What happens when industry giant Microsoft decides to make a flagship gaming keyboard and teams up with one of the leaders in world-class gaming gear—the Razer Group—to do it? The result is the subject of today’s review, the Microsoft Reclusa Wired Gaming Keyboard. But in the highly competitive and crowded gaming peripherals market, is the Reclusa a hit or miss? Read on to find out…

About Microsoft

As a company, and as individuals, we value integrity, honesty, openness, personal excellence, constructive self-criticism, continual self-improvement, and mutual respect. We are committed to our customers and partners and have a passion for technology. We take on big challenges, and pride ourselves on seeing them through. We hold ourselves accountable to our customers, shareholders, partners, and employees by honoring our commitments, providing results, and striving for the highest quality.

About the Razer Group

Headquartered in Carlsbad, California, Razer™ collaborates with gamers to develop, manufacture and market cutting-edge gaming peripherals utilizing proprietary technologies that give gamers the competitive edge. Razer products have earned critical praise and won multiple awards from around the world for their precision, sensitivity, usability and distinctions in product design. Engineered to near perfection, Razer’s reputation of being the leader in gaming peripheral technology is embodied in every single Razer product. For more information, please visit www.razerzone.com.

Razer - For Gamers. By Gamers.™

Reclusa Wired Gaming Keyboard Features

Package

Like all of their hardware products, the Reclusa Keyboard comes in Microsoft’s signature red and black packaging. A photo of the Reclusa with its glowing, backlit blue keys dominates the front of the box. “Powered by Razer,” a summary of Razer’s gaming technology features implemented in the Reclusa, and Razer’s famous “tri-serpent” logo, are in the lower right corner. If Razer’s appearance on the front of the box doesn’t convince you who this keyboard’s intended audience is, “Engineered for gaming” in the upper left-hand corner should leave no doubt. The Certified for Windows Vista logo below it is Microsoft’s assurance that there will be none of the usual driver-related “surprises” after plugging the Reclusa into your Vista-powered rig.

On the back, you’re given the usual grand-tour of the Reclusa’s features. Overall, the Reclusa’s distinct design and Razer branding should make it easy to pick out among a sea of other similarly-packaged Microsoft hardware products on the shelves of your local store. Inside, you’ll find the Reclusa keyboard; a multi-lingual Quick Start Guide and mandatory Product Guide with product regulatory and safety information; the Detachable Padded Wrist Rest, and the CD containing the drivers and Razer software.

The keyboard is shipped in a plastic bag, secured and protected by the usual cardboard box with inserts, as is the wrist rest, with an additional sheet of protective peel-off plastic over the keyboard’s upper bezel. The documentation and CD are attached to the lid of the box via a holding tab and strip cut directly into the cardboard, which keeps them from coming out during shipping, while making them easy to remove by hand.

The Keyboard

The Reclusa’s industry-standard 104-key layout is set into a sculptured matte-gray frame that’s a little larger and a slightly heavier than an average keyboard. The glossy smoke-colored bezel with Microsoft’s logo along the top not only enhances the sleek, racy design of the Reclusa, but gives the Caps, Num and Scroll Lock LED indicators a cool, “floating 3D effect” when lit.

Some gaming keyboards sacrifice the size of the keys in order to squeeze in extra function keys for gaming—which is great if you have smaller-than-average fingers. Others compensate with a larger form-factor keyboard that takes up more desktop real estate than a regular keyboard—which is great if you have the room—or your bag is large enough to hold it when taking it to LAN parties. The Reclusa avoids both problems by widening the keyboard just enough to include a Jog Dial, three programmable Gaming Hot Keys, and a pair of Bumper Buttons on each side. The Bumper Buttons are flush with the edges of the board.

As a result, the Reclusa uses standard-sized keys, avoiding the problem many people have of accidentally pressing several keys at once because they are too small for their fingers. The keys also have excellent tactile feedback minus the cheap, spongy feel of many “quiet-touch” keyboards, and are illuminated with (non-adjustable) blue backlighting. Unlike keyboards that use painted keys with stenciled symbols that can flake and wear off over time, the Reclusa’s keys use longer-lasting laser-etched symbols. Although they appear white under normal lighting, they are actually translucent, allowing the backlighting to come through so that they can be seen under low lighting, and in the dark.

Here’s a summary of the Reclusa’s special keys and their default (non-programmed) settings:

You also won’t find those annoying, dual-purpose function keys on the Reclusa that default to the usual Microsoft Office operations—making it a royal pain to access your motherboard’s BIOS. So if the <F2> function key, for example, is required for entering the BIOS on you motherboard, you don’t have to hold down the <Shift> key while pressing <F2> or press a special toggle key for the function keys to switch them to their default operation. Considering the short amount of time you have in hitting the key to enter the BIOS before booting into Windows, this is a major time-saver for anyone who spends more than an average amount of time tuning and tweaking their BIOS settings for maximum performance.

Flip the Reclusa over and you’ll see an exclusive feature that should be standard on every keyboard—a cable organizer that allows you to neatly wrap up the Reclusa’s generous 7-foot long cord underneath the keyboard for transport, storage, or tucking away excess cord if you have your PC sitting close-by on a desk. There’s also a channel where you can secure the cable on the left or right side of the keyboard. You’ll also find the usual retractable legs that allow you to set the Reclusa at a comfortable angle, and slots to clip on the wrist rest, which is padded in the same rubber-like material covering Razer’s DeathAdder Gaming Mouse.

If you’re still living in the PS/2 keyboard port age, it’s time to get up-to-speed. The Reclusa is a USB-only keyboard. An extra USB port resides in the right and left upper corner of the keyboard. Both the plug on the cord and the extra ports are gold-plated. Gold provides better conductivity than other metals, which is why it’s commonly used on processors and connectors for RAM and expansion cards. While it continues to be hotly-debated on just how much of a real-world difference it makes on high-performance mice and keyboards, gold connectors have become a “must-have” feature on high-quality “gaming-grade” accessories. The ports on back of the keyboard are USB 1.1 compliant. Plugging in a USB 2.0 device like a flash drive will work, but obviously at reduced USB 1.1 speeds. They are also low-power ports. Plugging anything more powerful than a USB flash drive in them could cause problems.

Installation and Testing

Hooking up the Microsoft Reclusa Gaming Keyboard is a true “Plug-n-Play” affair. Simply plug it into any available USB slot on the back of your PC. Windows will immediately recognize the Reclusa as a USB keyboard. The Jog-Dials, Bumper Buttons and the six programmable function keys default to their Windows-assigned settings.

Next, you’ll need to install the software on the CD supplied with the Reclusa, to take advantage of the keyboard’s full capabilities. As always, I recommend that you skip installing the software from the included disc and head directly to the manufacturer’s website to download and install the most current version. If you try to download the latest Reclusa drivers from Microsoft, you’ll only be re-directed to Razer’s RazerZone site for the Reclusa anyway, so I suggest you just cut to the chase and go there directly. The latest version as of this writing is 1.02—a single, 4.04 MB download in .ZIP format that supports both the 32 and 64-bit versions of Windows XP and Vista, and Windows 2000. Installing the software takes less than thirty seconds and requires a reboot.