Well a little bit later then expected but this is part 1 of a
multipart review. How many parts... I have no idea. Consider this an
overview from my perspective. My counterpart Cardnyl Sin will be going
into the n52 in more depth and testing more rigorously. My job though
is to tell you if this pad is manageable... Happily I can report that
most of the rumors I heard about this pad being unbalanced or that the
manufacturing was not up to snuff are false. After 2 weeks of testing
my only real gripe is the thumb button that doesn't seem to be as
responsive when mashed from different angles. I have fairly large
hands which places my thumb towards the outside of button 15.
The n52 was much easier to depress at any angle then the n52te. I have
found that Adjusting the hand rest of the n52te does help with this
problem. Simply pull up on the molded hand rest and move it back a
notch. Not perfect but I have noticed that I am much more accurate on
that button now. Adjusting the hand rest is something we never even
knew the n52 was capable of... and it took Cardnyl prying it apart
before we discovered what the box meant by adjustable.

My other gripe with the n52te was the software. Surprisingly missing a
shift state is not really that noticeable. The first version of the
software we received was a pain in the ass though. Took me several
tries to get everything synced up on the pad... and I was very unsure
how everything worked. However Joseph Lu from the Belkin Team has been
very responsive getting us new versions of the software as well as
taking in our concerns which we have actually seen corrected in later
versions. This is a huge change from the n52 which was simply released
and ideas and suggestions simply met the black hole of the internet and
disappeared. I love the fact that they have a dev team actively working
on their software... granted I still think it needs some usability
polish.

Now that I have my gripes out of the way I can go into what I like
about this pad. On the software end I love being able to set my
profile for World of Warcraft or Eve Online and forget it... If I take
it over to the girlfriends house or to a Lan and plug it in it works as advertised...
recognizes the game loads the profile and your playing. I love the
onboard storage idea. I used to keep a memory key with all the n52
drivers and software and my profiles on it so I could do much the same
thing. Especially since I found that once you use the n52 you find
yourself unable to play the game as effectively without it. The same is
true for the n52te given a week or two to adapt to the keys.

The new n52te is back lit and while it looks cool as hell its not all that
necessary after you have adapted to the pad. After about a week of
using this pad you will become very used to the key placements and
looking down to make sure your on the wrong key will be a thing of the past.
In addition the force required to press the keys is much lighter. This gives
the pad a more fluid feeling to it. As if you could press a combination of keys
quicker and more accurately then before. This is not just a feeling though, the
travel of each key you pressed has also been reduced.

Overall I when I first got this pad in the mail I flipped back and forth
between the it and the n52... I still felt more comfortable on it for a good
week or so and used it for Arena matches in World of Warcraft. After the
acclimation period this pad was just as deadly as the my old n52.

Stay tuned as we are talking to Belkin and may be able to get some
n52te's to users on the Forums. I am not sure how we will pick and
choose but I imagine a contest of some type. Next up... Cardnyls
indepth review which may take a bit longer to get out as he has been
talking back and forth with belkin and seeing improvements. If you have
recently purchased an n52te join us on the forums. We have at least
one good discussion going for those testing the n52te.


~Cerias Shadows.