well hello with people I'm Dimitri and today we're talking about the
SteelSeries apex Pro keyboard with new omni point switches now we have done
several videos on the keyboard and the switches during Computex you can check
it out over here but now that I've actually had the keyboard in my studio
for about a week I've been using those switches and I can finally make up my
mind of what I think about the omnipoint direction
by the general overview of the only points which is is that there's a magnet
at the bottom there's a magnet in the stem and when you press the switch it
creates this magnetic flux what they call it which means that you can measure
that flux and through software and through different calibration processes
you can change the actuation point on when that key is registered from point
four millimeters to three point six millimeters which gives you that whole
range of movement and when that key is registered so you basically can create
your own speed switch or going something with a little depth for typing you know
all the way up to three point six which means that you're most likely will have
to bottom out in order to activate the switch it is important to know that the
Hall effect switches are nothing new this is not something that SteelSeries
has patented and in fact we've seen this sort of actuation customization via
wooden one keyboard under wording two keyboards VR the flare tech switches
which are optical so there's a laser and could detect how much distance is passed
between the stem and the bottom so the Omnipoint direction with magnets is
kind of better in a way because we have a much larger range of actuation
customization but this isn't something that still series invented so I want to
clarify that there and overall I'm pretty happy with the execution of the
omnipoint switches but it is an expensive keyboard for $200 or the $180
for the TTL version and there's also the apex 7 which is a non-key point switches
and the price is slightly reduced so welcome to my full review of the apex
Pro let's begin after this excuse me please explain is easy to systems fully
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revolt XPS you buy fan tax links below so before we get into the meat of the
Omnipoint switch let's talk about the board itself I love the low profile
nature of the actual frame no excessive pieces sticking out above the F
nothing on the sides nothing from the spacebar
I love the low-profile nature and the really smooth and magnetic rest rest
wonderful execution over here we do have a USB pass-through on the top left that
is illuminated which is why the cable is so thick that is one disadvantage I
would say it'd be nice if the cable was removable but you can route it across
the bottom of the keyboard to channel it in whichever direction you want the
keyboard feet have one angle orientation which is nice however they're not strong
enough so if I push the keyboard from the front they might collapse and that
has happened to me many times and this stabilizes one end of the keyboard and
completely messes up my finger placement on the walls area and this whole OLED
screen implementation and the actual keyboard in the beginning I was like man
this is kind of cool but after having used it in some games it's kind of
pointless I will say it is fantastic for many customization so you can access you
macros your illumination your actuation point your profiles and different other
settings without actually going into the driver software all that is done through
the OLED screen and the little joystick wheel over here and the one
multifunction button so with these two combination you can do media control you
can cycle between different illumination profiles and change your actuation point
for example but the actual wheel feels very cheap the scroll steps for example
are kind of weak I feel like I have no control the actual click of the wheel is
also kind of poor and for $200 this is not what I was expecting and the reason
why I say the screen is pointless for in-game integrations and applications is
because it is so limited so when it works it works for csgo or dota 2 or
minecraft another game so you can see or kill to this ratio you can see which
round you're on you can customize when those appear and for how long they stay
on screen which is kind of awesome but the screen is kind of out of sight like
I feel in when I'm playing a game I'm never looking down to see what my kill
to death ratio is and what round it is and from my perspective given the game
support list is so little unless you play csgo Mortal Kombat 11 and dota 2
and minecraft then this is really not a value
and of course you can do cool things with animated gifs and actually drawing
your own little graphic to display but do you ever really look at the keyboard
for any information outside of maybe readjusting your hand or seeing where a
certain character is because the display on the keyboard to give you some useful
information is more of a gimmick than it actually being useful in real life that
is of course my opinion through my experience but I will say the omnipoint
which has really saved the Pro and the pro Tal keyboards because
they're really fantastic and what they do and how they feel I'm a huge fan of
Gator on red switches which are currently my favorite and the Omnipoints
remind me of that so incredibly smooth travel distance throughout the
entire range and this is exactly what you need when you can customize the
actuation point from point four millimeters to three point six and just
let that sink for a second less than half a millimeter to press before the
key is registered in game sometimes I would not realize that I would be
pressing shift and my character be walking or sometimes I would be going
slightly sideways because my finger weight was registering the keystroke
point four millimeters at one point my favorite switches were MX speed that's
registered at one point two millimeters so they're really fast and I was really
comfortable with that but eventually move on to something that actuator 2
millimeters but here you have that whole customization range basically you can
make your own speed switch you can go back to reg switch you can maybe even
drop the actuation point all the way to 3.6 in case you really want to bottom
out while you're typing that what makes the switch so special but so in the
software for example you can select between 1 and 10 but not knowing exactly
where the actuation happens in terms of millimeters so that makes recreating a
certain switch that you're comfortable with
can I difficult what is five so that is point four to three point six so that's
three point two so that's one point six millimeters all right so I guess you can
do your own math also important to note how many points witches are only located
on sixty-one keys everything below the F keys and everything to the left of the
arrow keys and the rest of the keys are SteelSeries right I do appreciate the
perky actuation customization for those 61 switches because my was--they area
can be really fast same thing with my spacebar but my shift and control can be
like fully actuated so that I don't accidentally press them and my weight of
the fingers don't you know register the keystroke and the same thing when I'm
doing something around the wast area just to eliminate any errors while I'm
in game but when I go back to my desktop all the keys go back to their normal
it's a two point five millimeter actuation point which I'm quite
comfortable with and I like to bottom out anyway so that hole per application
and purse which is awesome and weirdly they've only recently added the perky
illumination customization before that it was just like the whole board and you
chose the different color presets and different profiles but now you can
select your entire you know range of keys and color them to whatever you want
now I am disappointed the SteelSeries decided to use abs key camps instead of
something more premium and quality once you go pbt it's hard to go back and you
notice the difference in quality of the actual key caps and just noticing it on
a premium keyboard like the apex Pro disappointing now the fact that
SteelSeries decided to avoid the analog direction of being able to detect on
like how far you press and actually registering that as movement for example
like we've seen with flare text which is from the winning one keyboard that you
can use things like to slow down your character so depending on how far you
press so that is not present with the Omnipoint switches so it's only based
on the actuation customization and that's cool but it's also limiting to
the tech that's built into the switch and so if you are interested in
actuation customization plus having the full analog control check out wooden one
and winning two keyboards because through the driver software you can
remap certain keys so they're seen by the program as analog inputs giving you
the fool like full range of motion in terms of how far you press to how fast
your character moves I was also hoping to see more functionalities and features
built into the omnipoints which outside of the actuation control so like maybe
setting in the recent point at certain level and having different maybe
actuation points beyond the first one so it like a double taps or it activates
something else so having these dual functionalities that are built into the
Hall effect functionality but here it's quite basic with the actuation
registration distance only it is cool to play around different actuation points
and seeing how it reacts to your game play and your typing experience or
whatever and given the 100 million keystrokes this keyboard will last you
for a while so you can switch back and forth depending on how deep you like the
press or how light you like tap I like that alright so that's my experience
with the apex pro keyboard the omnipoint switches are fantastic the
actuation customization is super fun but it's one of those things where once you
set it may be for like certain games and certain applications you'll forget it
and the OLED screen is underwhelming it'd be nice if it was slightly bigger
or maybe in a more visible area I would like the keyboard feet to be improved
and also the actual little scrolling wheel to have a bit more resistance and
feel more premium because using it to control different things just yeah it
didn't feel really good and the frame plus the amazing wrist rest really kind
of complete the package to be a really premium keyboard so if you don't mind
spending $200 and want to play around the customization of the actuation for
the 61 switches then the apex Pro and kikyo might be for you all right guys
I'm Dimitri what is your favorite switch right now I went from MX black to MX red
MX blue MX Brown MX green no razor greens to MX speed to silent to get on
reds and the only point switches are like up there with the Gator on red so
they've done a really good job with this switch so if any of you have tried it
let me know what you think alright guys talk to you later