SteelSeries have rated the keyboard at 20 million keypresses though, so if this is accurate then it's also got that benefit of mechanical keyboards too.

Will the membrane eventually stop reacting as well to a keypress? I remember using membrane keyboards, maybe a little over ten years ago, I remember specific keys requiring what was essentially a sledgehammer hit to activate. With it being a hybrid and having a membrane, I don't know if this will have a large impact in the long term. Even in Fallout 76, something I expect to cause bugs in everything linked to it, the keyboard performed as expected. There was no delay in the activation of a jump when collecting everything in HYPERCHARGE: Unboxed or the lobbing of a grenade or sprinting in Rainbow Six: Siege. Throughout all of this, I can't say I've noticed any concerns. Playing games, I've spent a not inconsiderable amount of time playing Fallout 76: Wastelanders, Rainbow Six: Siege and HYPERCHARGE: Unboxed. The feel of the key as it presses in is enough to make me forget that it's got anything membrane related. I've typed over twenty-thousand words with the Apex 5 so far and I can't say I've noticed any issues, with my typing speed getting up to normal once I got used to the spacing of the keys. Steelseries describe them as mechanical keys, but it's just how the keypress actuates that has been changed and made more affordable.įrom usage, I haven't noticed any real difference to using any other mechanical keyboard, a testament to just how good these hybrid switches are. What it features is what they label as a 'hybrid mechanical' switch which has the spring, the click and (a bit of a) bump from the mechanical side of things, then kept to an affordable price by cutting out all of the expensive circuitry that comes with mechanical keyboards and gone the membrane route. So the Apex 5 isn't a mechanical keyboard, let me make that perfectly clear.

Steelseries apex 5