The new backlit Sager Keyboard

This question is to anyone who has received there units or any reseller that has experimented with it.

I am interested in the keyboards operation and the options available to customize it. I love a backlit keyboard because I find my Dell E6400 backlit invaluable.

Is the keyboard backlit "all the time" or is there an option to have it come on ONLY when a key is depressed? The Dell has the option to only come on when you press a key, thereby saving your battery and the life of the keyboard lights. I had the MSI/PowerPro and I could not find an option to simply turn the lights on when I needed them.

 

Hey

There is no option to only turn on the lights when you press a key, the best you can do is turn off and on the backlighting via a specific key combo.

thanks

 

Thanks for the heads up.

 

Yes, these are programmable in different patterns. When the machine goes to sleep, the keyboard lights also dim.

 

Thanks Michael, it sounds exactly like the SteelSeries keyboard that I had on the PowerPro/MSI.

 

Close, but fewer color choices to a degree. The SteelSeries keyboard has ~24 different color variations, basically 7 colors with 4 shades (28 by that, granted) where the Sager seemed to only have 8 solid colors from my observation.

Either keyboard looks and feels nice though. And the interface is a bit different for color changing.

 

You can access these features by hitting Function key and the 'lighting features' button located above the 8 on the right side number pad.

Once there, you actually have 8 color options in the 3 different sections. So technically there is a lot of different ways to set it. It's actually the same company that manufactures the Steel Series MSI keyboards. It's very even, functional and the letters are translucent as well. So, they really pop!

Across the top of available features it reads:
Dance, Tempo, Flash, Wave, Breath, Cycle, Custom

The 'Dance' feature sets to lights to bounce on and off and flicker. Kind of cool, but somewhat frantic for me.

The 'Breathing' feature is kind of neat, as it slowly burns in and out.

All in all, pretty awesome!

 

I'm curious about the new backlit keyboard. Someone must have been asked about it before, but is the old keyboard replaceable with the backlit ones?

 

^
Nope, physically incompatible.

 

Nope, the new backlit keyboards are taller and also require a power connection. Both of which keep it from working on the older HM models.

 

Does that mean that they'll work on the non backlit EM1 models?

 

Quick question, a bit related... keyboard lighting can only be configured from the included Windows program right? Is there any default option for when you are using Linux?