Belkin n52te SpeedPad game controller

Well after a long, long wait Belkin have spawned a new addition to their flock of excellent game controllers....Behold, the n52te:

First things first, I love my original Belkin Nostromo n52. I can't think of a game where it doesn't make a massive difference...speeding up game play, adding functionality (macros macros macros!), and really helping you immerse in your games, which is what it's all about eh? 

So here's the n52e. The shape will be very familiar to n52 owners, but the addition of blue LED backlighting is purely eye-candy - the thing's laid out so you don't have to look at it. But who doesn't love eye-candy?

As part of their new affiliation with Razer, Belkin have added onboard RAM to cater for LAN gamers who like to take their profiles and setups with them - useful for internet cafes and more importantly Tournaments - hence the TE in the name. I like to think the E stands for "Eviscerator".

The release of the shiny new n52te SpeedPad has brought with it some other points of note: 

a) I'm overjoyed that this release has also meant that working drivers for Vista 64 have been released for the old n52....

b) I like the sound of the soft-touch wrist pad, but it might have the potential to get sweaty - I need to road-test one really and I'll re-write this page once I've got my hand(s) one one.

c) ...and it's a minor point, I don't use the scroll wheel on my n52 so seeing it reappear on the n52te isn't a major boon for me (seeing as it's a duplication of your mouse wheel). I would much rather have some kind of switch to toggle between the key-sets, or simply another standard key there. That's just me though.

 
Update - 22 January

Watch this space as I should be putting a shiny new n52te through its paces in the next few weeks. I'm sweating salty anticipation from every pore.

...Who's going to be first up though? Will it be Team Fortress 2? Bioshock? Counterstrike Source? Is it time even to dust off the old WoW subscription?

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