SteelSeries Apex 7 Mechanical Gaming Keyboard – OLED Smart Display – USB Passthrough and Media Controls – Tactile and Clicky – RGB Backlit (Blue Switch)
Amazon.com Price: $159.99 (as of 29/06/2021 17:47 PST- Details)
Make sure this fitsby entering your model number.
Clicky blue switches – Guaranteed for 50 million keypresses, blue switches are known for their clicky snap-action keypresses so you feel and hear exactly when a key registers
OLED smart display – An integrated command center for adjusting settings and tracking on-the-fly info straight from your game, Spotify, Discord, and more
Related Products
The Apex 7 Keyboard has mechanical switches for 50 million keypresses. Blue switches are known for their click snap-action keypresses so you feel and hear exactly when a key registers. An integrated OLED Smart display with on-board storage is your command center for on-the-fly info from your game, Spotify, or Discord, and provides software-free customization for tweaking and saving your settings. An unbreakable aluminum alloy frame makes it a standout mechanical keyboard.
Make sure this fitsby entering your model number.
Clicky blue switches – Guaranteed for 50 million keypresses, blue switches are known for their clicky snap-action keypresses so you feel and hear exactly when a key registers
OLED smart display – An integrated command center for adjusting settings and tracking on-the-fly info straight from your game, Spotify, Discord, and more
Aircraft-grade aluminum alloy – Built for a lifetime of durability and stability
RGB Illumination – Unmatched customization with 16.8 million colors per key
Premium magnetic wrist rest – Provides full palm support and comfortable, ergonomic feel
10 reviews for SteelSeries Apex 7 Mechanical Gaming Keyboard – OLED Smart Display – USB Passthrough and Media Controls – Tactile and Clicky – RGB Backlit (Blue Switch)
Add a review
Amazon.com Price: $159.99 (as of 29/06/2021 17:47 PST- Details)
D. Frost –
Great high end board. Typing is excellent. SteelSeries Engine and onboard software is a buggy.
Really like this keyboard. With brown switches its a very light touch for standard typing but is also good for gaming. Perfect feel for me. It is more clicky than my old MS keyboard for sure but its not obnoxious.I really like that you can set different colors for each and every key. I use this so I can more quickly find where the line of numbers are vs Fkeys and also put different colors on the movement keys (like backspace, delete, return, alt ctrl etc.) and disable keys like shift-lock and INS which I never use but keep the option to put them back in use with the simple switch of the profiles.Which brings me to my one and only issue.The software for managing the keyboard has a few MAJOR BUGS that caused me to lose a lot of work setting up profiles. After setting up a few profiles, I wanted to look at some of the built in profiles which you can do using the “illumination” menu on the small OLED screen. The problem is, once I did that, it overwrote my profile. This happened multiple times after using the mini screen to load profiles as well. And I made SURE I was doing a LOAD PROFILE and not a SAVE PROFILE. But very odd things happened going back and forth between the OLED screens settings/profile/etc. menues and loading up the SteelSeries Engine software. I would find my old profile names replaced, names copied from one profile to another and just completely wiped out.To avoid this issue I keep a number of backups of my profiles so that if it gets wiped out again, I can seem to use the SteelSeries Engine to load one of my backups and then use the mini OLED screen to Save Profile etc. But its a big pain. I have found that if you just avoid using the OLED screen menus to load up illuminations/presets or use it to change profiles you will probably be ok. But I know there are some pointer issues or memory leaks or bad de-references in the software because sometimes my profile name will get overwritten with a name I never even typed that looks like a join of other names. Also, the name of the extra configs that you create…. those names will be overwritten with the names of the names of the build in profiles etc. So, some major bugs in the software really take away from an otherwise great experience.TIP to SteelSeries: Run your software through a good static analysis tool (i.e. SonarQube) and fix the bugs.UPDATE: Works great for one computer for the second computer in tin used to reset and I have found no solution even though I have exhaustively looked on the Internet for a solution. The only workaround for the reset is to unplug it and plug it back in which is totally annoying. Therefore I drop the rating. It’s unfortunate but it works so well on one computer it’s so poorly on another
Jeep TX Tom –
issues a couple of months after warranty ended
Your browser does not support HTML5 video.
I have absolutely loved this keyboard which is important when you pay $160 for a keyboard. I love the small oled screen (which i put some custom graphics on. I love the customization of the lighting which is saying a lot for me since i’m not a fan of RGB. I love the cherry red keys and the ergonomics of the keyboard. unfortunately I can’t in good faith personally recommend this expensive keyboard. why? 4 months out of warranty and it glitches on and off over and over until i unplug it and plug it back in. this will happen several times a day and then it may go a couple of days with out doing it. When it does this the keyboard is unusable until it’s unplugged and plugged back in. there’s also several keys that the rgb has stopped working for some colors. I am currently wait to see if steelseries will go ahead and warranty it but I am not holding my breath. If they do, then that tells me they truly believe in their products and i really could in good faith recommend this keyboard again. it would be different if this was a couple of years out of warranty but its only 4 months past the warranty and for a $160 keyboard, it should last far longer. I have keyboards (one was the first light up key keyboard from 2000) that are over 20 years old and still work as they should.
Calvin Wang –
Solid, but sounds like nails on a tin roof
I just picked up this apex 7 along with a rival 310 as part of my desktop refresh. I’ve gone through a ton of cheap keyboards, and wanted to go through the mechanical keybaord experience. The first thing I noticed was the heftiness of the metal build. The keys also felt solid under my fingers when I typed. I got the red switch, which is supposed to be the quietest version, but the keys are still noticeably loud compared to its non-mechanical counterparts.For the additional features: the magnetic wrist support seems okay, although I might end up not using it if it eats up too much desk real estate. The LED display and multimedia volume wheel on the top left are other examples of things that are cool, but probably not what I’m going to utilize very frequently.Overall, it’s a solid keyboard with a long long lifetime even when under constant duress from gaming. It was a bit pricey at $140, but worth it for such a workhorse product.
Mazin Recine –
Great Keyboard with Cool Features
I have owned a Steelseries keyboard in the past and was greatly disappointed with the switches it used. I had a m750 with the qx2 switches, and they just felt off to me. Not really sure how to explain, but they just felt off. Im not generally a fan of linear switches ( as a gamer, blasphemy I know) as I tend to have a heavy hand and accidentally hold shift or ctrl by accident, which messes up my movement and gets me killed. Not only that but I feel I mess up more when typing essays for college and have to go back to revise more frequently. I needed a new keyboard that would allow more space for my mouse, as I play on a low dpi, and was looking at TKL models from various companies. Originally I was planning on the G Pro from Logitech to go with my G Pro Wireless, but then I realized they had Romer-G switches. I tested them out and found them alright, but lack of customization and after market keycaps was a turn off for me. The new Apex Pro TKL came out with their OmniPoint switches, which are linear switches that you could change the actuation point of to fit your preference. Again, I am not a fan of linear, so this disappointed me as the rest of the keyboard caught my attention. Luckily with the Apex 7 they allow you to choose your switches out of the 3 options they provide. I chose the browns as I wanted something fast but with some feedback. When it arrived 2 days later, I was impressed with the size and beauty of it. The nicest keyboard I owned so far. The switches feel nice, and there are a few features you won’t find on a some other TKL keyboards like the OLED display (mostly a gimmick but cool nonetheless), usb passthrough, cable routing, and dial. The magnetic wrist rest isn’t plush, more like a flat rubber surface to prop up your hand. That isn’t to say it’s not comfortable or soft, but it is a pain to clean as it is a dust magnet. They keycaps feel cheap and are my main gripe for a premium keyboard, however I Luckily had higher quality shine-through keycaps from previously. Overall I am satisfied with the keyboard and would recommend to anyone thinking of purchasing.
Y. Chen –
best blue switch keyboard you’ll ever buy
Your browser does not support HTML5 video.
Let me just start off by saying that I am not a gamer, so I can’t really provide the most in-depth review of it. But, so far, this has ranked in the top three keyboards I’ve owned for value, if not the best. The hybrid blue switches are pure tactility and a pleasure to type on, albeit slightly less resistant than a normal full mechanical MX blue. The ABS keycaps have a premium matte black finish, making it feel even better, and the wristrest is perfect. Not the mushy kind like razer’s, actually a bit hard, but that is all accounted for by the rubber on top, which provides lots of support while typing. the video above is comparing this keyboard against an apple magic keyboard. Which is better is your opinion, but I think the Apex wins. At a slightly beefy price of $99.99, I expected to be blown awayy, and, suffice to say, I wasn’t disappointed.
Lou Bailey –
Tactile yes, Quiet? Not really.
Your browser does not support HTML5 video.
To premise this review, I am a mechanical keyboard enthusiast and not a gamer. I looked for a long time before I bought this keyboard because I was looking for the specific qualities of a 107-key layout, volume rocker, usb pass through, and the ability to swap out for third-party keycaps, in particular the ones I had laying around. If you’re looking for all those things, this is a really great buy. Plus the LED screen and the ‘apps’ included with the Steam Engine 3 software are really fun. I have one that shows me the song playing on spotify on my LED, and I think it’s great.Regarding a full keycap replacement, this one was perfect for me. If you look at other brands, be careful of their bottom row, I saw a lot with small Fn or Windows keys and I wanted to replace ALL the keys with a full set.I am very satisfied with this keyboard in terms of its functionality, colors, and overall build. However, a small nitpicky issue I have is that version of browns is quite loud. Coming from gateron browns (which I lubed), this had more of a ‘ping’ sound that irked me. Therefore, I decided to treat this mechanical keyboard the way I do with my smaller ones — take it apart and insert some felt below the pcb. I also lubed the key switches and stabilizers. Unfortunately this didn’t change the sound at all. I didn’t want to use o-rings because I don’t like how they feel.I originally had the hyperx pudding keycaps on this board because I wanted to take advantage of the RGB, but the sound seemed to echo in it, perhaps because it was thinner around the edges. Still wanting see the RGB in all its glory, I took out another set I had laying around — some Thick Outlined ABS keycaps that I had bought from Massdrop. I never felt like this set fit in with my other keyboards, but I am happy to report it found its home. This set did the trick and change the sound to something heftier and slightly quieter. Gone was the springy sound before these mods.Of course I would not suggest that you make these changes unless you are comfortable (you may void your warranty). However, I’m very pleased with this keyboard now. If I could replace the plastic bottom of the case, I think I could have something even more special. I’ve included a sound test of me typing a 1-minute test. I average about 90 words per minute most of the time and this keyboard does not slow me down (nor make me faster).
Honest Unbiased Review Guy –
Love how it looks and feels, but came with major issues
1st keyboard that arrived had a line of dead pixels in the OLED screen, but everything else worked fine. Being able to set up custom macros on the fly made my work easier, but I did eventually request an exchange to deal with the damaged OLED screen. The 2nd one had a perfect screen but has issues saving macros. Unline the first one, the only way to save the macros is if you uninstall the SteelSeries Engine 3 software, then set up the macros and save. The worst part is, anytime you want to make any changes, you will have to uninstall and reinstall the software because it will only save the 1st setting after every install.Although it’s not perfect, I do worry that the 3rd one will have a different defect, so I’ll just deal with the macro issue and keep the current keyboard. Luckily I’m able to save my configurations via cloud storage, so it’s not too much of a hassle.Aside from the issues mentioned above, the fact that this keyboard allows you to save 5 different profiles is amazing (a few profiles for party tricks or piano mode). U.I. for the software to change the colors/ reactive features is amazing and the fact that you can remap any key makes my work fly by.UPDATE: Macro issue seems to have resolved on it’s own. Not sure if there was an OTA update or not, but I am able to set macros on the fly without any issues
Alex –
Not Reliable For The Amount It’s Worth
The keyboard is absolutely riddled with problems. These weren’t user inflicted problems either. I made the switch to PC recently and unfortunately couldn’t find the time to practice using mouse and keyboard; so I stuck with controller as I mostly play COD and OW. So the most action the keyboard saw was light typing for essays. The issues it had were some of my keys would type random letters and activate the tab key; so trying to write an essay was frustrating when you needed to use a quotation mark and instead it would indent your paragraph and type a whole bunch of letters. As pictured above though it looks like I just typed random letters, this is literally what spews our whenever I press my colon, quotation and question mark keys. Also the rubberized stoppers on the keyboard that keep it from moving on surfaces, fall off very easily. The scroll wheel was very fragile and would constantly remain pressed in, which mutes your audio and you can’t unmute it from windows since it prioritizes the keyboard first. Their customer support was very unhelpful as they gave the stereotypical simple solutions to your problem. So it would take about several responses before they finally worked through the whole list of common solutions to customer problems and ask specific questions about your problem. These issues are not present at first and mine arose just after the Amazon return date was expired, so I can’t even return it. I would suppress my excitement for its looks and look for a more reliable option.
Les –
good keyboard printed keys make it not perfect.
keys feel like a good cherry mx red switch i like the adjustable actuation it helps with errors when typing which is why i stopped using reds and switched to browns. I have another Corsair K75 Pro with Cherry MX browns and the firmware on it is just terrible this one so far seems good however the major issue i have with it is the keys are printed with the secondary shifted key on the bottom which is opposite the way the rest of the world does it. i have typed long enough that i rarely ever look at it however it does bother me when i do look at it. i do like switching to different profiles with different actuation points which can be tied to a different key color so one profile w\ color + actuation point for typing and another profile w\ color + actuation point for gaming and switching is fairly easy. the keyboard will run without the steelseries software running and maintain color\actuation points also which corsair would never do.
Hook’s Hollands –
Awesome but Malfunctioned After 1 Year
**UPDATE: After using this keyboard for EXACTLY 1 year (coincidence?), the Home key suddenly has a malfunctioning LED and will not display any blue/purple/pink hues. Awaiting a reply from SteelSeries, but I imagine I’m stuck with the defective switch and will likely purchase a different brand as a replacement. Two stars have been deducted from my original review.What I love about the SteelSeries Apex 7 keyboard:1. Vibrant LED lights with superb visibility2. Ability to customize different light profiles that launch automatically with various PC programs/games3. OLED display that can be customized with logos or animated GIFs4. Magnetic wrist rest that detaches easily and is extremely simple to clean (no textured grooves to collect dirt!)5. SteelSeries software requires minimal CPU background usage compared to HyperX software on previous keyboard6. Red switches are clicky yet aren’t obtrusive. I know when I’ve pressed a key, but the whole house isn’t alerted that mom is gaming yet again.7. Very comfortable for my middle-aged fingers and wrists8. Looks nice with my SteelSeries dual surface prism mousepad9. SteelSeries Engine software is way more reliable than Razer Synapse10. Caps Lock key glows white when activated, which is a nice feature.What could be improved:My main gripe is that there are absolutely zero instructions included about the OLED display and the menu/functions within it. I initially had trouble loading the profiles I created in the SteelSeries Engine software to the keyboard, but I eventually fumbled through the OLED display menu on the keyboard and figured out how to load/activate each profile. The process is a bit cumbersome. SteelSeries support keeps promising me a comprehensive guide to the OLED display but has yet to deliver.Other than that, I really have no complaints and am very pleased with the Apex 7 vs. my old HyperX Alloy Elite. I didn’t opt for the Apex Pro keyboard because, as a middle-aged mom who only games casually, I felt no use for fully customizable switches. I’m a huge fan of the game Super Animal Royale, and I have won many matches with my new Apex 7! If SteelSeries would only make gaming earbuds (I get headaches from headsets) and a mouse with a tilting scroll wheel, I could completely ditch Razer and game 100% with SteelSeries gear. Just buy the Apex 7 keyboard already, it’s pretty spiffy! 🙂