I have already mentioned how pleasant the feel of the PBT keycaps turns out. This makes for an excellent typing and typing feel in practice. However, the most important innovation of the SteelSeries Apex 9 TKL/Mini marks the key switches. The OptiPoint switches also offer the benefit of being removeable in the Apex 9 TKL, though the optical-ness of them does limit that hot-swappable functionality somewhat. You have to replace any removed switches with some to match, and that means more OptiPoint switches. Whereas regular hot-swappable mechanical switches can be swapped for all kinds of flavour and feel. Apex 9 TKL – The esports-ready APEX 9 TKL (tenkeyless) design is preferred by the world's leading players and provides comfort, familiarity, and more flexibility for large mouse movements while giving better ergonomics, so gamers can play harder and longer. SteelSeries’ groundbreaking OptiPoint optical switches react with a lightning-fast speed, in combination with the 1mm actuation point, to earn players the top spot. Gamers will experience fadeproof durability and enhanced keystroke feel with specially designed Double Shot PBT keycaps, and an aluminum top plate that fuels win streaks with unbreakable durability. Reactive Layer: These are RGB effects that trigger when you press on a key. Use the drop down to determine what kind of effect happens. For example, Line will make an effect go across the whole keyboard, in the color you selected (the icon next to the drop down.) You can lower or increase the speed to adjust the effect. The Apex 9 series comes in two layouts — TKL (tenkeyless) and Mini (60 percent); this review will focus on the Apex 9 TKL, but the keyboards are largely identical (minus layout). The Apex 9 TKL and Apex 9 Mini are both wired keyboards sporting SteelSeries’ new hot-swappable OptiPoint linear optical switches. These switches have 2-point actuation, which means they have two points of actuation (1mm and 1.5mm) — like the Apex Pro Mini’s adjustable actuation, only with two preset points that you can toggle between, instead of per-key adjustability to the nearest 0.1mm.

Play like the pros. As the adoption of smaller keyboards increases among professional esports players, the new Apex 9 series features SteelSeries' new streamlined ID for aspiring pros and casual gamers to create sleek setups. Engineered for elite performance, the new line of keyboards comes standard with the new OptiPoint switches and are available in two esports-ready form factors – the SteelSeries Apex 9 TKL and SteelSeries Apex 9 Mini. Ultimately, it's one of those features I tend to not mess around with too much. I mostly just leave the keyboard on Gaming Mode and live with my typing mistakes. Not that I make any, of course. Available at SteelSeries.com and retailers around the world, the Apex 9 TKL and Apex 9 Mini are available for the following MSRPs: Although a tool for removing the key switches is unfortunately missing in the scope of delivery – which is only mentioned at all in the manual. How good that I still had a switch puller at home. This also revealed that the manufacturer Gateron had contributed the optical switches. Too bad: A tool to remove the switches is unfortunately not included. Tipping and typing feelYou can also change up the Apex 9’s lighting in SteelSeries Engine. Each key can be customized individually with different colors and effects, for three different layers (active, reactive, and idle). While you can save different lighting profiles in SteelSeries Engine, you can’t link them to onboard profiles. The Bottom Line

For instance, in the example above, the Chasing Ghosts preset is applied to most of the keys, but the arrow and DEL, END, etc. keys have a single, red color. We've converted this review to Test Bench 1.3, which overhauls how key input is evaluated. We've added new tests for Single Key Latency, Multi Key Latency, Data Transmission, and Chord Split. We've also introduced a new Raw Performance usage and adjusted how the Gaming and Office usage scores are calculated. You can see the full changelog here. RGB is one of the most attractive feature of a keyboard, and all the SteelSeries gaming keyboards come with beautiful, customizable, 16.8 million colors to feature in your dream setup. Note: Our newer keyboard models have a new system for adjusting illumination called Prism, which will allow you to tune it for all the compatible devices. If you have an older keyboard from us, you will instead see Illumination settings alongside the top menu near key bindings, macros, key actuation, and more. On the flipside, I'm not hugely impressed with the volume wheel on this board. It's very thin versus a lot of others on the market, and there does appear to be more space around it to expand out further. Similarly, I had initially thought the independently lit button beneath the volume wheel to be some kind of multifunction button programmable in the GG app, but it's not. It's just a play/pause button that's oddly illuminated with a white LED and is not programmable to any other colours in the app. I think I'd probably prefer it to not be illuminated at all if that's going to be the case, as the rest of the board lights up in whatever colour and pattern I prefer.CHICAGO – SEPTEMBER 6, 2022 – SteelSeries, the worldwide leader in gaming and esports peripherals, today introduced its newest tech innovation with the launch of the Apex 9 series keyboards. Built from the ground up to help serious gamers create their own momentous occasions, the Apex 9 series is fast, customizable, esports-ready, and powered by new SteelSeries OptiPoint technology. Faster equals more wins. For the first time, the industry-leading innovation brand for gamers brings an optical switch to its award-winning line of Apex keyboards. SteelSeries OptiPoint tech delivers the very best performance and design with hot-swappable optical switches that actuate 33% faster than the leading optical keyboard, a response time of just 0.2ms with zero debounce, and 2-point actuation adjustment. Lastly, you can save all these settings and toggle between them easily with the On-Board Profile customization. To save the RGB settings of your keyboard, use the drop down menu at the top (the three dots). You can Add New, Rename, Duplicate, or Delete the preset. You can save as many as you want and toggle between them in this menu. 7. That's it. You've learned how to adjust the RGB of your SteelSeries keyboard! The SteelSeries Apex 9 TKL is actually a pretty attractive offering for anyone interested in optical switches with adjustable actuation — but who doesn’t need the over-the-top 0.1mm per-key adjustment offered by the Apex Pro Mini. The Apex 9 TKL’s larger layout is definitely a plus for anyone who finds a 60 percent layout too small — for those who don’t, the Apex 9 Mini is also available. The keyboard’s hot-swappable PCB is interesting but not nearly as versatile as it sounds, given that it’s only truly compatible with SteelSeries’ own yet-to-be-released optical switches.

The settings are overall quite similar for the older models, but with some small differences. Stay tuned while Prism is still in Early Access. 4. Now you can adjust RGB settings of your SteelSeries keyboard, from presets for all the keys to any individual. Selecting the Layer changes the applicable effects. Let's go through the Active Layer first. Active Layer (while using the keyboard) Don't forget to press the Save button in the lower right when you're happy with the changes. 6. Save your Configuration and switch between saved RGB presets easily. There are various ways to adjust the RGB settings. You can start with several presets before experimenting more.

This compact optical keyboard is built for competitive gaming.

You can use this to apply a specific color to your numpad keys, for example, or all the number keys, the Function keys, and so on. Get creative and make your dream keyboard RGB setup!