTPC will be for HD from our camera and from disc rips. (My wife and I are big movie buffs and like to keep as much of our library online as possible so we can call up any movie at any time). I'll also be moving the 50-0GB hard drive from the older HTPC to this one once it's decomissioned.

Mounting the Motherboard
The Lian Li PC-V350Acase has a slide out motherboard tray that made mounting it a simple, 5 minute procedure. The motherboard comes with a custom insert plate for the back IO panel and swapping this with the V350’s back IO panel was as simple as popping one out and sticking the other in.

Case Connectors
The MB has more connectors that I had things to connect. Simple things like the power button, reset, activity lights, and such were all easy to locate and connect. Having labeled connectors on the V350 made it even easier.

Other Internal Connectors
The MB has 4 SATA connectors and 4 case USB connectors. I used only 1 SATA connector and 1 USB connector, both of which worked correctly without any BIOS tweaking or adjustments. I did not test the 1394 firewire connector, but I’ll assume it worked as well. These are all in addition to the connectors on the back IO panel.

CPU
The AN-M2HD is an AMD AM2 socket motherboard. Mounting the CPU was easy and standard. The pleasant surprise part was that it correctly set the defaults for the Athlon 64 6400+ Windsor CPU I had chosen. I’d been unable to find any posts anywhere previously that used this new processor with this motherboard.

Manual Errata
Only one SNAFU arose, when I’d connected the power supply, CPU and case connectors and tried to get an initial boot. Nothing. Just a power light on the MB, no activity at all. As it turns out, the jumper for motherboard BIOS resetting is incorrectly stated in the manual. It’s a three pin jumper and connecting either 1 and 2 or 2 and 3 has the effect of resetting the MB BIOS or performing in normal mode. Luckily the MB came with a large sticker for installation on the inside panel of the case showing all jumper positions. This sticker had the jumpers stated correctly. Swapping this jumper results in a good startup.

Memory Voltage
The Mb defaults to 1.85 for the memory voltage. I’d placed in my 2 sticks of Gskill memory and could not get a post screen. I pulled one stick out and got the post screen. Upping the memory voltage in BIO to 1.9 and placing in both sticks worked to fix the problem.

Drive Detection
I’d connected a very basic Lite-On DVD Rom drive and the Samsung 500GB hard drive. The motherboard correctly detected and identified both, which worked without incident.

Boot Sequence
The BIOS boot sequence defaults to Floppy, hard drive then CD, which to me seems backwards. If I insert a bootable CD, I expect it to boot to that CD when I power on. This was a simple thing to switch.

BIOS Updates
I downloaded the latest BIOS from Abit’s website. I was not encountering any troubles, but I wanted the latest to work with because any troubleshooting at later stages would always start with “Well, do you have the latest of everything?”. The website lists both a BIOS update and a Flash utility. The instructions on the Flash utility seem out of date. As it turns out I only needed the BIOS update which comes with the files necessary to perform the flash update as well. Overall, it was a confusing thing looking at the instructions online and trying to justify them against the files I had in hand from the download. I’m sure it’s just a case of them having generic instructions for many different motherboards, but when the instructions say things like ‘if your download has 4 files, do this, if it has 6 files do this instead’ but having a download that meets neither parameter, it’s just a hassle to figure out what to do.

Installing Windows + Drivers
Installing MS Windows MCE was a snap. No troubles at all. I installed the drivers disc that came with the MB and at the end, every device was properly detected and identified in the Hardware Manager in Windows. What a relief. I’d expected this to be a more troublesome adventure.

Based on some posts I’d read, I downloaded updated versions of the Realtek audio drivers from the Abit website. These went on without a hitch. I must say that I like the drivers and the way that they clearly identify the back panel of the MB and what connects where.

HDMI Video
Configuring the HDMI output was fairly easy. The first lesson learned is that you want your HDMI cable connected to your HDMI monitor before booting. Otherwise, Windows and your drivers cannot detect that another monitor could be used. With that covered, running the Nvidia display wizard was next.

When run, the display wizard first asked me what resolution to support on the HDMI connector. This was again a pleasant surprise. No hassles with identifying that it was a special display, or setting that it was for a TV or the rest of the normal steps. It just went right into the HDMI configuration. I chose my HDMI resolution and then it showed me my normal computer display and I picked a resolution for that one as well.

Previously I’ve been using an HTPC with Svideo out and it was much more of a hassle to setup. I’d finally settled on running it as an extended desktop setup with the computer display as the primary. This let me run the Media Center on the second monitor (The TV) and maximized and I could set the resolution for that display separately. Trying to get them both synched to the same display resolution was annoying since it meant my normal display was running at TV resolutions and was nearly unintelligible.

With the AN-M2HD, I can connect both my normal monitor and my HDMI device and set the resolution on my HDMI device and set the system to mirror both displays. The resolution is plenty high enough to be readable. The display on the computer monitor is slight stretched vertically, since it’s displaying a 16:9 image on a 4:3 monitor but that’s ok, it’s still clear.

The reason I wanted this setup is that my HDMI display, a Sony Projector, is actually 2 rooms away in the Theater Room. So any efforts at adjusting settings or handling problems were always troublesome. Change a setting, walk over two rooms, see if it helped. Walk back. Repeat. No thanks. Now I can see the display on my normal monitor and work on the system without these additional hassles.

HDMI Audio
[update: using the newer HDMI drivers from ABIT's website for this board completely corrected this issue]
OK, now for the not-so-great part. Getting audio to work over the HDMI connector is troublesome. In fact, after 4 hours of efforts, and many consultations with the Abit forums, I still have not gotten it to work. Judging by the posts, the problem effects many users.

In the end, I conceded defeat and instead connected audio using the S/PDIF link using a TOSLink cable. It’s not that the S/PDIF connection is bad, it’s that I just wanted the HDMI audio to work the way it should.

Rear Cable Connectors
One unfortunate problem is that the rear IO panel places the HDMI connector and the S/PDIF connector immediately beside each other. I've yet to ever meet an HDMI connector without a decent "hood" over the connector and TOSlink cable that did not have a full circle hooded sleeve. This means that getting both to go in at once will require a carpentry knife or other cutting utensil and a willingness to replace a cable if you cut too deep. After whittling down some on each cable hood, I was able to get them both plugged in at the same time.

Manual Omissions
I’d have felt better I the manual had a section for “how to get your HDMI output working”. It took some trial and error to get it figured out and it wasn’t that hard. However, for a board aimed at people wanting video, the manual should include a quick primer on getting that all important HDMI port working.

Conclusions
I’m pleased with the results. The board’s native HDMI and VGA connectors let me avoid buying a new PCIE video card with an HDMI connector. It works with the new 6400+ CPU and has all of the benefits and ease you’d expect from an Abit board.

The manual could be enhanced with extra information for the getting the HDMI up and running and I think this is critical for the intended audience. Apparently unfixable problems with getting audio over HDMI is unforgivable in a board whose entire existence is to support HDMI, but at least the S/PDIF link using a TOSlink cable works. If I had it all to do over again, I'd still buy the same board.