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The Challenger Ultimate keyboard, from Thermaltake’s TTeSPORTS brand, is the third iteration of the original Challenger, a gaming keyboard with an integrated cooling fan designed to stop hands getting sweaty during long gaming sessions. This latest version adds a customisable backlight and integrated audio jacks.
The cooling fan creates minimal airflow but still made a difference when gaming. It was rather flimsy and we knocked it once or twice accidentally. It can be positioned at either side of the keyboard to suit gamers that prefer using arrow keys rather than WASD.
The keyboard backlight can be set to almost any colour using the supplied software tool, but some colours clash with the red Thermaltake logo on the wrist rest that can’t be customised. The keys themselves are flat and have minimal amounts of travel. The small amount of tactile feedback split opinions in the office; several people found it harder to type on than a traditional keyboard, but others had no problem.
All the usual multimedia keys are present, as are two banks of five macro keys that can be programmed to launch programs or perform multiple keystrokes simultaneously. You can rotate between five different profiles for up to 50 different macros, which online RPG fans will certainly appreciate.
Because the headphone and microphone ports are integrated with the keyboard’s USB sound card, you won’t be able to use them with your PC’s sound card. We liked the ability to change the backlight colour, but ended up using red simply because it matched the other LEDs. If, like us, you wouldn’t use these new features, the older Challenger Pro is still available; it has an otherwise identical specification and costs around £20 less, making it much better value.
