So ... I'm looking to get a new keyboard soon. The two that I've had my eye on are the Saitek Eclipse II and the Logitech G11 (the LCDless G15). Both keyboards are about the same price (the G11 is about $10 more on Newegg).

I'd like to hear from current owners of either of these boards (or G15 owners, since I think the only difference is the LCD). I know a lot of people will recommend the G11.

Some things that I like better about the Saitek:
• Lights on the left and right side of the board to light up my desk (a big plus for me).
• 3 colors, as opposed to 1 on the G11 (I'd like to set the board to the color of the team I'm playing on, as I do with my Flexiglow Fx Gamepad).

Things I like better about the G11:
• The individually lit keys look a lot nicer (at least in the pics I've seen) than the Saitek lighting (any Eclipse or Eclipse II owners want to post a good pic for me of the board in the dark?)
• The G macro keys (can these only be used for gaming macros, or can they be used on the desktop too?). I think I would probably only use the macro keys for UT2004, so it might just be a waste of desk space for me.

So ... G11/G15 and Eclipse I/II owners ... I need your help.

I have the Saitek Eclipse II keyboard. My Pros and Cons about the keyboard are:

Pros: No drivers needed because it is a standard keyboard, three LED colors plus dimmer knob. I think they fix the problem of the letters fading on the keys. I have own the keyboard over 3 months+ and the letters (W,A,S,D) have not faded....look good. USB cable is long enough.

I think it comes with two USB ports...I never use it though so cant say for sure.
UPDATE: There is no USB ports FYI

Cons: The pink LED makes the letter characters stand out better @ night; the blue and red LED is kinda hard to read if you need to look down at your keys (The brightness knob turned up to the max). Standard keyboard keys....no Internet button or media player buttons. No instructions - took me a while to figure out what toggles the lights on.

When the PC boots, the keyboard turns the blue led on by default - not sure if that is a pro or con

I own a Saitek Eclipse 1 and used to own a Logitech Media Keyboard, and well I can say that I dont miss the programable keys. I like how the keyboard has the letters and stuff on the keys etched out of the paint on the keys so it doesnt wipe away, the keys are textured so they feel nice and uhhh its alright in the night, not the best because its only Blue

quick question bot does the Eclipse II work in before windows boots say if you need to get to the bios because that is one of my only complaints with my Eclipse it gets irritating haveing to steal my brothers keyboard just to get into my bios

Set your BIOS to enable USB Keyboard so you can use it.

i jsut go the eclipse II and during the load up and bios it works fine. but once windows loads up the lights flash 3 times then it turns off and stops working. the saitek support pages are NOOO help at all. so i figured i would try here.

lawrence bloss said:

Did your old keyboard require drivers? What OS are you running? If so you may want to uninstall the old drivers. The Saitek Eclipse II is a standard USB keyboard, so it doesn't require drivers after you physically hook it up to your PC (thats if you running MS Windows).
Like Sean said check your BIOS, also go to Control Panel + Keyboard + Hardware tab to see what your current keyboard is....either something in your PC is not set right or bad keybroad.

My puter sees my S.E.II as an Ideazon Zboard USB Keyboard....it works for me

old keyboard is a plug and play wireless logitech. os is windows xp. the saitek is recognized in device manager as an "unknown usb device" ive enabled usb keyboard liek previously mentioned and that didnt help...i know for sure its somthing with a setting somewhere, jsut because my computer is dumb like that. it always gives me a hassle when installing new stuff,, mostly becasue my mother board is old. but i dont see why the saitek works in the load up and to go through the bios but once windows loads it stops.

Wow, I just yesterday got the Saitek Eclipse II. More than a year later, lol ...

Anyway, I love it. Recommended. The 3-color lighting is great, matches my mousepad perfectly for setting a team color to red or blue. I'll post some pics in the morning.

Pictures:

Red: http://img297.imageshack.us/img297/9712/seiiredck1.jpg
Blue: http://img297.imageshack.us/img297/9671/seiibluece5.jpg
I'll never again forget what team I'm on.

And purple: http://img297.imageshack.us/img297/3897/seiipurplekl9.jpg

I have the G11 and I think it's the best keyboard ever!

I've owned the original G-15, the Saitek Eclipse 1, and now I own the newer version G-15.

I liked both the Eclipse and the newer G-15.

Problem i've had with the Eclipse is the keys wearing down so you couldn't see them anymore.

Problem with the original G-15 is that thing was HUGE.

Now I own the newer (smaller) G-15 and completely love it. The LCD is great, there is so many things it can do as well as download new programs for the LCD screen. I love the fact it actually shows the usage on all 4 cores of my processor.

If you can't get the G-15 I would definitely say the Saitek. As long as the keys dont wear down like the earlier models.

Apparently that was a big complaint about the Eclipse I, so they laser-etched in the keys. All the reviews from people I've seen who've owned the Eclipse II longer than a year or so say they haven't noticed any wearing.

I have the original G15, and I too love how it shows all four cores with the cpu/ram usage monitoring program (using software 2.02), I wasn't expecting it to do that. It's nice to see what games use just one core, what games can use two, and what games can use all four.

I was decided on the Saitek Eclipse II originally but when I ordered it, the G15 was $2 cheaper on Newegg, so I went with it and it's great. I wish I had the option for different colors, but blue is probably what I would have kept my Eclipse II on most of the time if I was to get that one instead.

Yeah I have a Saitek Eclipse II it's pretty damn awesome. I especially like to put red lights when I go in strength mode in Crysis, even though my mouse and pc have blue leds. I had a problem where the "T" key wasn't typing smoothly you had to press it hard on the upper left corner so it would read it. I disassemble it and reorganized the rubber board thing, it's working perfectly now.

Yeah, blue is what I'm leaving it on when I'm using the desktop. But for gaming, you can't beat turning the lights down low and setting the keyboard and the mousepad to a team color.