Ideazon Zboard Fang Gamepad ZGP-1000 review (game pad - wired)

The keys are comfortable enough, though we wonder if Ideazon couldn't have tweaked the design to help differentiate the keys. They sometimes feel a bit too similar. As it exists now, some of the buttons are concave and others are convex, which helps a bit, but we found that since many of the keys feel the same and sit close together, it was hard to hit individual keys accurately without looking.

Amazingly, the Fang can be used with either hand thanks to its symmetrical design. In a world where almost any "ergonomic" device is aimed solely at right-handed users, this is a surprising and welcome feature. Of course, this layout isn't perfect; regardless of which hand you use. The human pinky finger can only stretch so far, so some of the buttons on the lower and upper edges will be nearly impossible to hit.

The Fang uses Ideazon's Z Engine software to handle keyboard mapping, the same software the company uses in its customizeable Zboard keyboard and the Merc gaming keyboard. The program comes preloaded with a generous selection of game presets, including popular first-person shooters such as Counter-Strike and massively multiplayer online games like World of Warcraft. If those presets aren't to your liking, any key on the Fang can be remapped to a specific keystroke, macro, or game command. Unfortunately, native Macintosh users are predictably left in the lurch; Z Engine only works in Windows.