STEELSERIES APEX 3

A competent, affordable keyboard for membrane fans

THIS IS THE BLACK SHEEP of SteelSeries’s Apex line, a lone membrane keyboard in a collection of mechanical offerings. It is by far the cheapest Apex keyboard, costing just 50 bucks (every other Apex keyboard costs upwards of $100), and it’s easy to see why: This is the toned-down version of the Apex chassis, a simplified model that forgoes per-key illumination and the little OLED smart display that defines its fellow keyboards.

That’s not to say that the Apex 3 isn’t a great product. This sensibly priced keyboard definitely still has the build quality of the pricier Apex keyboards, with a sturdy polymer casing and durable keycaps. It comes with a snapon magnetic wrist rest with a matte, rubberized surface, and includes the same metal scroll wheel and button for quick media controls. This doesn’t feel remotely flimsy; it’s a weighty, wellconstructed product.

The substitutes are generally acceptable alternatives for a cheaper product. Instead of fully addressable RGB lighting on every key, the translucent plastic panel beneath the keys is broken into 10 bright lighting zones. If all the aesthetics you want are a gently shifting rainbow pattern or solid color, then the Apex 3 is perfectly capable of that. While the diminutive OLED multimedia control display that defines the Apex line is missing from this model, we don’t really notice its absence, since the physical media controls are still present.

One change that the Apex 3 does lose points on is its new key switches. While the more expensive Apex keyboards solely use mechanical switches with a variety of switch types, the Apex 3 uses SteelSeries’s "Whisper Quiet" membrane keys. These switches are true to their name, producing very little noise even compared to similar membrane keyboards. Even fast touchtyping is quiet. If you’re planning on using your computer in a shared environment, it could be ideal.

However, these keys are somewhat squishy when pressed, lacking the satisfying physical feedback of SteelSeries’s other mechanical keyboards. Using a membrane keyboard also means you don’t have totally independent N-key rollover, so there’s a limit to the number of keypresses that can be simultaneously processed. While it’s comfortable enough to type with, the Apex 3 certainly doesn’t provide the snappy sensation needed for high-stakes online gaming. The keys require a decent amount of pressure to register input, which will be preferred by some typists and hated by others. The Whisper Quiet keys are also only rated for 20 million keypresses, which sounds like a lot, but is less than half the lifetime of the average modern mechanical key.

There’s no USB passthrough or removable power cable here, which is a shame—and another pair of features that gamers will most likely miss. On the flip side, the 10-zone RGB can be set up to react with colorful effects to games or Discord, like a whole-keyboard pulse of white when you receive a notification. The tri-directional cable-routing solution on the underside is exactly the same as you’ll see in other Apex keyboards, and it remains a brilliant yet simple desk-tidying tool that we wish other manufacturers would take note of.

The last touted feature of the Apex 3 is its IP32 durability rating.

The membrane keyboard is actually what enables this, since it seals off the electrical components of the board. IP32 is an international standard specifically for water and dust resistance, and SteelSeries assured us that while it won’t survive a dip in the ocean, the Apex 3 should be completely unaffected if we spill our Redbull on it. It even has built-in drainage holes in the bottom!

The Apex 3 isn’t going to set the world on fire, but if you prefer membrane to mechanical keys, it’s an excellent and reasonably priced option. The quiet keys were certainly enjoyed by this reviewer’s partner during testing (it’s now back to the clattering of mechanical keys for them). Yes, it’s somewhat feature-light, but for $50 we can hardly complain.