Razer Lycosa review

In a darkened room, however, the lighting is sufficiently bright. The only other option is a third profile that lights up the W, A, S and D keys -- with roughly twice the brightness of the standard lighting scheme, commonly used by PC gamers as direction controls, but keeps the rest of the board unlit.

In addition to the Lycosa's scaled-down size, we also like how well it holds its position on your workspace. It's not an overly heavy keyboard, but the rubber feet gripped our desk firmly. You can also elevate the Lycosa via two drop-down feet on the underside.

Performance
Assuming you can find the proper keys, typing on the Lycosa is a pleasant experience. The nonstick rubber coating is soft to the touch, and combined with the response of the low profile keys, we actually like the Lycosa's typing action better than Razer's higher-end Tarantula keyboard.

If you do go so far as to install the software and can figure out how to use it, you'll find that you can make any key perform the work of several via the macro software. Razer also promises the ability to press more than three keys at a time. For gamers especially, we can see how this might be useful for executing a complicated series of moves.

Unlike the Tarantula, the Lycosa has no dedicated buttons for macro hosting. The benefit, though, is that with no macro keys, the Lycosa has a much smaller footprint than the 20.25-inch wide Tarantula or Logitech's 21.5-inch wide G15 keyboard. At its widest, the Lycosa comes in just under 18.5 inches, smaller than even the Saitek Eclipse II.

Conclusion
We're frustrated, though, by a few things left half-baked. None of the Lycosa's issues are bad enough to make us dislike it outright, and we'd recommend it -- especially for confident touch-typing gamers. For £60, though, we expect Razer to follow through on the promises of its features.

Additional editing by Shannon Doubleday