Belkin's Nostromo n50 SpeedPad
Pros:
Ergonomically designed to fit the hand, Good software, comfortable, cheap
Cons:
Throttle wheel, made for right hand, quantity of buttons
The Bottom Line:
If your a dedicated gamer, get this, if your not then I wouldn't really recommend it
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Overall Rating:
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Author's Review
I ordered the Speedpad about 3 months ago in hopes that it will improve my gaming significantly. Also after hearing it obtained a 90% from PCGamer Magazine. When I received the product, inside the box I found the n50, software, and a helpful instruction manual. The n50 connects via a usb cable.
Anyway, on to the speedpad...
The pad itself come with a layout of a total of 10 button, 5 on top and 5 below. The n50 also includes a throttle wheel and a D-pad. The nice thing about this Speedpad is the ergonomics as it fits the hand perfectly with its nice comfortable palm rest : D. The pad part, it's made for a right hand user. Sorry lefties :(
The Speedpad comes with a single CD with it's software which I found very helpful. The software includes a program which allows you to set functions and even macro's for the speedpad for different games. Macro's are a combination of different functions assigned to a single key, as you probably know. The software allows you to do this and even stick delays between the functions, which comes in handy at times. There is also this other variation. For example you can set the 01 key to activate a red light which can retrieve a whole new configuration made to the Speedpad by you. There are a total of three lights meaning one is able to set functions to over 30 keys! It's weird to explain, you will see if you buy it.
Now to the games. I tried it with certain FPS games like Half-Life, Quake 3 Arena and UT03. While I find that it is comfortable, there just aren't enough buttons on the pad. For example one will need a whole row of button to switch weapons in a FPS game but with only two rows of buttons this can't be accomplished. In that case, I find myself switching back to the keyboard to play many of my games.
About the throttle wheel and the D-pad. Lets just say I never used the throttle wheel because it forces me to have to take my index finger of a button in order to reach it which. This I find annoying. I find the D-pad useful at times although I rarely use it.
I did try to with other games such as Starcraft and Diablo. In these two games particularly I found the Speedpad useful.
Extreme gamers will find this useful as they have the ability to create macro's that will give them an advantage in a game. However, if your not a dedicated gamer, you will not find this very useful.
One more thing, I have found this useful for other functions not found in games. Be creative
Overall though, I have found this to serve it's purpose. And for only $20.00, it's definitely a great value!
