Performance

The Cooler Master ControlPad supports N-key rollover USB out of the box, which tested successfully using Aqua's test. Given there are fewer switches and the intended analog control on each, I doubt NKRO is really on anyone's minds anyway. Switch Hitter confirmed no chatter with these keys either, and you can see which key functions are used by default. Except for the 22-key, which toggles through the backlighting options instead of being the Windows key, the layout as it first connects to Windows is of the left-most keys on a regular keyboard with a US ANSI layout.


When first connected, the ControlPad lights up with all keys set to a static purple. As mentioned above, a toggle switch gets you going with lighting effects, static or dynamic. The first custom effect includes per-key lighting, which helps test for light bleed, and it was definitely present at the common edges because of the floating keycaps. I then set all the keys to white using the software driver to test for color fidelity since RGB LEDs have a hard time depicting white, and it was a white with a light pink hue in this case.

Here are some more of the lighting effects demonstrated, including a rainbow wave, rain (drop), and color wave, making full use of the hardware and software alike. As there are fewer keys here some of the dynamic effects look hilariously funny, at least to me.


Cooler Master and Aimpad have an exclusive licensing agreement, which we saw with the MK850 keyboard before, but the ControlPad is a better implementation already in that there are actually enough keys to map to all the Xbox controller functions. We saw on the previous page how Cooler Master Portal integrates these with key mapping, and at the time of testing there is unfortunately an implementation to where you have to hold down the 03, 08, and 13 keys at the same time for a few seconds to toggle the Xbox controller functionality on and off. There is zero mention of this anywhere in the documentation, and the only way to know whether it worked is with Windows showing a notification of an Xbox One controller being set up with saved setting or by going into Device Manager to see if you suddenly have an Xbox controller as an added device. Once done, mapping the functions works fine.

Aimpad offers an Xbox controller test program as a free download on their website, and it allows you to test the range of analog control with Xbox controller actions. In the absence of dead zones and Aimpad sensitivity controls, at least at the time of this review, we do see venues for improvement in the range of operation. Most games are configured with a ~20% circular dead zone by default, although many do allow end users to configure this in-game as well. This is again a software and not a hardware issue, so it will hopefully be added sooner rather than later.

People who have used controllers, be it an XBOX or DualShock one, know about the advantage of analog control for movement. This is especially true in racing games—gone are the jerky on/off inputs for acceleration in particular, with much smoother input as well as finer control with turning. While controllers are also more typically used in third-person games purely because of the mouse advantage when it comes to first-person games, there are situations where having analog control over movement in FPS games can be useful, a typical example being stealth sections where AI behavior is often tied to the speed of the character's movement, which is translated into "noise". As long as a game supports the Xbox 360 controller, and many are listed with official support, Aimpad on the Cooler Master ControlPad is a piece of cake to use. Some games allow quick switching of KB+M and controllers, and others are even confused enough by it to allow analog motion via Aimpad with mouse-based camera movement for the best of both worlds. However, many games do not, either through a laggy transition from one to the other or just requiring the Xbox controller component to be turned off for features, including chat and pre-assigned controls that are discrete in nature. In the absence of a quick toggle between Xbox on/off and dual-action programmability, at least as I write this, the user experience could have been better. It is still a more useful analog keyboard product than the MK850, and yet it is not enough as a pure keyboard since it offers fewer keys. To this day, Wooting with a TKL/full-size keyboard with analog control on every single switch remains the best implementation, and Cooler Master will hopefully commit to making a proper Aimpad keyboard sooner rather than later.

Besides gaming, the ControlPad offers more functionality when it comes to applications from Adobe, as seen on the software page. This is supported further with optional keycap sets with specialized legends, and Cooler Master has an example video on how the Aimpad technology comes in handy there. Think of controlling a slider based on the travel distance of the switch, for example. Another proposed function is for imaging as a radiologist, which is perhaps a stretch from the same application subset as the others, but it is cool to see real-world applications beyond just gaming.

Given the limited number of keys, doing a sound test here makes little sense since I can barely type a full sentence in English on it. This perhaps is the biggest letdown of the ControlPad, in that it is still not a complete solution, but it was not intended to be one. It appeals to an extremely niche market, and yet there is enough of a market to have a pretty successful Kickstarter campaign, too. The use of linear switches is for the best in my opinion, although I am really interested to see if Cherry's new Viola switch would allow for better feedback given the split linear response, especially for those wanting a dual-action program on these switches.