Ideazon Merc Gaming Keyboard

It's hard to argue with the Ideazon Merc Gaming Keyboard's $40 price tag. It's not as responsive as the $99 CNET Editor's Choice-winning Razer Tarantula, and it doesn't even light up like the $99 Logitech G15 or the $60 and $70 (respectively) Saitek Eclipse or Eclipse II. The separate game key cluster isn't all that great, either, since the bunched up key layout impedes accuracy. But for $40, the Merc does deliver some flexible, powerful customization software. We wouldn't recommend it for performance-oriented games, but if all you're interested in is tailoring your keyboard to your favorite titles, the Merc is worth a try.

Imagine Ideazon's Fang Gamepad attached to the side of an otherwise boring keyboard, and you have a pretty good sense of what the Merc is all about. That's actually not a bad idea in concept. Rather than forcing you to hunt and peck your way through a typical QWERTY layout, the idea of the Merc is to isolate an additional set of game keys in more user-friendly design.

As with the Fang, six directional control keys anchor the game controls. Those main buttons are surrounded by various other function keys (such as Jump, Reload, and Run/Walk) preset to those commands. The robust Z Engine software lets you customize the game keys, as well as any other key on the Merc, to perform whatever function you want, from simple single-key commands to more complicated macros you can program yourself. The thorough help file walks you through the less-intuitive steps, and with diligence, you should be able to get the Merc to execute pretty much any command or string of commands that a game will allow. Ideazon also includes a relatively large number of premade key mappings to current PC game titles.