The Contenders
Belkin Nostromo n50 SpeedPad
This is Belkin’s solution to replacing the keyboard with a more ergonomic and tailor made solution for games. It features 10 keyboard style buttons, 3 of which can be used as shift buttons allowing 10, 18, 24 or possible 28 functions to be performed. It also has an 8 way D-Pad which allows the user to bind actions and function to all 8 directions. Finally there is a wheel rather like you’d find on a joystick for a simple throttle, this can be split into bands and each of these can also be assigned actions to perform.
Thrustmaster Tactical Board
Thrustmaster have gone all out on this item, to start with there are a number of positions it can be arranged into to suit a broad range of users. There is a huge plethora of buttons (close to 50) arranged into “Zones” (Action, Thumb, Communications and Commands). It is bigger and includes a built in communications section for Voice over net in games and is designed more as a one stop complete game controller rather than a peripheral to used alongside a keyboard..
Ferraro Claw
The Claw is a product that comes all the way from Australia and it is designed to be as ergonomic as possible and so is contoured plastic shell is shaped to fit the human hand, with all the buttons lying just under the fingertips or within easy reach. It is slick looking and jet black and with its unique shape either going to be highly ergonomic or totally unusable. There are only ten buttons up to 4 shifts can be set as well as a “toggle shift.”
