Today I’m going to be taking a look at the Sandberg RageStorm Mechanical Gaming Keypad. As a heavy fan of MMORPGs, keypads have been at the forefront of my gaming arsenal. Having the ability to have fully customisable macros and all the keys I NEED in ONE place, in a more comfortable position for long gaming sessions, was always massively appealing to me. So when the opportunity to take a look at this product came up I quickly snatched it up with my left hand. Get it? Because it’s the left half of a… never mind…
We’ll start with the build of the keypad. The RageStorm itself feels very sturdy, it is made from what feels like pretty solid plastic, with it being only half a keyboard you have no need to worry about any flex or ‘give’ if you’re going hard while raiding. Speaking of which, the keys themselves are actually mechanical, so you should get PLENTY of use out of them, these specific switches are “Outemu Blue” mechanical switches. I’ve only used one other type of ‘blue’ mechanical switch in the past and these are VERY similar.
Switches tend to be a matter of personal preference and I enjoyed my blues in the past, they gave a fantastic typing experience and just as good for gaming. These particular blues have a really nice tactile bump and particularly satisfying audible feedback, a lovely click/clack. Sitting on top of those switches are some really nice double-injection keycaps. This is significant for 2 reasons, the first is they’ll never fade as there is no printing needed, the second is that depending on the internal layer of plastic, like the one used in this case, it allows the lights to shine through quite nicely.
Speaking of lights, that allows us to move into the design part of my review! Since I already mentioned them I’ll start off with the lights. The keypad doesn’t feature fully customisable lighting profiles, however, it does come with 9 lighting modes. All of which are rather pretty, but I personally just went with lights always on. As a matter of preference that’s the least ‘distracting’ mode for me, although if your PC is a light show anyway or you’re having a dance break mid raid, then the other lighting modes may just be for you!
It would be nice if the keys were customisable RGB so I could have the keypad one solid colour, but that would definitely be nitpicking and when you’re paying (at the time of writing this review) £43.99 for a MECHANICAL gaming keypad, you’re not going to have it absolutely packed to the rafters with every feature on the planet.
I actually really like the overall design of this product, I love the kind of industrial look it has with the metallic-looking top plate and the rather soft feeling rubberised wrist rest, it has a more solid plastic bulge separating the keypad and the wrist rest which makes the arch of your hand much more natural. This combination of soft-touch material with the plastic bump to rest your hand made it pretty comfortable to use for extended sessions. Again with all of this, your mileage may vary.
To summarise this review, the Sandberg RageStorm Mechanical Gaming Keypad, phew, try saying that one 5 times fast, is a relatively new entry into the range of Esports equipment from Sandberg. I find it looks great, feels better and sounds *insert clicky clacky blue switch sound effect* brilliant. You get a well built, good looking, comfortable MECHANICAL keypad for £43.99, that is a lot of product for the price and if you’re in the market for a product like this, I’d find it really hard not to recommend it.
Build: 5/5
Design: 4/5 (Would give it 5 and also pay a little more if it had fully customisable RGB lighting)
Comfort: 4.5/5
Value: 5/5
Sandberg RageStorm Overall Score: 4.6/5
Written by Stuart Hannon
For more information on the Sandberg RageStorm Mechanical Gaming Keypad, click HERE to visit the official website. The cheapest place we’ve found it so far, not including delivery is courtesy of stuff-uk.net at £31.68 incl VAT, click HERE to check it out (price correct as of 01/02/2019). Oh and don’t forget, you can check out more of our reviews right HERE.
