The Belkin n52te Razer - Programmable joystick and keypad

Belkin are well known for their computer peripherals (keyboards, mice, routers etc.).  Here we review one of their latest gaming devices to see if it can be used to help people with limited movement to take on mouse and keyboard tasks.

The Razer has a total of 15 programmable buttons with the ability to have them work in 3 modes (or Keymaps), giving a total of 45 programmable buttons in total. In addition, the Razer also has a joystick that is situated under the thumb.

Aesthetically, the Razer looks pretty cool, with sweeping curves and a cool blue back-light. However, the unit is set up for left-hand use only.

Programmability

The Razer comes with its own setup panel that allows you to assign any of the following to each button:

Single key press, mouse button, cursor direction, load profile, basic and additional commands, media functions, load program and disable button.

Single key press allows you to assign a single key press emulation to each button. Mouse button allows you to assign left and right mouse button clicks. Cursor direction is best assigned to the joystick to allow the joystick to move the cursor. Basic and additional commands are pre-programmed tasks such as copy, paste and cut etc.. Media buttons take on such tasks as Play, Rewind and Pause. Load programme allows you to launch a programme from a button press. Disable button allows you to disable buttons in such cases as a user accidentally pressing a certain button.

Once you have assigned all the buttons that you wish to assign, you can save them as a profile. The addition of having a button being assigned to load one of these profiles, means that you can use multiple profiles, in theory giving you hundreds of programmable buttons. 

If I work with say 3 programs, Internet Explorer to surf the web, Windows Mail for my email and Microsoft Word for writing letters. I may want to program the keys for Internet Explorer so that each button carries out a specific task such as new window, move back a page, move forward a page, go to home page etc. When I’ve finished assigning all the buttons to the tasks, I can save the setup under a profile called Internet. Then I do exactly the same in Windows Mail, examples maybe new message, send message, go to inbox and so on. I will then save this setup under the name Mail. I would then do exactly the same for Word and call the setup (profile) something like Word. By then assigning each profile to a spare button I can toggle between them at will as I toggle between the programs. Since each profile can have 3 different key maps, this makes 15 buttons times 3 keymaps time 3 profiles equalling 125 programmable buttons!

Macros

Too much information? I’ve hardly started! A macro is a term for a pre-determined set of instructions. With the Razer, this means we can record a sequence of key presses and save them to assign to one of the buttons. Time for another example I think:

Let’s say we want to be able to save a document and then close the window in 1 key press. To do this, we select ‘macro’ from the button assign menu which will open the macro editor. Then we press the Record button. Next we would perform the task using key strokes (if you know them), which for this example would be ctrl+S, followed by ctrl+W and then press the Stop button. We now have the key presses displayed in the macro editor and if we want to get even more ‘nerdy’  we can alter the delay timings between key presses and then we save the macro with a name like ‘Save and Close’.

When we go back to selecting an action to assign to a button, Save and Close will be available to choose from. If we assign this to button number 5, then each time button number 5 is pressed in Word, our file will be saved and the window closed with a single button press.

So, is it any good?

As far as I see it, the jury is still out. I’m sure there will be some people out there who would find the n52te an excellent addition, though they maybe few and far between. Having said that, I have never come across a programmable keypad that can have so many potential keys available to program.

If someone has good motor control in their left hand but limited or no use of their left and/or right arm, then this could well be a very useful tool. For gaming, I’m sure it’s an excellent tool.

If you have the symptoms mentioned above, you would struggle (to say the least) with a keyboard and although this isn’t a complete alternative to using an on-screen keyboard, it could be a nice addition, especially for those games that require fast reactions, complex keyboard combinations or multiple actions, or to open programs or carry out other repetitive tasks at the press of a button.

The recording of the macros only record key strokes and not any actions that are carried out using the mouse. This makes recording certain tasks difficult. I wanted to slow down the cursor speed by recording a macro and then assigning it to a key.

To do this I had to set the software recording and then, using key strokes only, navigate through the Windows menu to the control panels, then use press the ‘m’, ‘o’ and then ‘u’ keys to highlight the mouse control panel. I then pressed the enter key and then tabbed through to the cursor speed tab and used the arrow keys to alter the speed. This took a fair bit of research and resulted in a macro that takes about 10 seconds to execute.

The cost

The cost of the Razer n52te starts from around £35 and can be purchased from various online outlets.