I really dig keyboards, prolly ‘cause they destroyed several of my hands back in the days. Nowadays I stick with my Confort Curve 2000 and a custom gel wrist rester.

This must be why I was thrilled to test this brand new baby coming from “Proville”, Gameland country.

Razer did fine with their line of mice : Great sensors, nice design and many “pro” features such as glowing lights. However, i find them a tad bit small. They also started making keyboards, so Microsoft decided to team up with them after the Habu mouse. Enters the “Reclusa”.



Because you can pretty much find good optical sensors anywhere, building a strong mouse requires implementing such profeatures, and that’s just what Logitech and Microsoft started doing.

The Reclusa expresses the same concept : A very nice keyboard with Microsoft values (that is, very strong) and Razer tweaks.



I can’t say the Reclusa spells revolution but it does ehance your everyday keyboard (you wont find no curves in the actual typing area) and add ‘those’ features.

Along the usual keys you’ll find plenty of customizable ones, as well as a DVD eject button, and a couple dial jogs : Again, plenty.

The config tools makes custom profiles easy and you can even ajust the response delay in millisecs or make macros.

The right Jog typically is used for sound volume and you can pretty much decide what to do with the other.







There are External curves but the key area remains squareSpeaking of custom keys, theyre pretty close to the rest of the keyboard so be prepared for unhappy slipping once in a while until you’re getting used to it (we’re talking pinky reeducation here).

Overall quality

The backlighting is pretty faint in a good way, so it will make your room definitely cooler but wont kill your eyes.

One of the best features is definitely its strong grip on the desk. The Reclusa Is a heavy machine and chances are it wont ever slip. Kudos for that one. The wrist rester Is also pretty cool with some leather thingy fabric covering it.

It also has a couple USB I/O as well as gold on its plug. The keys are soft but not mellow, the plastic is good but that retro keyboard feel I do rebuke. The keys are pretty high which contradicts the confort feel of other MS keyboards but remains true to gaming’s tradition : You cant really mess with the keyboard’s layout once it becomes an instrument of sharp precision. Ironically it was Microsoft who sold me to that whole ergonomics hype. Hey, whatever works for you.

Overall, they did an amazing job but could you really expect less from Razer And Microsoft ?

The game experience is pretty rewarding : Night playing becomes a marvel (thanx to the glowing light). Be prepared for night of the Mosquitos tho, ill just leave it at that.

Classy looking but top notch, it bears no resemblance with Logitech’s G15 and is aimed at a slightly more casual public, at least thats my wild guess here.

Plus’es :

• Prestigious features


• Quite heavy


• Everything but flashy looking (bar the lights)


• 2 Bonus USB ports


• Nice wrist rester

Minuses :

• Left custom keys are awfully close to the rest of the keyboard (particularly hazardous in First person shooters). You get used to it pretty fast tho.


• Why the lateral custom keys (theres plenty of unused space on top) ?


• The big fat glossy curve on top is a real dust trap.

Couple pics with lights on :



Backlighting’s pretty sweet



Conclusion :