Interesting Ideaz
Try as we might to keep an open mind about every product that comes through the door, there are still occasions when we can’t help but ask, “What the hell were they thinking?”. Sometimes reviews with the most objective intentions ends up with a fair amount of subjective content, and to be perfectly honest, most of the time it’s the product’s fault. Our review of the Headshot controller from Fanatec is one in which we pretty much blast the product for its questionable aesthetics in spite of its rather impressive performance. We have also turned down several products based pretty much entirely on the way they look. Somehow the rule of “not judging a book by its cover” does not apply at FPSLabs, where we know what kind of things work and what kinds of things just plain don’t. One of the companies who we have declined or ignored product review requests from is Ideazon. If I remember correctly, the particular product in question was their recently released Reaper gaming mouse. The mouse is a skinny little thing with strangely placed buttons and resembles very closely the crooked nose of Professor Severus Snape. Well, Ideazon has three new products on the way out that have been bestowed with the looks to kill. Whether or not they will do so obviously remains to be seen.


The first of these products is currently available and is called the Ideazon Merc Stealth gaming keyboard. We reviewed the original Merc keyboard pretty postitively back in July of last year. In that review, our main gripes with the keyboard was that it demands a bit of time to acclimate yourself to its rather odd configuration, and that the device itself is not feature-rich enough for ultra high-end systems. With the Merc Stealth, Ideazon takes care of our second issue and adds plenty of extra features that might just make our first issue seem a bit less important. On the Stealth version, Ideazon has added backlight to the keys that actually works very well. The backlight can toggle between different colors and overall seems very similar to the effect produced by the Saitek Eclipse 2. There is now a USB2.0 hub on the top of the keyboard, which is accompanied by audio input/output jacks. The last updated feature on the stealth is the rubberized keys on the gamepad portion of the device. This tactile adjustment really improves the overall feel of the unit.


The next product is one that is slated for release in Fall 2007, which just so happens to be now. The Reaper mouse, which we spoke so highly of a bit earlier, has received a much needed update in the form of the Reaper Edge. The edge is a far more stylish mouse than the original Reaper, sporting sleek ergonomic design and a carbon-fiber-y finish. The sides of the mouse are rubberized and contoured so that your fingers are unlikely to slip out in the heat of battle. This is a particularly nice feature that is becoming quite common on gaming mice. The Reaper Edge makes use of a single button for dpi switching, which is right next to the colored LCD readout of “Ideazon” on the top of the mouse. This is the only light on the device however, so the effect is not nearly as lame as you might expect. The scroll wheel is rubberized and sort of resembles overlapping scales like you might see on a tire. It is very easy to use, but then most scroll wheels are. The side buttons on the Reaper Edge are probably the most interesting of its features, as they are quite large and easy to use, yet are placed in a vertical orientation and seamlessly integrated into the aesthetic and ergonomic design of the mouse. The only external feature of the mouse that leaves something to be desired is the mouse feet on the bottom, which are much smaller than we would like to see. The insides of the mouse have also been revamped by means of a 3200 dpi laser engine. There are five levels of dpi switching from 800 to 3200, which we already foresee being a problem with higher sensitivity gamers. Overall this mouse looks impressive and I am sure someone at FPSLabs will be reviewing it pretty soon. You can check out the full list of specs for the mouse on the Ideazon website.

The final product that Ideazon is launching in the near future is their second entry into the gaming audio market. Their first headset is a self-described entry-level device that has actually done very well in the retail channels for VOIP and casual gaming purposes. The Banshee, however, will be a no-holds-barred high-end gaming headset. Early pictures of the headset make it look sort of like a crossover between Icemat Siberia’s and some high-end studio headphones we remember seeing in a magazine once. The specs for the Banshee seem to be right in line with what we see on other headsets in the gaming space, and will be shown for the first time soon on the Ideazon site.