CeBIT 2011 is near enough home turf for Hamburg's gaming specialist ROCCAT, so it's no surprise that the company has a new product to show off. As the name suggests, the Isku Illuminated Gaming Keyboard features 123 medium height, back-illuminated keys for ease of use in low lighting (or in the dark) gaming. The keyboard also offers new gaming possibilities with some wizardry that allows it to communicate with a mouse and technology that can double up certain keys for even more functionality.
ROCCAT has developed a new protocol called Talk that allows the mouse and keyboard to communicate with each other, opening up new options for gamers such as the ability to take advantage of the EasyAim feature on the KONE[+] gaming mouse by pressing a key on the keyboard.
Making its first outing on a keyboard, the company has also brought its EasyShift[+] technology to the Isku, which was first featured in the KONE[+] announced in October last year. This allows certain keys to have double functions and advanced anti-ghosting means that gamers can hit multiple keys at the same time. A 1000Hz polling rate makes for lag-free keyboard response time and gaming in low light is made possible with blue key backlighting, with six brightness levels and a timed dimmer function.
The Isku also benefits from extensive macro functionality, including an integrated Macro Live! Recording button for straightforward in-game macro recording, the ever useful Macro Manager (which allows users to record their own macros while also supplying presets for the top 20 PC games, as well as several Office apps) and the ability to choose from up to 25 functions to assign to each of the eight media and hotkeys, and the 12 configurable F-keys.
Up to five gaming profiles are supported with the active profile indicated by status LED at the top of the keyboard and the extra large wrist rest has three programmable thumbster keys built in.
ROCCAT's Isku keyboard penciled in for Q2 release at a suggested retail price of EUR79.99 (US$110).
Aside from it\'s problem, the Lycosa was a good keyboard. There were many things about it that I would like to see in a stable successor. This could be it.