Gamescom: Razer Deathstalker Ultimate

When was the last time you really looked at your keyboard? Sure, you might glare at it angrily when you fail to stab that crucial hotkey or mess up an infuriating jumping puzzle. But most of the time it remains largely ignored, an invisible slab of plastic protrusions that act as an interface into our virtual worlds.

In order to make our keyboards more useful, there’s been a growing trend to attach small displays, providing anything from health and mana in MMOs, to a running count of the number of unopened emails residing in our inboxes. These tiny LCD screens can be a real boon to those of us without a second monitor perched on their desk.

Entering this arena of beefed up button boxes is the Deathstalker Ultimate. Representing the top of Razer’s range of keyboards, this sleek, low-profile keyboard sports a whopping 4” LCD display, which also doubles up as a digital trackpad. Using the Switchblade technology unveiled at CES last year, there are ten LED keys supplementing this micro-monitor, each of which has a tiny screen sitting beneath it. Your fireball key can finally have a picture of a fireball underneath it.