My first experience with optical switches was with this very Bloody Gaming brand over three years ago, and it has been interesting to see others adopt optical switches in the time since - Tesoro, Wooting, and soon Cooler Master and Gigabyte, based on products seen at CES. A4Tech, and their gaming brand Bloody, have been mostly content with a niche market in Asia for a while now, but recently ramped up their presence in North America to where new products launch simultaneously here compared to other regions, if not even earlier at times. Take this very B945 keyboard, for example. Most people were made aware of it via CES coverage just over a month ago and now, it is already available for purchase on Amazon.com in both switch options. The TKL B930 and standard full-size B975 are similarly available as well, and the addition of new marketing and technical personnel for the western market will go a long way here.

That really was the crux of their problem, with either no one knowing about the brand or dismissing it based solely on the brand name and logo. The latter remains a challenge, but a different logo shown off at CES will help. In the meantime, they are standing by their products and openly picking a fight with the giants of the enthusiast keyboard market. With their third generation of LK Light Strike optical switches, the new LK Orange and LK Mocha provide alternatives to counter the Cherry MX Blue and MX Red respectively, which also happen to be the most popular switches today. There are some inherent advantages to these optical switches over the standard mechanical switches which we discussed in the review, and the added dust and spill resistance to the entire keyboard make it a durable product for end users.

The software driver is a hit and also a miss in that the key assignment, macro and combo sections are extremely feature-rich to the point where these peripherals have had certain complex actions created and stored onboard to.. not be detected by anti-cheat programs, which is putting it mildly. However, this also means that there are several other applications for these options, and here, Bloody has the upper hand over most competitors. What lets it down is that woefully lacking RGB backlighting section, be it via the software or even onboard controls, to where the target gaming audience will look at other, flashier options for the money.

At $150, this is going to be a tough sell, although the three-year warranty does help. In fact, Bloody is considering implementing a lifetime warranty as well, and I am sure they would appreciate your feedback on this. As it stands now, Bloody has done a lot of things right, and yet some things remain that have not been changed in over two years. A revamped logo, updated software driver, and hard copy of the driver manual included in the packaging will help here. But that would just be the icing on top of the cake that is already present as I feel there is enough on offer to interest many a keyboard enthusiast and gamer alike, especially with the rarely seen left numpad location for a potential ergonomic benefit.