Speedlink Parthica Core Gaming Keyboard Review

I was eager to try out the Parthica, because it looks good, and has a load of quick-keys. As a very gadgety-person, I wanted a keyboard with gadgety things. Taking the Parthica out of the box, I became much less enamoured by it.

It’s solidly built, and I still think it looks nice, but the coating of the plastic gives it a strangely unsmooth feeling. My old Logitech was plastic, so I’ve nothing against that part, but there is something about this plastic that feels strange, like they were trying to replicate the smoothness of velour, or something. The cable is thin, but 1.8 meters long and braided.

Right out of the gate, I should point out that the keyboard I was sent for review had the QWERTZ configuration, which is the German way. This also meant that Ctrl was Strg, symbols were in strange places, and the Prnt Scrn key said Druck S-Abf. Once you get used to the layout of the keys, it no longer throws you -- in my time with it, I only took about half an hour before I got used to it. I’ve always found that I adapt well to new controllers or, in this case, keyboards.

The keys are responsive, and almost as high as on a mechanical keyboard. They don’t give the loud clack of one, which means that you won’t disturb others in the room, but they do feel pretty satisfying for your fingers to dance across.

Along the left side are programmable keys, and a profile change key. Each profile makes the colours of the keyboard change, so you can tell which of the five you are on at any one time. Due to their placement, I found myself constantly hitting M5 when I’m trying to hit control, which caused my tab to switch. The five keys by default will change your browser tab, unless you have more than five tabs -- then they will just swap between the first five.

Along the top you have ten media buttons, the first five of which will bring up the File Explorer, browser and email, with one programmable as a Favourite, and the other bringing up Windows search -- unless you have Cortana enabled in Windows 10. In that case, it will bring up Cortana! In the middle is the name of the keyboard, lit in a different colour, depending on the profile chosen. To the right of that are the other five media buttons; Play/Pause, Stop, Mute, volume down, volume up. I couldn’t get the first two to work at all, but the others were fine. They are nice and chunky buttons, though pressing them feels very squidgy.

One feature that I haven’t encountered before is the ability to disable the Windows key. It’s easy to activate, but not enough that you will accidentally activate it.

If you’re looking for a multicoloured keyboard, possibly one that can have the Windows key disabled, then this is a decent keyboard. It’s not amazing, and I already mentioned the feel of it, but anyone who would benefit from having multiple profiles for gaming, this is worth a look. So long as you can grab a QWERTY version, which are also available.