Vortex Race 3 Mechanical Keyboard with Cherry MX Brown Switches (UK Layout)

Product Information

The SP DSA profile of the keys offers very appreciable comfort. It is very consistent with the 75% format, giving a compact appearance. The use of PBT on the keys is a real plus when it comes to durability and comfort under the fingers. Top notch keyboard. Hits all the marks for build quality: anodized aluminium chassis, removable metal feet, switches mounted to a steel plate that isn't recessed which means easier cleaning, high quality dye sub PBT PSA keycaps, good stabilizers. The RGB LED quality is typical for computer components so you can't get the purest whites, but it is programmable and has good LED modes. Very nice compact layout too. This replaced my Drop CTRL keyboard and is far better. A green or red LED lights up under the right part of the Space key to indicate if your plan is in Colemak or Dvorak. Using the online MPC I generated a Vortex.cys file. According to the instructions I should copy this file to the keyboard (unplug keyboard and press "Fn+D"). This does not work. The use of various materials allows a suitable containment of noise pollution, even on a noisy switch of nature like the MX Blue is. Vortex offers a very extensive variety of switches to sit on your little or big fingers.

You can get it to work in the virtual machine using Virtual Box plus Windows 10 ISO, in the running VM window on bottom left you need to add your keyboard to list of filters and then you'll be able to upgrade the firmware on it. How it looks in the settings after you'll add it: The combination of keys Fn + R allows you to reset the key-codes if you have had fun creating your personal macros with full knowledge of the facts. However, Vortex is working on a web-based configurator called MPC for their keyboards. See the pictures above for example layouts of their other two keyboard lines (Poker and CORE) for a first impression on how it would look, and it would be similar for the Race 3 as well. While there is no release date provided, this will help provide full programmability to their keyboards. The icing on the cake: Vortex delivers a colorful set of keys to highlight individual keys and give your keyboard an original and vintage style. For Mac owners, there are also suitable keys.Love the keyboard. Perfect for work, now I just need a matching numpad and its the perfect setup for what I need it to do. There is a lot of misinformation on the importance of mechanical keyboards, as many users still consider them a thing of the past, but no. Good things never die. The Race 3’s outer case is aluminum. It appears to have been cast, finished with machine processes, and then anodized. Its overall finish is excellent, but a thin grayish line runs around the perimeter of the mechanical keyboard. If you’re an enthusiast who enjoys swapping keycap sets around on a regular basis, this probably isn’t the mechanical keyboard for you. I have successfully updated the firmware to V1.02.05 of my Vortex 3 Race (ISO-DE) using a macbook, virtualbox and a free win10 image.

If this sounds familiar, it is because this is the exact same procedure as on the Vortex Core and their Poker line of keyboards. Thus, there are once again some limitations. For instance, you cannot re-program the keys that allow you to toggle between layers. You also cannot re-program right Control since it is used to activate and exit programming mode. Interestingly, there are just a few accessories available. It comes with a detachable micro-USB/USB cable, screw feet, and a set of buttons in retro RGBY colors. Am I pressing the wrong buttons? Do I need a different firmware? There is a dedicated CORE_MPC firmware… For reference, my firmware before updating was 1.02.00, which was before Mac mode ( Pn + M) correctly put Cmd in its rightful spot:Press Fn + right Control to initiate programming. The right LED under the space bar will light up a steady blue.