Belkin n52te: Personal review

I just picked up a Belkin n52te while out shopping for a new mouse, as my old one has decided to begin be unresponive constantly, and thought I'd give it a try after hearing people rave about it.

*NOTE: This is just my personal opinion on the product. I am also giving my opinion on this based on a multi-boxing perspective, certainly the gameplay experience would be different in other types of games.*

First impressions: WTF is up with the 5 foot cord? Most anyone I know has their tower on the right side of their desk and considering this is a left handed accessory this is about 1-2 feet short to be comfortable.

2. This device is definitely not for someone with large hands. When I laid my palm on the palm rest my fingers were hanging over the top edge of the device. When I positioned my fingers on the WASD keys my hand felt quite scrunched up. TBH it was more uncomfortable then a normal keyboard.

3. The lack of 1-4 keys on top of the WASD keys was also quite annoying will trying to figure out a key configuration and placement setup. I personally greatly perfer using 1-4 keys on the keyboard for my main attacks and trying to come up with a new setup for my main attacks felt odd and way out of place. Even after using the device for about 3 hours I just was not digging any setup I tried.

4. No airflow between your palm and the palm rest and the material used for the palm rest made my hands sweat quite heavily making for even more of an uncomfortable feel.

5. The mouse wheel felt quite out of place and the main mouse button (or push down on the scroll wheel button) needed to be pushed down quite hard and usually resulted in an unwanted mouse scroll. Not to mention feeling completely unnecessary when used with a regular mouse.

6. The thumb directional pad however was quite nice. Since my directional pad is assigned to move my followers only I was able to pretty freely move my alts one direction while move my main in another. Would be great in position sensitive fights. Last boss in Ramparts comes to mind for quick easy strafing w/o having to move your left hand from the WASD keys.

Again this is just my personal opinion of the Belkin n52te, but considering the uncomfortable feel due to heavy sweating, not designed for larger hands, the lack of 1-4 keys actually being quite a huge thing for me personally, then topped off with the $70 price tag, I felt this product to be unnecessary and very much overrated. Thus I returned it just a few mins. ago.

I have the n52 (not the te). On certain of my characters I use it, on others I don't.

Overall I am pleased I bought it.

I love it on my lock... It's great for pvp and pve, but it takes a lot of thought to set up.

It took me a while to adjust to it on my hunter (I hated it at first, but that was more about not being great at pvp , and not having the muscle memory for which button did what)

I tended to use the first row of buttons for my cast sequence macros on my lock. So one button bound to a macro that casts COA, then dots, another that casts CoEX and dots, and third that casts CoT and dots for casters. The second row was for my pet abilities. Sending pet in. Macros to trigger abilities based on pet, so seduce, intercept,devour magic,spell lock etc.

On my hunter I use the first row for near instant cast abilities. Arcane shot , steady shot (not instant), concussive. Dropping viper trap.

The second row is pet control - sending pet in to attack (which puts hunter's mark up). Calling pet back, triggering bestial wrath and intimidation, and also firing of my macro that does kill command and wing clip etc.

So in essence I can do my target selection with my mouse (or hover over other abilities that are less often used and click.

Or for the hunter I can be running shifting my viewpoint with the mouse and in essence strafing/kiting an opponent.

I have fairly big hands and had no real problem with it (it's meant to be adjustable for the palm rest, but can't figure that out) . I Agree with the sweat issue. Had no problem with the cord issue as my case is on the floor on the left not on the desk on the right.

I will eventually get it setup for my shaman, once I've done pvp with him at 70, so will have offensive totem macro, defensive totem macro, emergency instant heal on there,and ability to trigger elemental mastery and natures swiftness, and of course shocks and lightning bolt chain lightning.

I do feel it gives me a bit more of an edge in pvp - but you can get by without it easily.

However if you do get it, spend a lot of timing tinkering with your set up and getting used to which key does what.

I'll be interested to see how it affects my multiboxing.

I just picked this up yesterday and have been playing it with AoC.

I agree about the keys, but I went to using the thumb directional pad to strafe left/right, backup, and jump. I use the thumb button (the one above the thumb pad) for vent, and then the finger buttons are all used for bound keys for casting spells, doing combos, etc.

It took me a while, but I got rather comfortable with it and am really starting to like it.

LOL, I just measure my hand 8 1/2 inches from first fold below palm to middle finger tip. I agree with the cluttered feel, but since I have been using it a while it doesn't seem to bother me anymore. I have yet to setup the wheel for anything. I use the directional pad for forward, turn left and turn right. I haven't had any problems with palm sweat yet. :p

The main problem I have had is that the thumb button(the round one) and the space bar(other thumb button) seem to bind and not register when pressed anything other that straight down.

I have been a clicker ever since I started wow and only switched because multiboxing made me.

Overall I'm pretty pleased with the n53te.

I've got an original Belkin N52 sitting on my shelf hardly used... well I did use it for awhile but found it very limiting as far as buttons go. Don't get me wrong I'm not a clicker and keybind everything essential. I make full use of my keyboard and it just felt like I was gimping myself by using that product, plus having to move off of it and back to the keyboard to type was incredibly annoying. I think I need to actually see a video of someone using this thing effectively to appreciate it...