Gaming keyboards often force you to make a lot of concessions if you want to use them regularly. In the past I’ve found myself juggling keyboards as you would controllers, unplugging their bulky frames when I needed to work on a Word document because of their cumbersome designs, or as a result of them not granting me enough space on my desk due to them being created without arm room in mind. Like most things in the gaming industry, they’re routinely designed with the belief that bigger equals better, meaning that they’re often thoroughly impractical for day-to-day use.
This leaves people like me, who utilize their desktops for gaming, work and casual use, often struggling to find a keyboard that accommodate all of these things. Fortunately the SteelSeries Apex M500 is one such device, offering a streamlined experience that cuts out all of the extra trimmings in favor of providing a much more versatile gaming keyboard.
Priced at a thoroughly reasonable $99, the SteelSeries Apex M500’s budget price point is reflected in the lack of bells and whistles that it features. Firstly, the only customization options for its blue backlight is to dim or increase its brightness, so unlike the pricier RGB keyboards you aren’t able to switch between colors or create personalized color zones. As someone with a rig that glows an unsightly crimson red (an unfortunate decision I made when first constructing my PC, but one I’ve decided to live with like some kind of PC gaming masochist) the bright blue doesn’t really match the aesthetic I’ve been going for, but this is only a superficial issue. The lack of lighting for individual keys is a downside, however, and even an outline surrounding the WASD keys would have been helpful.
The keyboard is also lacking dedicated macro keys, though personally I found this to be a reasonable pay-off for its more lightweight design. The functions you’d typically assign to these macro keys, from media playblack through to display settings, can each by controlled by pressing an F key along with the SteelSeries button, which is located next to the Alt key along the bottom of the keyboard. You can also use the SteelSeries Engine software to program your own personal set of Macros. Though this will inevitably be a point of contention for some PC gamers, I appreciated that these keys had been shaved off in order to decrease the size of the keyboard.
I was also impressed by the cable management system the M500 employs, which allows the keyboard’s cable to successfully be tucked away beneath it in one of three ways – either in the center, to the left or to the right. This ensures that no matter how you wish your keyboard to be placed on your desk, you needn’t worry about its cable becoming tangled or running uncomfortably along your desk, with you able to easily cater it to your setup. This is particularly advantageous if, like me, you have a multiple monitor setup and move your keyboard around your desk every now and again as a result.
SteelSeries notes that the M500 is “built entirely around the needs of professional gamers,” with the intention being to create a simple, minimalist keyboard that values functionality over the flashy stuff. This means that what you get with the keyboard is an uncomplicated, comparatively light (the M500 weighs in at 2.7 lbs, with a height of 136.43 mm and width of 440.56 mm) keyboard with the unrivaled Cherry MX Red switches, favored by eSports competitors as a result of their responsiveness. They’re also more durable than the majority of their competitors, with them able to withstand 50 million clicks apiece before they wear out – that’s roughly 5 times the durability of traditional membrane keys. The M500 also offers full anti-ghosting, meaning that you never need to worry about pressing a key and not having it register in-game, which is understandably crucial when playing competitively.
The SteelSeries Apex M500 is one of the most efficient keyboards I’ve owned. Though it certainly won’t appeal to everyone given its selection of missing features and relatively simple design, it presents a solid option for the space-conscious who don’t want to be forced to own a sub-par keyboard by virtue of their desk not being able to accommodate a larger one. It’s priced reasonably, boasts switches commonly used by professionals and is responsive enough for it to be used by those playing at the highest competitive level. What more do you need?
