Ok I used the larger image on this product so that you would get a better idea of what it is. This is the Belkin Nostromo Speedpad- If you play Half Life 2 Collector's Edition, Doom 3 Collector's Edition, or any first person shooter, this little unit is your secret weapon. It combines the keyboard and gamepad into a small unit that you can use with one hand. It's flexibility allows the keyboard keys to be easily re-programmed. While learning to use it will take a little practice, it's well worth the learning curve.
Once you have a good key setup and get used to the keys, it's definitely a large step above a normal keyboard, both in speed and ergonomics. You have everything right at your fingertips, and never have to glance away from the screen to see where that key you need is. The setup program for defining bindings is extremely user-friendly and intuitive, and makes swapping between different sets of bindings very quick and painless.
And then there's the macros. Oh yes. This is where the gamepad really has a leg up on everything else. Using the same quick and easy binding editor, you can set up a huge list of commands to be fired off with a single button press. Timings can be established (i.e. press C, wait 2.2 seconds, press D, wait 0.05 seconds, press E), and I have yet to hit a functional limit to the length of a macro you can record. Plus, while the macro is firing, you can be doing something else. It's insanely handy, especially for RTS and MMO games, and becomes more and more useful the more you play with it. If you're a competetive player, you might not want to use it for the simple reason that it's easy to become dependent on it. It's a hardware advantage, not a skill one, so ethically maybe a little fuzzy also. Who cares though? With tons of bots out there you need every advantage you can get.
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