While I’ll never emotionally be convinced that having a keyboard and mouse will provide an advantage to gaming, I know it deep down that this is a beautiful product that does up the value of gaming on consoles. The fact that you can play Fortnite with GameSir XV on the Nintendo (bleeping) Switch speaks volumes. Having those building commands and quick aiming with the mouse makes this product even more valuable. It also makes games like Battlefield V and Black Ops 4 even sweeter. While I’m not convinced that RDR 2 is better with the device, it just doesn’t feel right, there is more positive than negative.
I highly recommend checking into this device, as it’s comfortable and it works on a bevy of different gaming devices. The latter of the two makes it worth its weight in gold.
This is an interesting concept. Take something that is traditional, split it in half purposely, then make it work with everything. Welcome to the GameSir XV mouse and half a keyboard.
I Shall Call Him Eric, the Half-a-Keyboard
We were contacted last week to see if we would be interested in reviewing the GameSir XV, and we were intrigued. Part of the intrigue was that this left half keyboard and mouse were something of a strange looking pair. While certainly the mouse was nothing particularly special, other than incredibly comfortable, paired with the keyboard made the package an oddity. The infamous ‘that’s it?’ sentence was uttered more than once while reviewing this product. Yes, that is in fact it. That’s all you really need for gaming.
I guess if you’re a hardcore gamer and you delight in the left side of the keyboard, and why wouldn’t you, then this isn’t really anything new. The left side traditionally acts as the controls for movement in most PC games. It also makes sense that you wouldn’t need the right in the equation, as most of your chatting will be done via a headset with mic capabilities, instead of typing messages out traditionally. Everything you need to game is included on the left side of the keyboard. Your arrow keys, your WASD keys, and your spacebar/control/ALT keys — all there. The keys are made to be gamed.
Beyond that, should you feel lucky and feisty, you have some programmable keys you can set at your heart’s desire via a mobile app (such a good move — Macintosh owners thank you).
That said, the keyboard is strange when played on the PS4. Outside of the obvious key commands to move around, you can shift through the menu system of the PlayStation using keyboard commands. Every button on the PS4 is represented by a key on the keyboard. For example, the ESC key is the PS button, which can get while when you’re trying to get into the menu system. Having the ability to move around, enter/exit menus via a keyboard makes for a strange process of navigation. You can get used to it, certainly, but it’s nonetheless a transition. It works, so no biggie.
The beauty, at least for me — a MacBook Pro toting dolt, is that the mechanical feel to the keyboard, which is sadly foreign as a MacBook owner. The MacBook Pro, if you didn’t know, has a lot of flaws that come with its expensive price tag. One of the biggest, outside of the shit Touch Bar, are flat keys that are surprisingly noisy, though incredibly sticky if you get any dust in them. Writing reviews on them is a nightmare, as it feels like you’re pushing your poor keyboard, while at the same time missing some contact with keys. On the gaming side of the MacBook Pro keyboard, that equals out to a rotten gaming experience sometimes, as you don’t get a good push with the buttons. The GameSir XV takes care of the left side of that problem. It makes a nice mechanical experience (loud, large, and easy to push down keys that are responsive) when you are gaming with the few games available on the Mac.
Other things you should know about this keyboard. The wrist rest is a blessing and the material to keep it steady on a desk is out of this freaking world strong. Both make this keyboard even better to play with on a game. I can’t stress enough about how solid that material on the bottom is, as it truly keeps that keyboard in place.
Bottom line: There’s a lot of nice things going on here with the keyboard, even if it’s half.
Mousing Around
As for the mouse, it’s darn good. The beauty of the mouse is its adjustable DPI, configurable buttons, and its wired connection. The latter is probably not impressive to you, but remember that this pair works on a dongle that makes it a wireless device. Having that wired connection is solid, as it just feels like an actual gaming mouse (there’s just something about a wireless mouse that makes it a blah experience for most gaming I do). Having it movable with the tiny half keyboard to wherever 2.4 GHz will take you is a super nice option. We have a 90” television in our lab, so sitting back and playing PS4 using this wireless beauty made for a comfortable experience. It was accurate too, which helps when you’re trying to dominate in a game.
In addition to the above, the mouse feels comfortable. I gamed with this on my Mac and PS4 Pro for a large amount of time, and never felt any mouse fatigue. My hand is rather large, my fingers long, so it doesn’t take much gaming for my hand to cramp up. Thankfully, I never felt the pinch while using this mouse. That’s a big plus for me when it comes to justifying why I would pay money for this device. It takes a perfect mouse experience to prove to me that mice are worthwhile in gaming. This one came the closest to perfect.
The amenities on the mouse and the nice design make for a great experience with it.
Just a couple of hiccups
The only two issues I had out of the gate with the GameSir XV was the setup process for both Mac and PS4. While the setup process for the Switch and Xbox One were pretty seamless, and that’s saying a lot for the Switch because Nintendo doesn’t care about getting usability correct (see its online system and adding controllers for details — gosh, see the WiiU controller during a FPS experience for more details), the PS4 setup process was particularly a pain in the caboose.
First, you should follow all the instructions provided inside the packaging. DO NOT IGNORE THEM. If you decide to go rogue, you won’t understand the process, which is oddly weird, and there is a potential that it won’t work immediately.
That first step of reading the instructions out of the way, you must keep your system off, put in the dongle, plug the PS4 controller via microUSB into the dongle, then turn everything on. Once on, you have to switch the keyboard on, then plug in the mouse. The system will recognize the mouse, the keyboard, and sort of ignore the PS4 controller (which is what you want). If you mess those steps up, there is a potential that you won’t get the mouse/keyboard to work on the PS4, even though the system recognizes it. It took me 10 careful minutes to figure out the process, and one instruction read, and two failures, but once it was done, it worked beautifully. I had to toggle a few things with the mouse to get it to work well in Destiny 2, but once it took off, it took off.
The second issue in this bunch wasn’t too bad. I had a tough time getting the mouse to work correctly in the Macintosh environment (Windows loved it, but Mac was like, “What is this? Oh, my God —*whine*”). The mouse moved like syrup off a pancake — so slow. To correct this, I just had to go into System Preferences to adjust the mouse sensitivity (turned it way up) and the thing worked perfectly. In all fairness, this product wasn’t advertised to work on a Mac system, but it does. Bravo.
Outside of those hiccups, the GameSir XV worked brilliantly and as advertised.
VERDICT
While I’ll never emotionally be convinced that having a keyboard and mouse will provide an advantage to gaming, I know it deep down that this is a beautiful product that does up the value of gaming on consoles. The fact that you can play Fortnite with GameSir XV on the Nintendo (bleeping) Switch speaks volumes. Having those building commands and quick aiming with the mouse makes this product even more valuable. It also makes games like Battlefield V and Black Ops 4 even sweeter. While I’m not convinced that RDR 2 is better with the device, it just doesn’t feel right, there is more positive than negative.
I highly recommend checking into this device, as it’s comfortable and it works on a bevy of different gaming devices. The latter of the two makes it worth its weight in gold.
