deskthority

Today we officially launch the Trigger Z keyboard in the EU and hereby also for you guys a official announcement/release!

Fully programmable mechanical keyboard
Utilize fully programmable macro and standard keys with profile management for up to five profiles and up to 75 macros. Significantly reduce setup times by storing profiles and key assignments directly on your Trigger Z with 128KB of onboard memory. This means the keyboard is ready for plug and play use when you are taking the keyboard to LAN parties.

Stay ahead of the competition with easy downloadable firmware and software updates via the CM Storm Gaming website at: http://www.cmstorm.com/en/products/keyboards/triggerz/

Integrated multimedia keys make it easy to control your audio experience in and out of the action while the Windows Lock Function can quickly disable the Windows key input to avoid accidental presses during intense matches.

Premium Gaming Features
Comfort is a key factor when gaming at the computer for long periods of time. A detachable wrist rest and non-slip rubber coating assist in preventing pains by providing proper support for the wrists and reducing unwanted keyboard movements or slides. The keyboard has a 64KRO so 64 keys can be pressed at the same time and the keyboard and computer will register every single input. The 14K gold plated ultra low latency USB connectors and high-grade braided cable ensure that the keyboard maintains a steady link to the PC and a full LED backlight in 3 modes and 5 brightness levels ensures gaming sessions can go deep into the night.

Cherry MX Switches
At Launch the Trigger Z will be available in Cherry MX Brown switches and will later on possibly be available in Cherry MX Red, and Blue switches depending on your region. Brown switch has white backlight, Red has red backlight and blue has blue backlight!

Availability
The Trigger Z Gaming Mechanical Keyboard will be available in the UK from February for a MSRP of €119,- incl VAT.
Available on our own CM Store: http://www.cmstore.eu/cm-storm/keyboards/trigger-z/


Link to a YouTube video released today on it: http://youtu.be/_L42Y9s5QW4

Well, this one's not for the DT crowd. But I will point out that macros != fully programmable. Macros are good and I use a load of them myself, but full programmability means the ability to remap every key on the board (for Bépo, Workman, Colemak etc. users) including all the mods, and layers too. I like using arrow keys on ESDF for instance so I don't have to leave home row. We can do that and macros with Teensy based custom controllers. Can and do! I always miss my superpowers when I'm on a commercial USB keyboard.

Muirium wrote:But I will point out that macros != fully programmable.

Sounds to me like it is fully programmable but I suppose if it isn't then that was the marketers intention.

finally 64kro! my prayers have been answered

could this please be moved to:
http://deskthority.net/news-reviews-f4/
and such threads please be placed there in future? As for the actual keyboard itself, pumped controller, standard USB connector, removed USB hub and switch choice option with "corresponding" backlight. Apart from that, same-same as the Trigger. Including the eyewash of

CM Bram wrote:...The 14K gold plated ultra low latency USB connectors and high-grade braided cable ensure that the keyboard maintains a steady link to the PC...

Y just 14K and no gaming grade gold plating???

kint wrote:As for the actual keyboard itself, pumped controller, standard USB connector, removed USB hub and switch choice option with "corresponding" backlight.

Care to elaborate on those differences?

Icarium wrote:

kint wrote:As for the actual keyboard itself, pumped controller, standard USB connector, removed USB hub and switch choice option with "corresponding" backlight.

Care to elaborate on those differences?

brown LEDs please?

Used to be that you could choose your LED colour separately from your switch colour. So for instance someone who wants MX blue gets stuck with the backlight from hades! Not to be confused with red backlighting, which is much less bad on nighttime eyes.

But thanks for getting us started about backlit boards with rubberised case externals and bad fonts! (None of these on the NovaTouch, please!)

Icarium wrote:

kint wrote:As for the actual keyboard itself, pumped controller, standard USB connector, removed USB hub and switch choice option with "corresponding" backlight.

Care to elaborate on those differences?

Cherry MX Switch Red Blue Brown
Backlight Color Red Blue White
Steelplate Coating Red Blue white

goes for the Quickfire TK and is the same colour scheme here, (apart from the plate maybe).
The original Trigger was only available with red backlight, had a mini USB connector and needed an external 5V PSU for highpower USB devices or the eye hurting backlighting in brightest setting.
Oh and it had

18K gold plated ultra low latency USB plugs

which of course owns the appalling 14K on this....

I am sad to say that I have recommended Cooler Master products to friends in the past. It turns out you are just the same type of low quality company which has to resort to gimmicky false claims aimed towards a market to young to know that they are false. Ultra low latency plugs and things which you will notice that high quality labels don't have to resort to in order to get their products sold to a bunch of teenagers who fall for these cheap tricks.

Shame on you Cooler Master, I thought better of you.

/rant

I would not blame Cooler Master itself, but rather the marketing climate for gaming products. I am sure that they see the need to hype their products' features this way to be competitive.
Of course, they could have used different wording on this site. It would have made us cringe a little bit less

By the way, when we are talking about CM Storm marketing.. I find their product names a bit contrived.
CM Storm Trigger
CM Storm Trigger Z
CM Storm QuickFire TK
CM Storm QuickFire Rapid
CM Storm QuickFire Pro
CM Storm QuickFire Ultimate

First there is "CM" for "Cooler Master", Then "Storm" for the peripherals. Then what is the purpose of putting "QuickFire" in there? The TK, Rapid, Pro and Ultimate are completely different keyboards, not variations of a model.
I see lots of people in gaming/peripherals forum being confused about the naming. I have seen things like "What is the different between BlackWidow Ultimate and Cooler Master Ultimate?" or people referring to "QuickFire TKL"...

Findecanor wrote:I would not blame Cooler Master itself, but rather the marketing climate for gaming products.

They set the climate.

sth wrote:

Findecanor wrote:I would not blame Cooler Master itself, but rather the marketing climate for gaming products.

They set the climate.

And Filco and similar brands don't follow suite, and I believe this to be the major reason why for instance Filco are thought of as a high quality brand.

damorgue wrote:I am sad to say that I have recommended Cooler Master products to friends in the past. It turns out you are just the same type of low quality company which has to resort to gimmicky false claims aimed towards a market to young to know that they are false. Ultra low latency plugs and things which you will notice that high quality labels don't have to resort to in order to get their products sold to a bunch of teenagers who fall for these cheap tricks.

Shame on you Cooler Master, I thought better of you.

/rant

Have to agree with all of this...

CM Bram wrote:At Launch the Trigger Z will be available in Cherry MX Brown switches and will later on possibly be available in Cherry MX Red, and Blue switches depending on your region.

This is a really, really poor selection of switches, too. Again, opening with only browns sort of fits in with damorgue's suggestions.

Really disappointed with this. If the Novatouch ends up being this sort of junk I'll cry.

scottc wrote: Really disappointed with this. If the Novatouch ends up being this sort of junk I'll cry.

perhaps we'll track down their OEM and order the MX-compatible sliders ourselves... group buy?

sth wrote:

scottc wrote: Really disappointed with this. If the Novatouch ends up being this sort of junk I'll cry.

perhaps we'll track down their OEM and order the MX-compatible sliders ourselves... group buy?

You are an entrepreneur... good idea!

Matt3o's already working on something similar…

Although I'm all for cap compatibility, I don't have a Topre of my own (yet) anyway, so the NovaTouch should be just the board for me. All hinges on the details, of course.

Muirium wrote:Matt3o's already working on something similar…

Although I'm all for cap compatibility, I don't have a Topre of my own (yet) anyway, so the NovaTouch should be just the board for me. All hinges on the details, of course.

no no. the hhkb is the board for you. and everyone.

if i was oprah i would give away blank hhkbs to everybody.

Yeah, that's the one I'm really after.

Make mine the white model with legends, because those Helvetica dyesubs are just perfect!

sth wrote:

Findecanor wrote:I would not blame Cooler Master itself, but rather the marketing climate for gaming products.

They set the climate.

They do. Question is whether they would have enough momentum if they decide to go against the grain. Personally I'm happy when they do a nice spin-off for quality oriented people, and I can mock on the eyewash on the other boards. CM is a big company with some good affordable stuff for non-flashy people, they are no high quality special interest manufacturer with some small margin. There is no point in having another Filco with another Filco price point, diversity FTW.

Do keep in mind they aren't aiming this keyboard at us typists but instead the gamer community who'll spend $90 on a crap mouse like a complete retard because "omg it makes me a better gammer1!"

The font and game design is a dead giveaway. Also note that the lack of real switch selection shows this as well.

Why is it so hard to understand that simplicity is the best. No fancy gamer stuff, just a plain keyboard.

Compgeke wrote:...The font and game design is a dead giveaway. Also note that the lack of real switch selection shows this as well.

nope. That's just the usual: EU gamers won't buy anything else anyway decision. Internationally it seems to be available in these varieties already:
CHERRY MX Blue with blue backlight
CHERRY MX Brown switch with white backlight
CHERRY MX Red switch with red backlight.
(and for some time already too..., at least three months afair)
Apart from the MX black the usual CM choice of switch. Tbh, Greens, Clears and Whites are a enthusiast thing anyway.

On the plus side, it does have 1.25 wide modifiers, which does provide more options for replacement keycaps.
There were already 1.25 mods on previous/regular Trigger also, but anyway...

damorgue wrote:And Filco and similar brands don't follow suite, and I believe this to be the major reason why for instance Filco are thought of as a high quality brand.

I agree, but only in part because I don't think that is the whole picture. Filco was early on the scene, and was therefore able to build up a reputation before the gamer brands came along.
But yes, some other gamer brands, such as Razer and iOne quickly got a reputation for low quality on their gamer-styled keyboards which I do think contributed a great deal for making people associate "gamer style" with low quality.

kint wrote:Tbh, Greens, Clears and Whites are a enthusiast thing anyway.

Personally, I think that MX Clear would make an awesome "gamer switch".

It seems as if the Trigger Z is mostly an incremental update over the Trigger.
- 64 key rollover instead of 6. But how, and why? Remember that a rollover figure tells how many arbitrary keys that can be pressed at one time, even if a few more special keys could be pressed. For instance, the 6KRO protocol is numbered not for the bits assigned to the eight modifiers but for the six bytes that can be used for any arbitrary key.
There are more than 64 keys, so they can't use a bitfield for the protocol: it must be an array of 64 bytes.
A NKRO protocol using a bitfield would require packets being only 16 bytes.
... And does it work on Mac?

- Five profiles. According to the site, but not written in the first post, there can be only 15 macros per profile, of which there can be five of - you won't have 75 macros all the time.

- 128KB macros instead of 64 KB macro memory. But is there a maximum length to macros, or are they dynamically allocated?

CM Bram wrote:The 14K gold plated ultra low latency USB connectors and high-grade braided cable ensure that the keyboard maintains a steady link to the PC

That wording is a bit misleading. The connector can not be low-latency. Gold-plating does no difference to latency.
The protocol can be low-latency, however.

But how do you do low latency? What are the lead and fall times for debouncing? Is the controller firmware capable of detecting more than one key event during the interval between keyboard reports?

CM Bram wrote:MSRP of £109.99 in VAT