Usually I first have a chapter called "Installation & Setup" but since installing and setting up the Flexiglow Cyber Snipa is nothing more than plugging the thing into an empty USB slot (as opposed to, what, a
filled USB slot?) I skipped that chapter this time.
And that's also one of the nice things of this Game Pad - that it's truly plug & play. It
is after all nothing more than a USB keyboard with some (most) keys missing. Some of the available gaming keyboards out there have "special keys" that aren't recognized by the operating system's default keyboard drivers and those need special drivers to be installed just to make these keys work. That doesn't really make sense since the purpose of all these gaming keyboards is to replace the normal keyboard when playing games.
If you look at the Cyber Snipa's key layout, you will notice that it closely resembles the key layout of an ordinary keyboard. Granted, it
looks completely different, but the
layout really is very similar. Reason is that if you are used to playing games with your regular keyboard, you won't have any trouble using the Cyber Snipa instead (or so you would expect, but more on that later). Only two keys on the Cyber Snipa, the "H" and the "N", are positioned differently relative to the other keys than they are on a "real" keyboard.
The large blue keys stand out immediately. These are the default keys that (in most games) are bound to moving your player That's really nice, because it means that you don't need to reconfigure a game just so you can use the Cyber Snipa.
There's a blue LED at each side of the game pad and I'm not sure why. I guess nowadays
every piece of computer hardware you buy has a blue LED
somewhere. Frankly, I really don't understand the purpose of these LEDs other than that some people might think they look cool. The good thing is that Flexiglow included a button with which you can switch these LEDs off. A rare but
very welcome feature. It would have made more sense if they used LEDs for backlighting the keys. I like playing in the dark (
computer games! Get your mind out of the gutter!) and I always have trouble locating the keys.
There's also a blue LED on top of the game pad. This LED tells you when the keyboard is properly connected to your computer and therefore can't be switched off. Now this is nice and all, but could somebody please tell me why companies always use these incredibly
bright LEDs? I mean seriously, my computer's power LED (which is blue of course) lights up the opposite wall in my room, which is 12 feet away! And the LED used in the Cyber Snipa is no different. When playing games, I like hanging over my keyboard and this LED literally blinds me. It would have been so much nicer if they used a more subtle LED.
The Cyber Snipa also has a detachable wrist pad. Now, this really is a very nice touch. The pad itself is already slightly sloped, but with the wrist pad your hand rests truly comfortable on the pad. This wrist pad feels much better than most I've tried on normal keyboards.
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