Belkin n52te Tournament Edition SpeedPad by Belkin Components
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Digital camera reviews of Belkin n52te Tournament Edition SpeedPad
Digital camera Review: Great speedpad!
Summary: 5 Stars
This thing works great, its very cheap and does what its suppose to do. Its comfortable and durable and just looks awesome. It takes a bit of time to adjust to it, but its a huge help for gaming, no matter what kinda game you play. To make up for some lack of buttons you can use combinations of buttons to create tons of more functions. The marco feature is very nice also, you can preform an entire combo with a single keystroke. For me the hardest part to get used to is the joystick/directional buttons, i find some discomfort when using that but its primarily cause im not used to it, with time its gotten alot easier. Sometimes it does slide around a little bit and i have to readjust but its mainly cause im using alot of force on it. Its not to big a deal though.
This works very good with windows 7 out of the box, i just installed it by following the directions for it and everything works fine. Ive had no trouble with it and ive owned it for about 2 weeks now. I would highly recommend this to any gamer whether casual or hardcore. Combine this, a gaming headset to talk to teammates or party members, and a good mouse and you never have to touch the keyboard while gaming :>
Digital camera Review: Great!!!!! loved it!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
i haven't ever owned one of these before and i know this has mixed reviews but i bought it about a month ago and i love it!! i know the back lit keys are messed up but that doesn't matter cause as long as u don't have super small hands ull love the feel so much that key placement will feel second nature!!! this would be perfect if they would just drop the price a bit. definitely improves first person shooters!! and other action games. if u dont play action games then u really dont need this. i love how they try to say rts players can use it but beside macros there is no use in those games.Digital camera Review: Has some issues . . . but recommended
Summary: 4 Stars
**Overview
After shopping around for a few weeks, I finally settled on this pad. While it took a few days to get used to, I found myself preferring it immensely to a normal keyboard while playing World of Warcraft. In the case of first person shooters though, I didn't find it to be a huge improvement over my $10 dell keyboard.
Unfortunately, after about five months of persistent usage, the top-right key (equivalent to the 'r' key on a normal keyboard) stopped functioning and required some jury-rigging to revive. As of this date, the key works for the most part, but fails to register strokes with enough frequency to prompt me to shelve the gamepad.
In a nutshell:
*is it worth $60?
-Probably not. It probably cost $4 bucks for some chinese kid to make this.
*is it the best gaming pad out there?
-The evidence points to the original n52 as being the best
*is the original n52 still available?
-No, so its irrelevant to these reviews. Stop talking about it!
*is the n52te better than your $10 dell keyboard?
-yes
*will the n52te make you a better player?
-if you spend the time to get used to it yes. Its a fairly large control scheme shift with a correspondingly long learning curve.
*did the n52te break?
-yes, but only after I enjoyed using it for 5 months
*will I buy another one?
-possibly
**Ergonomics and Layout
This is definitely one of the stronger points of the gamepad. Unlike most of the other pads out there, this one actually looks like it was designed to have a hand placed on it. The palm rest provides nice support and guides your hand into a graceful position--unlike the claw I frequently find my hand in with a normal keyboard. And while the n52te doesn't have the bajillions of buttons that other comparable pads have, you'll find that you can press all of them without having to move your wrist up and down which greatly decreases hand strain. And honestly, with the exception of a very small number of games, theres little use in having more buttons than the n52te provides as long as you set it up intellegently.
However, it does have some knuckleheaded design choices. First being the placement of the space key. If you insist on using the d-pad, you'll find that the tip of your thumb is extended far past the space key thus requiring that you strike the far corner of it with the knuckle of your thumb. While I did not have the experience that other reviewers have reported of the key not registering if you don't hit it dead in the middle, the space key on my pad did have kind of the sticky feeling if it was pushed off-center. This was really not a huge problem though as the key layouts I used never required the heavy use of both the d-pad and the space bar simultaneously.
Another thing I didn't like about the design was the shoddy quality of the d-pad. If you see the analog stick and think that you're actually getting an analog pad, don't be fooled. Right out of the box I tried using it with the stick on, but wound up trashing it after about 10 minutes. It only served to make a d-pad that felt squishy even more unresponsive. Really it's just a crummy old digital pad akin to the one on that off-brand super nintendo controller you bought because it was 15 bucks cheaper than the real thing. Sure you could move Mario with it, but it just never felt right. Furthermore, they made it too big. Normally with a d-pad, I expect to be able to to keep my thumb in the middle and be able to pivot it in the appropriate direction. With this pad, I have to lift up my thumb and put it back down on the desired direction. And that just feels clunky to me. This, by the way, is my greatest disappointment with the n52te. I think its a great idea to give more control to your most dexterous digit which has tragically been relegated to merely making your character hop, but the d-pad on this thing just doesn't feel right.
Aside from the thumb area though, the other keys work fine. They have a slighty rough texture which, as a one with sweaty hands, is quite nice. I've seen some people here complaining about the backlight, as for me, I could take it or leave it. I play in a pretty well lit room so I just turn it off. However if you're the type that has trouble guzzling mountain dew, eating cheetos, and playing WoW in the complete darkness of your mother's basement, it might be a handy replacement for a desk lamp.
Last note on this subject . . . I have no idea why they decided to add a scroll wheel to this thing. If you don't already have a mouse with a scroll wheel, you have no business buying this pad. It doesn't really get in the way which is nice and I've occasionally used it for an extra 3 buttons (you can rebind scroll up/down to any keystroke or macro) but its presence is almost entirely superfluous.
**Software and Macros
I hear a lot of people bitching about how it doesn't have this feature or that doodad from the old version so its not worth buying, but I've found it to be completely adequate. The interface might not be great, it took me maybe an hour or so to get everything set up exactly the way I wanted it with some trial and error. But once its set up the way you want it, there little reason to be screwing with it anymore. Granted though, I didn't do anything crazy with the macro editor, I essentially just added 10 Hz turbo mode to some of my keys (a very nice feature in WoW). If you're looking to press one key down and have the controller go through 15 abilities, things may get a little dicey. But screw it, learn to play.
The most legitimate complaint I've seen about the software is the ability to have only 3 firmware keymaps. I personally only use two of them, one for WoW, and another for first-person shooters, I just alter the keybinds in individual games to match up with my general FPS keymap. I can see that some people out there would want to have more than these three keymaps, but keep in mind, these are only the firmware keymaps, ie. the ones that are stored in the controller so you can bring it over to your friends house and change the mapping. If you need more than three maps, the software gives you the option of saving a key layout and loading it back up at a later date. Effectively allowing you as many maps as you'd like. And as far as bringing this thing over to your friends house, if you're nerdy enough to have to take this everywhere you go, you're not above bringing along a usb drive with all your keymaps anyways.
**In-game Performance
In my opinion this pad really shines in games like World of Warcraft. That is, games where you have one entire buttload of spells and abilities, but super-precise movement is not necessary. While there's a lot of different ways to set it up, I found that the best configuration for my warrior tank was to bind movement to the d-pad and bind all of my abilities to the keys under my index through ring finger with the pinky in charge of ability sheet swapping (alt, shift, ctrl). Granted you have to be very comfortable with mouse moving for this to work, but it gives you full access to all the abilities and macros you'd ever want to use while maintaining constant control over the movement of your character. And since it allows you to have your hand on the mouse at all times, you no longer need to employ the dreaded and nubbish tab-targetting. The only caveat though is that since my thumb is on the d-pad all the time, physically hitting the space bar while moving forward is next to impossible, so I bound jump to one of the side buttons of my mouse (a logitech MX518) which worked out fine. The space key I wound up rebinding to open up my inventory which worked out quite nicely. It took me a few days to get used to this new setup and chances are it will for you too, but don't be discouraged, it will make you a far better player.
As far as first person shooters go, some of the utility of this pad diminishes. Since the d-pad is way to spongey to control movement, I found myself reverting to the old WASD scheme. Which feels nice enough, however theres one big problem here, the pad has no keys that correspond to the number buttons, so you'll either have to cycle through the weapons with your scroll wheel, or be fairly creative with your keybinding. I wound up binding my guns to the cardinal directions of the d-pad, but if you have more than four, then you start to run into trouble. Honestly its not a huge problem if you've got a mouse with some buttons to take up the slack (I use the side buttons on my mouse for grenades and such) but if you want to play a game like ARMA II which has literally every key on the keyboard bound plus ctrl-bound plus alt-bound, you'll need to go back to a full sized keyboard. So if you only play first person shooters, I recommend getting a full-sized gaming keyboard. You'll probably be happier with that in the long run.
**Durability
As I mentioned at the top I had the "r" key fail after about 5 months. I was playing an FPS and noticed that my gun wouldn't reload anymore. I opened it up (fairly easy to get inside of with a small phillips screwdriver) and noticed that when I had its guts splayed out on my desk the 'r' key started working again. Thinking that I had just sovled the problem by happenstance, I proceeded to screw the whole thing back together only to find that, when put back together, the key had stopped working again. My best guess was that there was some FOB in the housing that was causing a short when it was screwed together tightly. So I took it apart again and cleaned it pretty thourougly only to find that the key was still broken. Uhg.
So I wound up determining the exactly point of the housing reassemblage before the key stopped working. Turns out that when the portion of the housing nearest the ctrl key pressed into its seat all the way, it caused the 'r' key to bug out. After spending an unfruitful half hour trying to figure out why this was, I wound up jamming a shim made out of a folded up piece of cardstock between the two halves of the housing and screwing it back together sans a few screws.
This worked for a while until I noticed that the 'r' key stopped working when the ctrl key was depressed (no more crouching and reloading). Which was where I decided to just give up on it.
You might think that I'd be angry that it broke, but honestly, I put it through a lot of abuse. I'm not the kind of guy that chucks my keyboard across the room in a fit of rage, but I can get slightly heavy handed in the heat of the moment. I even spilled a beer on it once to no immediate ill-effect (was a bit sticky to the touch for a bit though). It is worth pointing out that my $10 dell keyboard has lasted almost two years though and shows no signs of quitting (and its filled with even MORE beer).
So yes, the life-cycle on this device is somewhat shorter than I would have liked. But it wasn't broken out of the box which was . . . nice.
Digital camera Review: I didn't receive my product!!!!
Summary: 1 Stars
I was supposed to receive my product on september, 17 and I didn't receive yet. I don't know what's happening. I'm very upset.Digital camera Review: I love my n52te!
Summary: 5 Stars
I was very sad the day my old n52 finally wore out. It had provided me with years of great game play, and had made my game playing easier across all different genera of games (I am definitely an entusiast, and play all game types out there, including, but not limited to, fps, rts, mmorpg, turn-based strategy, and simulators). I was even more dismayed when I logged on to Amazon.com and saw all the negative reviews people had written here.
Because of all the bad reviews, I almost passed on purchasing this new version of the n52 when my old n52 wore out, but on the off chance that it might not be as bad as the reviews were leading me to believe, I decided to order three pads, including the n52te, with the expectation that I'd return the two I least liked. The n52te stayed with me, and the other two went back. Hopefully the following review will give some indication why.
What I ended up discovering was a game pad which was in most ways an improvement over the old version. I know my opinion is a minority view, but as a person who games for at least eight to ten hours a day, I believe it is a well tested and well founded view. In this review I will discuss some of the issues others have had, and how those have differed from my experiences. In addition, I'll talk about some things that few (if any) other reviewers have discussed, but which can be useful for the n52 novice and maybe some old timers too.
Much has been made of the quality of the build of the n52te. My experience has not upheld those findings. While some people have commented that the key directly under the thumb (usually referred to as the "space bar", but which can be programmed both on the n52 and the n52te to do anything you want it to do... game wise that is... I have yet to find a way to get it to do the laundry or wash the windows). Other users have complained that the thumb button felt "mushy" to them. I have not had any problems with either key, and have to wonder if maybe the users who had units which had that problem were in some way defective. The other possibility is that something about my touch is different from theirs, and that therefore the buttons work correctly for me even though they don't for them, though I rather doubt that this is the case since no matter in which way I push those buttons do I have any trouble with them. Further, they keyboard buttons have a much better feel to me than did the old n52. The n52 had a plastic on plastic feel, whereas the n52te has that slight click that good keyboards have.
Many people have complained that the n52te has fewer modes than the n52 had. This is true. The n52 had four modes, whereas the n52te has only three. But in all the years and through all the games which I have played since the n52 came out, I have never used four modes. For some games, such as World of Warcraft or Everquest and Everquest 2, I have used three, but for the fast majority of my games I use one or two. People who have been using four either aren't being creative enough with programming the n52 series pads, or haven't been making use of in game key binds. Using in-game key binds it is quite easy to program the pad such that by pressing two or three keys together you will come up with an entirely different result than if you pushed just one or two keys. The idea here is to bind one key as a shift key, one key as a ctrl key, one key as an alt key, etc., then define different key actions in the game to be, say for instance "p", "shift-p", "ctrl-shift-p, or any combination you can think of. Also you can set up the D-pad to act either as a second mouse (good for using mouse-look in games where you use the mouse to move around and can use a second mouse to look in a different direction than the direction you're moving in), or as eight different buttons. Becoming proficient at using the d-pad takes some practice, but once you get good at it you can program it in many different ways with equal success using it no matter how you program it. The scroll wheel doesn't have to be used exactly like a mouse's scroll wheel. Unlike the n52, the n52te's wheel has can be clicked like the "middle button" click available on many mouse scroll wheels. That means that the wheel can be used as three different keys, or if you'd rather, like a standard mouse wheel. I often program the wheel to shift between the three modes, such that up is red, click is blue, and down is green.
The software and memory of this unit is provided by Razor, the same company which makes the high-end gaming mice. For those familiar with programming Razor mice the programming interface will be as familiar as air since it is identical to the mouse programming software, except on steroids to accommodate for all the keys and buttons. For those who have used only the old n52 software it will be like starting all over again, but if you take the time to learn it, it will be no harder, and perhaps a bit easier than it was to learn the n52's programming software when you first started off with it. For those who are new to programmable devices, it's not that hard to learn. You simply click on the key you want to program, then choose what you want that key to do from a drop-down menu. If you choose "macro" from the list, you'll need to type in the letters you'd type in if you were doing the same thing on your regular keyboard. The advantage is that you can chain together commands to have them execute rapidly (or slowly if needed) in succession with only one key press, rather than many. The n52te also can be programmed to automatically load when you start a program, and can also be programmed to quit doing anything when you exit (this is accomplished by programming all the keys to "off" when you start any program other than one of the games you use the n52 on).
This is getting quite long, so I'll rap it up, but before I do so, I'd like to clue everyone in to an undocumented feature which few people know about. It is a feature which works both on the n52 and the n52te. Most people who have one of these two devices don't realize that the palm rest is adjustable, when in fact it actually has three positions. If the position it ships in isn't right for your hand, all you need to do is pull the palm rest off (its on quite snuggly so that it won't fall off during a game). Once it's off, you'll see two sets of holes in what looks like a second smaller palm rest. If your hand is bigger than the default position is, simply move it back to the last set of holes. If your hand is smaller (as mine are) simply leave the palm rest off and use the one which is molded into the body of the unit.
As a final disclaimer I'll state that I usually use a multi-button programmable mouse such as one of the better Razor mice or the Logitec G9 (which is the mouse I'm using at the time of this righting. That may be part of the reason why I never used the fourth mode on my old n52. If you have need for more buttons than the n52te has, or even if you don't, I strongly suggest that serious gamers buy a multi-button programmable mouse if for no other reason than their optics tend to be better (especially true with the high-end mice). There are one or two multi-buttoned mice out there which are more of a hinderance than a help, but if you read the reviews you'll know which those are.
Hope this has helped, and that it has perhaps put the n52te in an honest, exhaustive, yet perhaps more positive perspective.