Utter madness.

1 - the arrow keys, left and right, the staple key diet of gamers everywhere, are shaped like flint chippings - an odd shape, right at the bottom edge, and easily slippable and missable.

2 - so the concentric circular idea of the left side makes it easy(ier) to hit the 1234567890 keys but to hit the inner circular keys you'll have to contort your fingers? Great!

3 - whats that unlabelled key in the middle of the left hand set? The return key?

4 - function keys far too small, nearly under-appreciated!

5 - the right side seems to just be all the keys arranged in a square grid around a circle - advantageous how exactly?

6 - and what is that big unlabelled key at the lower middle??

WolfKing designer : Hey everybody, lets pick all the keys off a traditional typewriter keyboard and hurl them into the air - where they land is where they go (even if upside down!) - would be better than that arrangement.

Frankly shit.

The problem i have found with keyboards and games is the number of keys one can press at the same time.

Have they resolved this standard problem on this keyboard or just rearraged them to be easier to press?

This keyboard is for FPS gamers. WASD is the staple key combination for these folk, and it does a wonderful job making these keys accessible. Nobody, but NOBODY who plays FPS games uses the arrow keys, and haven't since the era of DOOM.

The right hand side of the keyboard puts all the keys for typing under your fingers of one hand. Theoretically, this could increase typing speed by allowing faster typing of common repetitive letter combinations, like ee, oo, and ll.

As for the amount of keys depressed at once, i'd be surprised if they hadn't included a quality controller allowing for 5 or 6 at once.

I doubt they've fixed this. This is a keyboard controller limitation and I strongly suspect this uses a standard keyboard controller.

oooooo, im forever getting in a muddle when messaging on an FPS - this is genius! I can send "If you learnt how to use a sniper rifle you wouldn't whine so much when I use it on you" without taking my hands off of the wsad keys!

Actually, I'm a gamer and I don't use WASD, I use the arrow keys. The WASD keys are simply in the wrong place to use comfortably, with the W being offset from the S. It simply cramps my fingers to play that way. The arrow keys are perfect, however, because my fingers don't get twisted round trying to place them on the keys. For all the twiddly extras, I've got the ins / Del Pgup / Pg/Dn lot, and the numpad and ctrl, shift, return keys all fall easily under my thumb and little fingers.

It's a perfect arrangement, except for the fact that more and more keyboard manufacturers are screwing with the ins / del etc keys.

If it's USB, the supported number of simultaneous keypresses is much higher then using PS/2.

really, the poser typists already had a superior option: Das Keyboard.

what could be more pretentiously minimalist than a completely blank keyboard?

what we have here is version 1.0 of the chav keyboard.

version 2.0 will come with spots of primer, a dual chrome wanker pipe, and silly chrome rims (see Web 2.0).

version 3.0 will feature customizable backlighting, a top half that is darkly tinted transparent plastic, with a choice of fuzzy dice or handcuffs hanging off the side; one or the other will become the hive mind's "correct choice", justification will be invented for this arbitrary nonsense, and dissenters will be flamed and ostracized (a la Web 3.0).

'Nobody uses arrows'

Except left-handers, obviously. You wanna try using WSAD with your right hand while holding the mouse in the left?

I'm an online gamer and this new wolfking keyboard is a scarry prospect.

I'd much rather use my zboard which has special key functions set out and lets me assign new functions to each key. Also zboards do not have the simultaneous keys problem, I know this from experience of pushing several keys at once and everything working A-OK!

In short: Wolfking a butchered keyboard trying to get in to a gamer markey, and not worth the cash, ZBoard supperiour gaming keyboard with programable funtions and simultaneouis key pushes, i know what my money is on!

'world’s first hybrid PC gamepad and keyboard'

No one tell Zboard -as the Merc I'm using (7 keys at once) looks strangly like a gamepad/keyboard hybrid to me...

1 - the arrow keys, left and right, the staple key diet of gamers everywhere, are shaped like flint chippings - an odd shape, right at the bottom edge, and easily slippable and missable.

WASD is the staple diet of PC gamers... not the arrow keys

2 - so the concentric circular idea of the left side makes it easy(ier) to hit the 1234567890 keys but to hit the inner circular keys you'll have to contort your fingers? Great!

It brings more keys within reach of a single hand without moving the hand away from the WASD combination... again useful for most gamers.

3 - whats that unlabelled key in the middle of the left hand set? The return key?

My guess is that it'd be the same as the unlabelled key on the keyboard you're currently using (ie. spacebar!)

4 - function keys far too small, nearly under-appreciated!

Again, for gamers. Most games don't use function keys on a regular basis (at least not in my experience). But this keyboard still lets you hit all 12 F-keys without moving the left hand from the magic WASD combination.

5 - the right side seems to just be all the keys arranged in a square grid around a circle - advantageous how exactly?

My guess would be for typing with just the right hand, while the left hand continues to throw grenades / cast shadowbolts etc. Or possibly for users of speciality adult IRC channels to allow them to type one handed?

6 - and what is that big unlabelled key at the lower middle??

My guess would be a spacebar for the right hand. Seeing as spacebars are usually accessible by the left and right thumbs on a standard keyboard, it seems natural to keep this option.

Give me a break... when are manufacturers finally going to wake up and get with the fact that USB 1.1 is becoming increasingly useless for file transfers?

Why should I even contemplate a new keyboard with a USB hub in it if I have to plug my 4GB USB memory device into my computer tower anyway?

If the design wasn't reason enough to boycott this thing, the lack of foresight and keeping up with standards certainly is, in my humble opinion.

>'Nobody uses arrows'

>Except left-handers, obviously. You wanna try using WSAD with your right >hand while holding the mouse in the left?

A lefty would probably use the numpad for control then, wouldn't you think? There are lots of keys easily accessed there already.

Another example of 'Lets do something different, just for the hell of it . . ., er, it doesn't need to be practical or anything - does it?' Can you fold it in half and use it as a sandwitch maker or a Frisbee?

Hey, El Reg, hows about a review of the Optimus Maximus? Now there's a realistic concept.