The FNATIC Streak is a second generation keyboard released by the British eSports company themselves. Technically made by Func, a Swedish manufacturer that is actually owned by FNATIC, the Streak is probably one of the best gaming keyboards that money can buy right now. Let me tell you why.
The FNATIC Switch keyboard uses an all aluminium chassis giving it a very sturdy build quality. FNATIC have decided to go with several switches depending on tastes which are Reds, Blues, Browns and even something called Silent Red which I have on mine. The silent part basically means they’re silent to press, so aren’t very distracting to others in the room, especially if you’re touch typing.
The keys are very well made, and gives a decent amount of resistance so you have to make a slight effort to hit each key. Great for gaming and great if you go to press a key you didn’t mean to, like use medipack instead of reloading in Battlefield V. It’s a full QWERTY keyboard with number pad on the right and a set of very interesting function keys. The first and one that I think is unique is the chance to turn off the functions on the F keys so they act as F keys rather than functions like play/pause and macro keys.
Other functions include a volume wheel, a mute button for both speakers and even microphone to hide yourself from conversation in Discord and the other is game mode, which dims the keys to a colour of your choice and disables the Windows key so there are no mishits inside games at crucial moments.
The whole thing measures at around 44cm wide, and 22cm deep if you include the included wrist rest set at its furthest setting. The keyboard itself is only 15cm deep so all around a great size to have on the desk and even carry around with you. The FNATIC Switch can produce full RGB playback as zones or a nice fade pattern which is the best one in my opinion.
The whole keyboard looks and feels a little basic, but I don’t think that’s in a bad way. There are some quirks, like I love the fact the F keys are displayed on the side of the key rather than the top. The keys are also very bright too which is nice for people like me with sub-par eyesight. It’s not an eyesore when it comes to branding either, with a FNATIC logo on the top left hand side and a small one on the space bar.
For your interface there are two USB cables, one for powering the keyboard itself and the other acting as a passthrough for the USB port on the back. Although I ran out of space on the back of my machine to use both, so I’m only using the one that powers the keyboard as I don’t need to plug another USB cable into the keyboard itself. But, it’s a nice feature that will save you scrabbling round the back of your machine to plug in something like a memory stick or external hard drive. I think FNATIC missed a trick not including a headphone passthrough though, that would have been very useful to have on the keyboard itself.
As for gaming performance, the keyboard when playing some Battlefield V is small enough to reach across the right half with my thumb, and the buttons felt reactive enough in-game. I like Red switches, and have been a fan for the past few years since changing over to mechanical keyboards. The smooth actuation of each key for me is perfect for playing games, as I like to use a bit of pressure to strike each key, rather than having keys that bottom out or make a load of noise. This keyboard is especially great too if you’re going to be recording your gameplay footage or stream, as your microphone will be very hard pressed to pick up the noise of these keys.
So, for a very modest price of 129 Euros which is about £112 pound according to Google is a pretty good selling point considering gaming keyboards of this calibre with Cherry MX Reds usually go for around £150 or there abouts. It’s a great, well designed, well built keyboard that’s likely to last you a very long time. And if it doesn’t you got a two year warranty from FNATIC to fall back on. For more information, head over to the FNATIC website.
