SteelSeries APEX M500 Mechanical Keyboard Review

DOOM

We found our time gaming in DOOM with this keyboard very pleasant. Not only are the keys easy to use, but the silence of the Cherry MX Red switches was nice after so much use of clicky switches normally.

Changing direction and moving around could not have been simpler. With the ability to remap the keyboard, any keys can be used to keep your hands in the most comfortable position on the M500, or for the left-hand users out there, this is where you can adjust things to suit your needs better as well.

After a few maps, we got very used to the APEX M500, but we did notice that once in a while, resting our hand did cause accidental movements due to the lack of pressure required to activate these switches.

Overwatch

The game feel with Overwatch is much the same as with Doom, but we did notice one thing we do not typically feel ourselves doing much. Due to the confines of some of the maps, with all players in a gunfight, we were rolling the keys quite a bit. By this, we mean that we found ourselves using our W finger to roll over to the A, S, and D keys. Since the actuation pressure was light, this is easy to do.

With the action as fast paced as it is in this game, we did not see so much in the way of accidental movements, but we did like the almost joystick feel of gaming FPS titles when in the heat of the battle.

Windows and Productivity

This is where we tend to delve into Macros, as a lot of the games we play are pretty straight forward shooters. The Macro Editor is easy to work with, and you can fine tune the Macros to a certain point, but we have seen better options available for this. Using Macros here increases productivity for editing, and with the amount of images we do, this saves large amounts of time, rather than hunting around with the mouse for the same commands.

When it comes to typing, in our opinion, this is where the APEX M500 falters a bit. If you have lots of speed in your hands, but either have fatter fingers or not the best with finger placement, you will find the fault of using Cherry MX Reds for this avenue. They, to us, are just too soft, and ended up editing a lot of text from multiple keys being pressed at once. However, it does lend well to the anti-ghosting and NKRO, as every key, we accidentally rolled onto with the intended presses, got recorded.