 In the SteelSeries suite, they're showing off the Apex and the Apex RAW, and I'm gonna start with the Apex RAW. Welcome to Linus Tech Tips at CES 2013. Our trip to the show this year is powered by Corsair, maker of quality PC components and peripherals. Our trusted storage partner is Seagate Technology, and our trusted networking partner is Linksys. Okay, guys, backlit keyboard has two layers of macro functionality, so check this out. We got macro keys here, you got five. We have macro keys here, you've got 12. You can actually program those in two different ways, but we've seen this before. The entire keyboard itself is completely reprogrammable as well, so that means you've actually got what is essentially what's something like 200 functionalities that you can implement depending on which layer of macros you're using. They've changed a couple of the key ergonomic things about this keyboard versus ones in the past. Number one is they've added the Windows key back. This is based on feedback from gamers. Remember guys, SteelSeries is not so much flair and fluff, although this is a nice looking product compared to the more blocky keyboards that we've seen in the past. They actually designed four pro gamers. They've got a wide variety of teams they sponsor, so this is one of the key changes that might cause some debate, but remember guys, all the keys on the keyboard are reprogrammable, so don't worry too much about it. Number two, check out this spacebar. It looks kind of stupid. You know what it reminds me of? It looks kind of like the 7G, which also looks kind of stupid, because it has that huge wrist rest. You know what else? My wife refuses to type on anything but a 7G. If I put anything else in front of her, she will not use it because it is incredibly comfortable. Things like this come from a comfort and design standpoint, not from a visual appeal standpoint. So if you think about it in terms of typing, you don't need a wide spacebar because your hands are positioned like this with the tips of your thumbs on the spacebar. However, gamers, you know, I'm not going to generalize or anything, but come on, have you ever sat up straight and gamed like this? I don't think so. You're slouching your seat, you got your wrist down, you got your thumb lying on the spacebar here. That makes it easier and faster to respond to. So again, good job SteelSeries. Final sort of ergonomic weirdness is these diagonal keys here. These are a carryover from the acquisition of Ideazon a number of years back and particularly for MMO gamers, SteelSeries has gotten extremely good feedback about it. So this guy, one zone, okay, two layers of macros. This is the Cadillac. At $99.99, remember guys, these are membrane keyboards, so that's why you're seeing these kinds of price points with this kind of functionality on the keyboards. It has five zones. Zone 1, zone 2, zone 3, zone, did I already say this one? 4, and zone 5, which is the logo right here and these lights that are on the side. Cool thing about this one is it's got four layers, 10 macro keys here in addition to the ones up here, and you can actually change depending on the layer you're in what zones are illuminated. So if you go, okay, I'm an MMO player. I have my, you know, my utility class, my attack class, I have my healer class or whatever else. You can go, okay, I'm my attack character, whole thing goes red, so you know what you're doing. You've got, you can make sure that all the macros that you're going to be hitting are the ones that are optimized for the character you're using. Healer class, turn the whole thing white. Or you can even do things like just change one zone. You can go, okay, I want something more subtle, so I'm going to change the yellow on the side. It has 16.8 million colors or something like that, so you can have whatever you want. Change that to a different color on the fly. I actually missed an ergonomic change, and I think this, I think this laptop went into sleep or something. There it is, it's properly illuminated now. Final ergonomic change I didn't mention before is the macros up here are slightly raised. Here, if I can get you to get a good look at that. These are slightly raised. This allows you to quickly perform some kind of a combo where you can press one of them and then the other and fall off of it like that. It's actually, it's really neat the way they showed it to us, and they gave us a couple examples of where gamers will actually use these. There's a couple of dots on the W, which allows you to find your way back to WASD the same way you'd find your way to the home row key if you were typing. And, sorry, excuse me. It's got a USB hub built in. Sorry, Diesel, are you focused on that? There we go. USB hub built in, and I think that pretty much wraps up everything I wanted to say about this keyboard. Oh yeah, okay, so you can adjust your brightness, adjust your volume, you got your media keys over here, full number pad, like I said, membrane keyboard, all about quickness. They're advertising this as the fastest gaming keyboard in terms of, you know, your travel distance, the feedback, the tactile feedback that's required to press the buttons, whatever you want to, however you want to look at it. Come on over here, I want to show you guys a cool prototype. This is of the Apex, not the Apex Rock. Can you hit the lights, sir? So this one comes apart, so they've got it programmed with a variety of different colors. You can see it has a very different look depending on what kind of colors you're using, and this is the kind of technology that goes inside something like this. They've also updated their software in kind of a neat way, and that is they can create heat maps where you can set it to, okay, maybe you don't know exactly what keys are optimal for you. You can have it set up heat maps while you're gaming to show you which parts of the keyboard you're using most on the software on your screen. So it might be able to give you tips like, okay, most of the keys you use are in here, and you're using R for reload still, you're not really using E that much. Why don't you change E to reload, save yourself 7% travel distance, and potentially actually make you a better gamer. I think we can all agree that in the past especially, and for the most part, better peripherals don't make you a better gamer inherently, but SteelSeries is trying to change that. So don't forget to subscribe to Linus Tech Tips so you can catch all of our CES 2013 coverage. We'll see you guys soon. Thanks for watching Linus Tech Tips at CES 2013 powered by Corsair, Seagate Technology, and Linksys.