The Stream Deck-packed gaming keyboard is a monster of good ideas

The Corsair Galleon 100 SD didn’t conscionable travel retired of the ether. The caller full-size mechanical keyboard pinch a Stream Deck fused to its broadside is the consequence of a lot of things coming together complete the years. Corsair’s gaming business is much refined than ever, and Stream Deck’s wide ecosystem of plug-ins makes the dedicated hardware useful to conscionable astir anyone, moreover if they person small liking successful streaming. The fusion makes sense.

The possibilities pinch a Stream Deck were already vast, and the Galleon makes it easier to consciousness for illustration a powerfulness user. I tin move my Philips Hue lights connected and disconnected passim my flat pinch 1 of its dials, and I tin pause, skip, and fave tracks successful YouTube Music pinch its buttons. I tin motorboat The Verge, declutter a messiness of windows connected my surface into a tidy grid, and truthful overmuch much pinch a azygous fastener property — each without taking my hands disconnected the keyboard.

Anyway, here’s a speedy history instruction connected really we sewage here: The Galleon is the consequence of acquisitions and different company’s misfortune. After Corsair bought Elgato successful 2018, it acquired a mostly liking successful iDisplay, the institution that already produced mini screens for the Stream Deck. And it’s imaginable nary of this would person happened if iDisplay hadn’t been asked years earlier to proviso OLED screens for each cardinal of Art Lebedev’s groundbreaking, yet yet flawed, Optimus Maximus keyboard, which sold for $1,490 astatine motorboat successful 2008. So present we are.

The Galleon is reasonably priced astatine $350. Yes, you tin salary astir $60 for a Deck Mini and past bargain a very bully keyboard; possibly some will costs you little than $350. But it’s nosy to usage a merchandise that’s some a good, polished keyboard and a awesome bundle of customizable buttons and dials.

The Stream Deck integration is the large tie pinch the Galleon. It has 12 buttons, a non-touch screen, and 2 rotary dials, each of which tin beryllium customized. The LCD surface down the keys is Elgato’s highest-resolution surface successful a Stream Deck truthful acold (it’s a 5-inch 720 x 1280 IPS display). You tin resistance and driblet commands and plug-ins done the Stream Deck app, giving you easy entree to day-to-day niceties, for illustration commonly utilized emoji to usage during video calls, arsenic good arsenic much powerful integrations.

Elgato developed charismatic Stream Deck plug-ins for respective celebrated services, including Philips Hue, Apple Mail, Slack, Zoom, Photoshop, YouTube, Spotify, and more. There’s a vibrant organization of developers who taxable their ain plug-ins arsenic well. The rabbit spread goes really deep, not conscionable for plug-ins, but for the customizable app icons you tin delegate to each button, and the backgrounds you tin usage connected the larger screen. Some of them are existent time-savers, for illustration this Helldivers 2 profile that lets you execute Stratagems pinch the push of a button, arsenic opposed to frantically hammering directional keys while enemies are encroaching.

The keyboard attached to the Stream Deck is good, too, moreover if it’s not the halfway of attraction here. It looks slick and subdued, pinch per-key RGB LEDs that tin beryllium configured successful Corsair’s browser-based Web Hub app. You don’t request to usage the software, but you request the Stream Deck app to get the astir retired of the buttons and dials. The chassis has an aluminum housing, and a ample wrist pad tin beryllium attached magnetically adjacent its bottommost keys. The Galleon connects to your PC (or crippled console — it officially supports Xbox and PlayStation) pinch a azygous USB-C-to-A cable. If you person an other accessory to connect, you tin plug the 2nd included USB-C-to-A cablegram into your PC for information aliases charging passthrough. Then, connect your gadget to the USB-C port.

The creation isn’t that different from Corsair’s Vanguard bid of keyboards. The Galleon includes gasket mounting and aggregate layers of dampening. Typing sounds and feels satisfying and bouncy, yet controlled. Its MLX Pulse switches person a pronounced “thock” sound and don’t require overmuch unit to actuate. One of the fewer missed opportunities is making the Stream Deck modular, truthful that left-handed typists tin easy entree its buttons and knobs. The Mountain Everest Max did this years ago, and it’s each the much puzzling fixed Corsair hired that company’s founder, Tobias Brinkmann, arsenic the VP of its gaming section responsible for building this very keyboard. Corsair’s trading head Andrew Williams shared pinch The Verge that it’s because improvement connected the Galleon had already begun by the clip Brinkmann was hired, and followed the connection pinch “Who knows? Maybe we will iterate connected this. :)”

Coming disconnected of precocious testing the Asus Falcata keyboard, which uses the longer-lasting, much customizable Hall effect switches that are some quieter and importantly faster to actuate (too accelerated for maine until I group actuation constituent thresholds), the MLX Pulse feels much for illustration what I’m utilized to typing connected pinch my Kinesis Freestyle Edge RGB divided ergonomic keyboard. If you person a preferred switch, you aren’t locked to utilizing Corsair’s. The Galleon supports basking swapping switches, truthful agelong arsenic it’s a 3-pin aliases 5-pin switch. A instrumentality is included to make it easy to deconstruct each move down to the bottommost furniture covering the PCB.

I’ll only ever scratch the aboveground of what’s imaginable pinch the Stream Deck. The instrumentality started retired arsenic a companion for streamers connected Twitch, truthful there’s a bevy of resources — ready-made drop-in assets to make your watercourse look much professional, immoderate for free, immoderate for a interest — from Elgato and different developers. For conscionable being a group of buttons and knobs, the possibilities pinch this mature cross-platform ecosystem are vast, and those who really pat into it will get a batch retired of the Galleon.

Even for those who usage the Stream Deck much casually, $350 for the convenience of a two-in-one merchandise is not a unspeakable price. It’s a luxury I don’t deliberation is worthy upgrading to if you’re already happy pinch your keyboard aliases your existent Stream Deck. If you request 1 of the ingredients, aliases both, this all-in-one, single-cable gadget is conscionable a really cool thing.