Microsoft Reclusa Gaming Keyboard Review

The Reclusa put alongside the Logitech G15.

To kick off the gaming highlights is the soft blue backlighting, evenly filling out the cracks between keys with an ambient glow and shining through the large laser etched characters on each key. There is no brightness control, but the blue glow remains visible in well lit rooms and does not overpower the monitor when the lights are out. The glow through the actual characters is somewhat faint, appearing as standard white-ish keys during the daytime but showing off their true characteristics at night, maintaining legibility. The function keys are the only ones to be truly dim, appearing as a haze at night.

Underneath the Reclusa is a trench with two points of exit for wrapping up the cable before traveling to a LAN. The cable still bulks out slightly from the back (it's not a perfect fit) and there's now a few small nicks in the cable from wrapping and unwrapping it a few times, but overall it works better than simply wrapping the cord around the keyboard and potentially scratching the paint off a key with the USB plug.

Topping off the gaming keyboard's accents is a large piece of reflective smoked plastic at the top that really serves no purpose except to mask the glow from the status indicators (caps lock, etc) and display the Microsoft logo front and center. If I had to liken this plastic bit to anything, it would be a truck's bug deflector, but seeing as how I don't ride a Chevy on four-four's, I'm not entirely sure if this counts as bling. Anyone care to fill me in?

Mediocre Media Keys
Moving on, you'll find 5 programmable buttons at each end of the keyboard - 3 standard keys, and two non-lit bumper keys that can be pressed down normally or from the edge of the keyboard. Each of these is tasked with a default function that can be changed and has a corresponding label. On the left side we have a shortcut to your browser's homepage, Outlook Express, your preferred media player, and copy and paste as the bumper keys. For the right side we have our media controls, including play/pause, shuffle, eject, and next and previous as the other two bumper keys. I do enjoy the eject key as it makes switching out your gaming discs that much easier, although it's a little too close to the Enter key on the numpad for comfort.

Above each of these key groups is a jog dial, both of which are also tasked with default options. The one on the left acts as a secondary scroll wheel I never use, while the right acts as a volume control. Both act extremely sluggish, and can not be turned continuously from the topside like an iPod or the dials found on Logitech keyboards, but rather they must be turned over and over like turning a screwdriver.

I do have two beefs with the Reclusa's implementation of media keys. First and foremost, they take up half the precious macro keys, which can be bad if you listen to music while playing games that could benefit from macro scripting. EVE Online and World of Warcraft especially come to mind here. They'd simply be better off taking space away from the bug deflector.

My second and perhaps more universal complaint is the lack of a dedicated Mute button, and no mute option in the drivers to reprogram the rarely-used Shuffle key with. Seeing as how the volume jog dial is not only slow but can't be turned continuously, it takes ages to turn down the volume, which can be especially annoying if you don't have an external volume control for your speakers or headphones. What I would have liked to see is the jog dial clicking down for mute, although at this point the only logical solution is for Razer to release a new driver that speeds up the wheels and allows one of the buttons to act as mute. (Hint hint.)

Comfort and Extras
The keys themselves feel wonderful, much quieter than those on Logitech's G15 while remaining satisfyingly tactile and easy to press down. They don't feel sluggish at all, at least when compared to standard keyboards and not the scissor keys found on laptops and Razer's high-end Tarantula gaming keyboard. I'm not kidding either, the feel of the keys is probably my favorite feature of the Reclusa... well that and the fact no one messed with the insert and delete keys.

One thing that will irk a few users is the lack of rubber on the rear kickstands. As soon as they're propped out, the keyboard will slide all over the table like no other. It's absolutely imperative that they remain tucked away, even in the lightest of gaming situations.

The detachable wrist rest is a treat, offering the same Leatherette padding found on a few of Microsoft's other keyboards including the Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000. The only downside here is that larger-handed gamers might find the wrist rest is too short for their left hand due to the curved design. Still, proper ergonomics dictate that you don't wrest your hands when typing, so that's not especially important.

Strangely enough the gold-plated USB plug that's on all of Razer's products found it's way into the Reclusa, even though it doesn't really improve the gaming experience nor does it count as bling as soon as it's sheathed in a USB port. Go figure. What's even stranger is that the 2 USB 1.1 ports built into the corners of the keyboard are also gold-plated, unlike the more powerful Razer Tarantula. While I love the convenience of extra USB ports, from a consumer's standpoint, is the gold plating really necessary? Will my USB flash drives and wallet actually benefit from this, or does it just look cool on paper?

Muffed Macros
Users of previous Razer products will feel at home with the Reclusa's drivers, as it retains the same look and feel as Razer's own products. Here it's possible to set your default media player to Windows Media Player, iTunes, Real Player or WinAmp, as well as define button functions and macros, or application shortcuts.

Macro recording, while already suffering from some flaws on Razer's last keyboard is now in a dire crippled state with the Reclusa. Yes, it's that bad. Allow me to start with the holdover flaws that I originally critiqued with the Tarantula. First, it's still only possible to record 8 keys in a single macro. Second, macros can't be recorded on the fly; they must be recorded within the drivers. Finally, it's not possible to insert variable delays in between keystrokes, as only delays in 50ms increments up to 200ms are allowed. Many games only register sequences of keys if they're pressed, say 37 milliseconds or so from each other, at which point no delay is too fast to register and 50ms is too slow.

Moving on to the new flaws, counting both jog dials, there exist only 14 places to record a macro, even less if you plan on using the media keys and volume wheel (taking it down to 7). It's possible to change into a different profile in order to get more combinations out of the keys, but there's a handicap here as well. First, you can only have 5 profiles. Total. This includes the profiles that automatically load as your favorite game starts up, so assuming you keep your first profile for Windows desktop work, that leaves you with 4 profiles left for actual games.

Here lies the second new issue. There is no dedicated Profile button as there is with the Tarantula or Logitech keyboards, so you must program a button to cycle between states if you're going to use more than one profile per game, and lose yet another key while you're at it. Here's a tip: make it so that when you're in Profile 1, button L1 moves to Profile 2, and when in Profile 2 it moves to Profile 3 and so on.

Final Thoughts
Despite the clean looks and superb keys, I can't recommend the Reclusa in its current state. With an MSRP of $70, it's placed amongst other keyboards that have superior macro and multimedia abilities, while another $15 or so can get you nifty features like anti-ghosting, scissor keys, lockable Windows keys, and integrated displays. On the other end of the spectrum, there are gaming keyboards cheaper than the Reclusa that also offer backlighting and dedicated media keys that don't even bother with macro scripting, something too crippled on the this keyboard to take seriously anyway. With two great companies behind the Reclusa, I'm shocked to see what amounts to a real disappointment.