Introduction

SteelSeries is a predominantly gaming-first company, founded in 2001 with the first glass mousepad (Icemat) to then go on to release more such "firsts" via keyboards, headset bands, game-inspired peripherals, and so forth. Over 15 years later, they are a major name in eSports, having worked with competitive gamers involved in Counter-Strike, Warcraft 3, and Dota/Dota 2. As such, their products have been designed with input from gamers primarily, and we here at TechPowerUp have been impressed by their mice before. Today, we take a look at their keyboard offering, and thanks again to SteelSeries for providing us with a review sample.


The Apex M750 is a full-size keyboard that launched very recently and, as with most other SteelSeries keyboards, uses their own branded QX2 mechanical switches that are akin to the Cherry MX Red RGB in functionality. Going with these switches allows SteelSeries to control nearly every aspect of the keyboard, which in turn also helps a keyboard's design hit a certain price point, or with adding in other features to help make it more attractive than competing products in what is a very crowded gaming-keyboard market. Let us thus examine the keyboard and its features in more detail now, beginning with a look at the specifications below.

Specifications

Packaging and Accessories

SteelSeries put a plastic wrap over the product's packaging to makes sure you receive a box that arrives mostly free of dust and as pristine as possible out of the shipping container. The box is in turn very colorful, in the spirit of the product inside, with a printed illustration of the keyboard lit up to demonstrate the per-key RGB backlighting available here, and SteelSeries also makes sure you know right away that this keyboard uses their branded QX2 mechanical switches. The company and product name are also placed in the corners here, and turning over to the back, we see this continue on with another illustration, specs, and marketing features as well as information on the other relevant SteelSeries peripherals you may be interested in buying at the same time. The sides also have color-printed illustrations, which is not common, and yet more specs and features are mentioned here.


Two large seals help keep the contents inside in place. Cutting them and opening the box, we see the keyboard itself with the cable safely tucked into the compartment at the top. Removing it, we get to take a look at the accessories that are provided with the Apex M750. There is a multi-language information guide that briefly describes the keyboard's functionality, especially to do with the secondary functionality associated with volume control, media playback, and the backlighting options onboard. I definitely recommend going through the manual, although once you have the software driver installed, things are going to be mostly driven via the driver itself. The second set of accessories are two rubber objects, which, as we will see later on, are replacement keyboard feet. These have a thick smooth hemispherical end on one side and a cross-cut pattern creating four inserts on the other.

In case a wrist rest is a must for you, SteelSeries has an optional one available for purchase separately which you can take a look at here. It is a fairly simple, detached design, so while I can understand the move to not include it in the box, I do also think that $15 is too steep for it. You can find similar solutions at less than half the price should you be able to make do without the SteelSeries logo.