CM Storm QuickFire Pro Keyboard Review

Testing the CM Storm QuickFire Pro

The first impression we got was how sturdy the keyboard was. Once on the table, the keyboard simply didn’t move. We missed the inclusion of a wrist rest, especially because the peripheral is so thick. The solution is to adapt a wrist rest from another keyboard (that’s what we did), or buy a separate gel-filled wrist rest. The detachable cable didn’t seem like a good idea. There’s not much space underneath, so it was a bit of an awkward operation to insert the mini-USB. At least the routing ducts helped secure the cable neatly. We also missed a USB port to connect another peripheral, either a mouse or a USB headset. It’s a useful feature, even if it’s not mandatory.

Those who enjoy programmable keys and macro recording may get frustrated with the QuickFire Pro. It’s better to have a good gaming-grade mouse around to complement the keyboard. The mechanical keys gave a precise response during our Battlefield 3 matches, being very quick to perform actions like ducking, stabbing the enemy and launching grenades. Despite receiving the model with quiet Cherry MX switches, the keys were still a lot noisier than a regular keyboard.

In practice, the adjustments offered by the QuickFire Pro were not very useful. Enabling the rollover is only useful if the user types really fast, because allowing more than six keys to be pressed simultaneously is no big deal if the peripheral doesn’t feature macro recording.

The user must choose which cluster of keys to light up, since the QuickFire Pro allows only partial illumination. The light is very bright and can be lit on the WASD cluster and some others, like the Space and the F1-F4 set, for instance. If the whole QuickFire Pro could be illuminated, it would be a nice choice of keyboard for those who like to type in the dark.