Click, clack and lots of colorful light – the Cougar Attack X3 RGB in short test

1 - Unboxing und technische Daten 2 - NKRO, Ghosting und Jamming 3 - Taster, Funktionstest und Fazit

After all, even a few years after the rise in popularity of mechanical keyboards, the prices of most devices have not fallen significantly. Sure, you can now even get illuminated input devices with Kailh buttons from approx. 60 Euro, but if you want a keyboard with MX buttons from Cherry, you can still reach a little deeper into your pocket.

120 Euros for an RGB keyboard with freely programmable colors for lighting and transparent Cherry MX switches are of course neither a price sensation nor a groundbreaking technical novelty, but in terms of design and ease of use, Cougar wants to appropriate ODM product will then stand out a little from the competitors.

Delivery

The accessories for a 120-euro keyboard are a bit barren, because apart from the thin handbooklet you get virtually nothing. A real palm print is not available, but should be included in the 2018 model. That, in turn, does not help us at the moment, but it gives us hope. You won't get a cap puller next year. The software required for optical individualization and macro assignment must first be downloaded from the homepage.

Unboxing: Optics and Haptics

The body made of an injection mould relies on matt trimmed plastic as the base, but is visually and haptically enhanced with a thin aluminium plate. The fact that it is not a real aluminium unibody does not bother much at this price. The silver-metallic and brushed surface reflects and scatters the key lighting quite neatly thanks to the structure. You can like it, but you don't have to. In any case, it is also really bright and you can immediately see any food residues between the buttons, which in turn are free enough to ensure order and cleanliness by means of Blasius

However, Cougar's keyboard does not have separate multimedia or macro keys and you have to be content with the standard keyboard layout. The accessibility of the multimedia functions is given via multi-occupied standard buttons and you can also assign macros by means of software. The function key quickly becomes the fulcrum. But it sits exactly where the Windows key is normally located. So you usually have to get used to it first.

The back shows quite well where the ODM has assembled the housing parts. The construction of the upper plate and cover, as well as the buttons and the board, sits in a kind of shell, which at the same time also realizes side walls and floor. Of course, it is then screwed on from below.

The usual, ergonomically sensible gradation and arrangement of the buttons can be achieved via a slight slope in the body, the key caps shaped to match the respective row and the optional set-up feet

These set-up feet are also made of plastic, but they look reasonably solid. Slip resistance can be achieved by rubbering the installation edge. Unfortunately, the rather simple folding mechanism does not allow several pitchangles.

The approx. 1.8 meter long and textile-coated connection cable is relatively rigid and ends in two USB plugs, at least one of which must always be plugged in. With full LED lighting (white, 100%) we measure in the peaks just over 550 mA, often too much for a simple USB 2.0 port. This is exactly why you can use the secondary connector in parallel if the device is too weak or Windows is too tricky to monitor the currents.