Today for review we bring you the Cooler Master Trigger mechanical keyboard, a member of the Storm series of gaming equipment.
Over the past year Cooler Master has expanded itself into the gaming market with its Storm series of products. The Trigger is joining the Quick Fire Pro & Quick Fire Rapid, in their numerous configurations.
Provided By: Cooler Master
Price:$119.99
Closer Look:
The Trigger arrived in matte black packaging with red accents to match CM Storm branding. The keyboard is packaged well with thick foam surrounding the keyboard to insure its unstuffed arrival. The keyboard also comes with a small window allowing you to view a portion of the keys before opening.
The back of the box is covered with features in eight different languages to avoid losing a buyer from lack of understanding I guess as-well as three quick shots of in action features are listed on the right: the five macro keys, USB hub, and on-board memory.
Opening the box reveals, what really caught my eye, the foam packing for the keyboard . It was this that impressed me most, almost more than the keyboard itself. It was pure beauty in design. Much like a case is packed it came with two end foam caps and a nice piece across the back to separate the keyboard and wrist rest. Another sheet of foam was covering the rest to protect it in the box. I don’t know why, but to me, this was honestly the most impressive. No crappy broken up plastic tray just perfection in packing.
Accessories with the Trigger are few, and functional. Included you will find a quick reference card, manual, 2 meter USB cable, and Wrist rest.
After removing the Trigger from its packaging, one of the first things that I noticed was the soft or rubberized material along the edge of the keyboard and wrist rest. The material gives the Trigger a memorable feeling of quality as opposed to simply a look of quality this is one of the most unique parts of the using the Trigger. The Trigger is a matte grey on top, with a flat black on the sides and bottom. The keys themselves are a flat black with characters set in an opaque white which allows for productive usage in the dark.
Here is a look with the wrist rest firmly attached, but I don’t want you to forget that you can take it off. You by no means have to use it and if you are at a LAN party with a little less room, you can shrink your keyboard to save some shooting room. I prefer the wrist rest and it is a nice addition to the keyboard.
The USB input for the keyboard is located on the right, front side along with 2 USB 2.0 ports and the 5V DC plug.
The bottom of the keyboard features adjustable feet on the forward side of the bored as-well as six rubber grip feet to hold it down on any surface. A nice CM Storm logo is cut into the bottom and a unique product sticker keeps your model number and SN safe.
Finally for those of you with lighting complaints in mechanical keyboards and in general, here is something to shut you up a bit. If you don’t like lighting, well you can turn it off! The only lighting is the indicator lights for SCR LK, PRT SC, and NUMLK, the keys otherwise being laser etched look normal, not like they ‘have’ to be lit up. For those of you who want a “gamer profile,” the macros, WASD, and arrow keys can be lit up with another lighting mode option. This allows a little lighting without being completely in your face about it. And finally, there is the full backlit option; every key lights up in bright red. If it’s too bright on either this or the “gaming” option, you can toggle brightness up or down a few notches. So I don’t want to hear any complaints on lighting this time around; CM has you covered.
Features & Specification:
| Model Number: | SGK-6000-GKCM1 |
| Switch Type: | CHERRY Brown |
| N Key Rolloever: | 6 |
| Macro Key: | 5 |
| Polling Rate: | 1000Hz/1ms |
| Backlighting: | All Keys |
| Windows Key Disable: | YES |
| On Board Memory: | 64KB |
| Media Keys: | YES |
| Dimensions: | 475(L) x 162(W) x 25(H) mm |
| Weight: | 1260 g |
*Availability depends on regions for CHERRY MX Switch Options
Features:
High durability gold-plated Cherry switches rated for 50 million strokes
Multi-media control keys for convenient sound control
14k gold plated ultra-low latency USB plugs
Anti-ghosting 6 key rollover
64KB onboard memory for profile storage
Storm key that deactivates the Windows key
1000Hz driverless polling/1ms response time
Two port enhanced USB 2.0 hub (optional AC power)
Strong braided cable to protect connections
Premium non-slip rubber coating
Software:
To be fair, you won’t have to install any software to get this keyboard working out of the box. Plug it in and it truly is ready to go, no need to go downloading drivers immediately. However, if you want to get the full functionality of the keyboard, like use of macros, you’ll have to grab the quick download from Cooler Master’s site. The best part is everything is very straight forward.
Conclusion:
Overall I’m quite impressed with the CM Storm Trigger mechanical keyboard; the design is straight forward even if the software can be a tad cumbersome. Once you have used a mechanical keyboard, there is no going back to a regular keyboard. The differences are just too great, typing is better, faster and gaming is so much better as you get a feel with your keyboard it’s terribly hard to describe though — it’s just no comparison. There is one downside though; mechanical keyboards do make a lot more noise.
Mechanical keyboards are expensive, the $120 is a lot of money for a set of keys, but as a true gamer I can certainly recommend making that investment as it makes quite a bit of a difference. Only once you start using a mechanical keyboard, you will understand what i am trying to evangelize here.
The CM Storm Trigger mechanical keyboard gets the Xtreme Tech Junkie’s Xtreme award!
