Product Description

The Saitek Eclipse III is a sleek backlit multimedia keyboard with touch-sensitive lighting and volume controls, and ergonomically placed shortcut keys. It features adjustable, multi color backlighting that highlights key controls, touch-sensitive control panel to change settings quickly and easily, two stage height adjustment and removable wrist rest increase comfort, pass through headphone and microphone audio ports for simple connectivity, time-saving Windows and Internet shortcut keys, USB plug and play, and laser-etched, soft touch, durable keys. Color and keyboard settings remain even after system reboot. System requirements are USB 2.0, Windows XP, XP64, Windows Vista (all versions) and Windows 7.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1911 in Consumer Electronics
• Color: Black
• Brand: Saitek
• Model: PK24
• Platform: PlayStation2
• Dimensions: 18.00" h x 1.40" w x 21.50" l, 1.15 pounds

Features

• Backlighting with choice of three colors blue red purple
• Two stage Height adjustment / Removable wrist rest
• Pass through Audio ports for Headset
• Touch-sensitive control panel changes settings quickly and easily
• Compatible with Windows 7, Windows XP, XP64 and Windows Vista (all versions)

Manufacturer Description
The Saitek Eclipse III is a sleek backlit multimedia keyboard with touch-sensitive lighting and volume controls, and ergonomically placed shortcut keys. It features adjustable, multi color backlighting that highlights key controls, touch-sensitive control panel to change settings quickly and easily, two stage height adjustment and removable wrist rest increase comfort, pass through headphone and microphone audio ports for simple connectivity, time-saving Windows and Internet shortcut keys, USB plug and play, and laser-etched, soft touch, durable keys. Color and keyboard settings remain even after system reboot. System requirements are USB 2.0, Windows XP, XP64 and Windows Vista (all versions).

Customer Reviews

A solid keyboard, but a little pricey. Please read full review
Quick summary and a little about me to let you know where I'm coming from, in case people don't want to read the full review:

I'm a 20 year old college student (male), who plays games quite frequently, and is pretty particular with his keyboards. I loved my previous keyboard, the Eclipse I, which I had for about 2 years, and decided to buy this on a whim as a replacement (I spilled soda on my previous one).

APPEARANCE (cool factor): 9/10
-LEDs look great, laser etched keys are high quality

FUNCTIONALITY: 7/10
-a little on the long side, but I've got plenty of desk space
-hotkeys aren't especially useful
-touchpad with updated drivers works great and is very convenient
-headphone/microphone jacks are just pass-throughs from your sound card, meaning that if you want to use the feature, you'd have to plug your speakers into the keyboard (though you could buy extra splitters/audio cables)

QUALITY: 9/10
-Saitek still makes great keyboards. everything about this board looks like it was made with care.
-The keyboard feels like its going to last years

PRICE: 6/10
-Way expensive compared to the alternatives. Its a great keyboard, but only like $50-60 great. Not worth the $80 retail price, unless you've got the extra cash lying around. My advice is to wait for it to go on sale, if you're not in a hurry.

OVERALL(not an average): 8/10

PROS:
-Recently released drives from Saitek fixed all issues regarding the functionality and sensitivity of the touch pad: volume indicators work, media control works better, visual notification when touch buttons are being pressed (the buttons flash a few times when pressed), and no more accidentally activating touch keys (they're less sensitive but still functional)
-The quality of the keys and the feel of the keyboard is the same, if not better, than the Eclipse I (I wouldn't know how to compare it to the Eclipse II as I've never used one)

CONS:
-Yes the size is mislabeled as 18" instead of the actual 21" (but the original Eclipse I keyboard was 21" also)
-The $80 price point is a little steep; wait for the price to drop or for it to go on sale. I'd say a fair price would be in the $50-60 range.

IN DEPTH REVIEW:
First off, let me say that this keyboard isn't as bad as the other review(s) say. I've previously owned a Saitek Eclipse I keyboard, which this keyboard replaced after I accidentally spilled soda on my Eclipse I, and it's way better in construction, feel, and functionality.

The keyboard is in fact 21", not the 18" listed, but now that you know, if it isn't a problem, I'd recommend it. Sure, the Eclipse II was a compact 18", but the Saitek I never was, and it got phenomenal reviews despite its size.
[...]

The soft-touch keys feel great, and the two height adjustment is a very nice little feature to help you get the proper typing angle. With the updated drivers, the touch pad functions like it should, with a "lights off" button (turns all LEDs off until it is pressed again), 5 four-stage LEDs for the volume indicator to show current volume level, 4 media buttons (mute, pause/play, prev, next), and buttons to control the 4 brightness levels and 5 different colors (blue, purple, magenta, pink, red).

On the note of the LED colors, I don't find the touch pad being constantly blue, or the numpad/caps lock/scroll lock being green an annoyance. I think it actually looks pretty cool, since the LED colors provided contrast nicely with blue (especially red). Though if you find it an annoyance, I could understand.

To be honest, I don't use the hotkeys much, since I got pretty familiar with the windows equivalent of the hotkeys, though I'm sure someone would find them useful. To my knowledge there isn't a way to reprogram them, though I'm sure there's some software out there which would let you do that.

FINAL THOUGHTS:
In all, its a well made luxury keyboard with lots of good, convenient features. If you know your desk can't fit it comfortably, look for an alternative, like the more compact Eclipse II. The price point is high, so I'd only pick it up if it was on sale, or if you extra cash burning a hole in your pocket. If you're worried about how it feels, I'd see if a local store has it so you could try it out.

ONE FINAL NOTE:
In truth, I would have only given this review 4 stars (mainly due to the audio/microphone pass-through and the hotkeys that I don't really use), but I believe that many people would overlook this product if they saw that it only had a 3 star average, which incorrectly reflects the product. So I'm sort of counter-reviewing the 2 star review that went out. It seemed that the few things that he really was looking forward to disappointed him (which I understand when that happens), but that shouldn't be a reason to mark a 3-4 star product down to 2. So sue me.

[...]

Good Keyboard, but a little wide
I don't agree with the other review, touch panel is working perfectly for me. However you need drivers for the volume indicator to work, and the saitek site is having issues as of this review, so i can't get those drivers.

Anyway, its a good keyboard, a little wide, but i do like the buttons. its got a new tab button, very useful in firefox. However i wish there was a way to remap or disable those keys in gaming, i hit the calculator button when playing TF2, threw me out of the game! ahh.

Its a good keyboard and i like it, the top panel is only blue, not a big deal since i like the blue color. A little better design would of put the side keys on the top and made them touch.

KeyBoard
This product is a good one and it warranty is fabulous...they actually exchanged my old eclipse when it stopped working NP....Its a nice keyboard and does what it says it does...Its alot prettier on the blue and purple lighting....it has 3 shades each of red blue and purple