[erratik]

ive never seen the appeal of backlit keyboards.
 
who has time to look at their keyboards while gaming

 

[sari0n]

Out of curiosity, how old are you guys?  I dunno but I like backlit keys.  Most of my friends in highschool and college like backlit keys and shiny stuff too.  I think it's just something that younger people think is cool, and since gaming is often associated with the younger generations then it makes sense that gaming keyboards would be of that style.
A lot of gaming equipment is loaded with LED's and light up unnecessarily, so there's no reason not to have your keyboard do it as well, it just goes with the look.  For instance, one of my good friend's mouse lights up, his desktop tower lights up, his headset lights up, his external hdd's light up, his usb hubs light up, no reason not to have his keyboard light up as well.  If you were going for a more minimalist design then you probably wouldn't want a keyboard like that.  The way I see it is like having aluminum fridges and appliances in a modern kitchen or classical wooden stuff in a more traditional kitchen.
 
In my opinion backlit keys aren't totally useless.  I do find myself scrutinizing my unlit keyboard sometimes in dim lighting conditions to find those function keys that I don't use very often.  The backlighting makes the keys pop out more so you can find what you're looking for at a quick glance. 

 

[llama_egg]

I'm only 23 and I find most of the heavy lighting tech get's these days to be tacky. The only lights on my rig would be the sensitivity settings on my mouse, the num/caps/scroll locks on my keyboard and digits on my motherboard, otherwise everything is very minimalist, I even re-cabled my PSU and fan cables to help it look clean.
 
Heck, tons of people grab glowing fans for no reason other than to glow, the only time stuff like that looks nice in a rig is when it's done with a design in mind, otherwise there's nothing nice about a random dull blue glow coming from your computer.
 
Another example is I enjoy the simple, wooden style of the Audeze LCD-2's compared to the busy HD800's.
 
Either way, a little light can help draw the eye, too much and it suddenly looks like you're vomiting some glowing toxin on everything!

 

[crowKAKAWWW]

I'm 19 and I used to buy into "gamer" peripherals...my whole setup was almost razer at one point (no razer stuff atm!) I picked up on the fact that there were probably better brands that I didn't know about for equal if not better prices...
 
So I started doing a little bit of research on things I would buy, and in the case of headphones, it led me to head-fi
For keyboards, geek-hack where I decided to get a filco majestouch.
 
I'd say that the backlit and shiny keyboards are geared towards people that don't question whether or not they are really getting what they are paying for, but assume so because of the ridiculous prices they payed (...beats by dr dre ;P) Basically just the average joe

 

[Blisse]

17. I turn off the logo on my keyboard, and if I didn't have to install Razer's mouse drivers, I would do the same to my mouse. I don't like looking or having old looking stuff, but I'll make an exception with the HD650s. Trying to get rid of the tacky window on my computer case now. It wasn't my decision to buy the case in the first place. I buy what works. Or as close as possible for convenience. 

 

[mralexosborn]

I am 15 and love my cute little Razer mouse and keyboard. Honestly I think it is will worth it; the mouse is great ergonomics wise and the keyboard is just so springy to type on. Lights in moderation are okay. Everything I have that has lights matches. Case fan is blue, mouse lights up blue, keyboard logo glows blue (NOT THE DAMN KEYS) and my uDac had a little blue LED. It's cute and it is enough to see around my desk when I have no lights on. Although I was concerned about Razer build quality at first due to their nice luster and aesthetic, I can say I now feel their products are well build. By no means am I a Razer fanboy but they make cheaper peripherals than Logitech yet they have more of a quality touch to their products. 
 
I need to replace my case though. UPS "modded" it, now it has extra ventilation due to a nice gash in the rear. 

 

[marvin]

 
Quote:

....am I the only one who gets sufficient light from my monitor to see the keys? 

I don't and my primary computer is a Eyefinity rig with 3x 23" monitors. It just depends on where your keyboard is placed.

 
Quote:

ive never seen the appeal of backlit keyboards.
 
who has time to look at their keyboards while gaming

 
Backlights aren't for gaming. When you're gaming, you've already indexed your fingers on the controls and rarely, if ever, need to move them.
 
Backlights are useful for instances where you shift out of typing position in the dark. Need to use the numpad for a calculator function? It's often faster to get there and get back if you have a backlight. Same for finding symbol keys, using the PU/PD cluster, and the F-keys. It's also nice for initially indexing your hands on the keyboard without spending a few seconds fumbling around for the indexing bumps. Sure, anyone that's memorized the keyboard layout and has good proprioceptive sense will have no use for backlit keys. But that's a pretty small portion of the population and after that it's just a matter of preference.
 
My Steelseries board (yay for local vendors) doesn't have backlit keys, but I can certainly see how they can be useful.

 

[vagarach]

Enermax Aurora in silver is what I use. A solid block of aluminium with plastic keys, the thing weighs a ton and the all-silver look matches my (old style) macbook pro very nicely I've had it for around 3 years now, the finish is just like it was when I bought it.
 
The key action is stiff and has some of the feel of those big clickety-clackety IBM keyboards even though it uses the same scissor technology that is used in laptop keyboards.
 
When viewed from an off-angle the grey colour of the labels disappears and the whole board looks like a blank expanse of silver. Very nice!
 

 

 

[llama_egg]

Checked out a few pictures of it, definitely a nice looking keyboard, but would never trade mechanical switches for it.

 

[LordofDoom]

Quote:

Enermax Aurora in silver is what I use. A solid block of aluminium with plastic keys, the thing weighs a ton and the all-silver look matches my (old style) macbook pro very nicely I've had it for around 3 years now, the finish is just like it was when I bought it.
 
The key action is stiff and has some of the feel of those big clickety-clackety IBM keyboards even though it uses the same scissor technology that is used in laptop keyboards.
 
When viewed from an off-angle the grey colour of the labels disappears and the whole board looks like a blank expanse of silver. Very nice!
 

 

I love the Caesar, the bigger brother of the Aurora.  My one problem with keyboards of this type is that I broke two keys off of my first Caesar by nails getting stuck in them as far as I can remember. As far as durability, the rest of it was great, but this struck me as a glaring failure (that I overlooked and bought a new one ).

 

[NomadicAce]

Black Unicomp spacesaver, blank black keys, replaced (num, caps, scroll) lock leds with dull red and took off the unicomp logo...beautiful is beautiful.
 
Buckling springs, there is no comparison.

 

[commandercup]

Awesome to know that Head-Fi has some keyboard geeks too. I've been trolling on here and on geekhack for a while looking at keyboards and headsets.
 
Here's my current keyboard (Filco Tenkeyless Brown Switches):
 

 

[Tordenskjold]

Cherry G80-3000 in the click-point-variant. Gold Crosspoint contacts and what they call MX-technology make it a pleasure to use. Had a Cherry eVolution Stream before and it was done for after 7 months under heavy use, the new one now lastst two years and works still fine. 

 

[El_Doug]

that looks like MarineKingPrime's keyboard   did you customize that pattern yourself, or can it be purchased that way? 
 
Quote:

Awesome to know that Head-Fi has some keyboard geeks too. I've been trolling on here and on geekhack for a while looking at keyboards and headsets.
 
Here's my current keyboard (Filco Tenkeyless Brown Switches):
 

 

[flaming_june]

fingers crossed, maybe he'll win this season.