The Aviva M8600 Gaming Mouse
May 5, 2011 - 06:04 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Gigabyte has joined in the attempts of many companies to convince gamers that wireless mice are cool. With 50 hours of battery life and 6500DPI sensor the Aviva M8600 sounds good on paper but until you get it on the mat you will never know how well it performs. Hardware Secrets were certainly impressed by its ambidexterity, they were just as uncomfortable using it with the left hand as with the right. No complaints about input lag though.
"Gamers usually shun wireless peripherals, always wary of a possible energy loss. No one wants to rummage around for a cable and lose an online match. With that in mind, Gigabyte has released a wireless gaming-grade mouse with a long lasting 50 hour battery that comes with an extra battery that you can rapidly switch. Besides those characteristics, the Aivia M8600 reaches 6,500 DPI and features a design for both right- and left-handed users, plus ten reprogrammable buttons. Let's talk first about its physical aspects and then test its wireless operation."
The Aivia K8100 Gaming Keyboard
The idea behind specialized “gaming keyboards” has been around for many years and there have been quite a few very successful designs introduced throughout this time. However, in the vast majority of cases these specialized products are usually nothing more than slightly modified standard keyboards with some extra “gaming” features tacked on. To us this always seemed counter intuitive as the needs of a hardcore PC gaming enthusiast tend to greatly differ from that of a typical end user.
To this end Gigabyte has created a new concept dubbed the “Advanced, Intuitive, and Versatile Interface Archetype” or AIVIA which has been designed from the ground up to focus primarily upon the distinct needs of gamers. Today we will be looking at the first AIVIA peripheral: the K8100, a keyboard with a unique set of features and specifications.
Unlike most other keyboards, the K8100 comes in an absolutely gigantic box. This isn’t due to an abundance of padding but rather because Gigabyte has designed an absolutely immense peripheral.
Before we look at the software on the accompanying installation CD we would like to make special note of the fact that Gigabyte has also included a water-proof silicone key protector, spare W, A, S, D keys and a even a key puller tool.
To be honest, we were absolutely in love with the improved Gigabyte GHOST software which accompanied our GM8000 Xtreme mouse, as it was as easy on the eyes as it was to use. A literal carbon copy of this software is used for the K8100 with a few modifications included for easier macro key programming.
The software interface consists of only one main screen and one secondary screen which simplifies things quite a bit when compared to other peripheral software. The main screen allows drag and drop “pre-built” macros into one of the 25 available slots. Each horizontal slot represents one of the five macro keys (and is labelled 1 through 5 at the top of this grid), with vertical rows representing each of the colour coded macro modes. This makes for an intuitive and easy to use visual setup as you just drag and drop the commands into areas which are the most convenient for your playing style. Meanwhile, the upper left hand corner not only tells you which mode you are in and customizing but it also uses a simple graph to represent how much onboard memory is left.
If the pre-built macros are not to your liking and something beyond the admittedly basic included macros is needed, the secondary screen is where that perfect custom macro can be built from the ground up. Simply pressing the big red “easy button” key in the upper right hand side of the main screen (aptly called Macro Editor) opens up a large secondary screen for this custom macro building. Inputting custom key settings meanwhile is a thing of beauty since a few clicks is all that’s needed to start defining scripts.
This really is one of the best software suites we have ever seen accompanying a gaming keyboard since both prebuilt along with some extremely heavy handed custom macro designs can be implemented with absolute ease. As an added bonus, a single installation of the GHOST software is compatible with any supporting peripherals so both keyboards and mice can be controlled through the same interface.
Hardware Canucks review for the Gigabyte Aivia K8100 Gaming Keyboard
May 5, 2011 - 06:04 PM | Jeremy Hellstrom
Gigabyte has joined in the attempts of many companies to convince gamers that wireless mice are cool. With 50 hours of battery life and 6500DPI sensor the Aviva M8600 sounds good on paper but until you get it on the mat you will never know how well it performs. Hardware Secrets were certainly impressed by its ambidexterity, they were just as uncomfortable using it with the left hand as with the right. No complaints about input lag though.
"Gamers usually shun wireless peripherals, always wary of a possible energy loss. No one wants to rummage around for a cable and lose an online match. With that in mind, Gigabyte has released a wireless gaming-grade mouse with a long lasting 50 hour battery that comes with an extra battery that you can rapidly switch. Besides those characteristics, the Aivia M8600 reaches 6,500 DPI and features a design for both right- and left-handed users, plus ten reprogrammable buttons. Let's talk first about its physical aspects and then test its wireless operation."
The Aivia K8100 Gaming Keyboard
To this end Gigabyte has created a new concept dubbed the “Advanced, Intuitive, and Versatile Interface Archetype” or AIVIA which has been designed from the ground up to focus primarily upon the distinct needs of gamers. Today we will be looking at the first AIVIA peripheral: the K8100, a keyboard with a unique set of features and specifications.
Unlike most other keyboards, the K8100 comes in an absolutely gigantic box. This isn’t due to an abundance of padding but rather because Gigabyte has designed an absolutely immense peripheral.
Before we look at the software on the accompanying installation CD we would like to make special note of the fact that Gigabyte has also included a water-proof silicone key protector, spare W, A, S, D keys and a even a key puller tool.
To be honest, we were absolutely in love with the improved Gigabyte GHOST software which accompanied our GM8000 Xtreme mouse, as it was as easy on the eyes as it was to use. A literal carbon copy of this software is used for the K8100 with a few modifications included for easier macro key programming.
If the pre-built macros are not to your liking and something beyond the admittedly basic included macros is needed, the secondary screen is where that perfect custom macro can be built from the ground up. Simply pressing the big red “easy button” key in the upper right hand side of the main screen (aptly called Macro Editor) opens up a large secondary screen for this custom macro building. Inputting custom key settings meanwhile is a thing of beauty since a few clicks is all that’s needed to start defining scripts.
This really is one of the best software suites we have ever seen accompanying a gaming keyboard since both prebuilt along with some extremely heavy handed custom macro designs can be implemented with absolute ease. As an added bonus, a single installation of the GHOST software is compatible with any supporting peripherals so both keyboards and mice can be controlled through the same interface.
Hardware Canucks review for the Gigabyte Aivia K8100 Gaming Keyboard
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