Introduction

So what happens when a U.S. military training tool, built by a gaming keyboard company, is declassified and then made available to the general public? The Ideazon Fang is what happens. The Fang is Ideazon's first stand alone gaming pad incorporating the highly acclaimed Z Engine™ Technology.

"FANG was engineered and built as a training tool that lets military personnel instantly learn lifesaving tasks under combat conditions, but we have always known that the awesome functionality of FANG also had immediate applications in the gaming market," said Chris Rathgeber, president of Ideazon Inc. "While FANG has been used successfully for serious training purposes, we predict that gamers are not going to want to let it go."

By now even casual gamers are familiar with Ideazon's Zboard. Its interchangeable keyboards, keystroke anti-ghosting features, vast selection of pre-defined key layouts and extremely easy learning curve has made it a favorite among the gaming community. I've been using one for several years now and it has elevated my game from average to ...well ...um ...slightly better than average. It's a keyboard not a miracle worker. There is a great deal I like about the Zboard and a few things I don't.

First on the list of don't likes is having to change out the keyboard to play a game. It's a small thing, but I'm inherently lazy. Well that and I tend to forget where I stashed my gaming key-set between gaming sessions. Second is my complete inability to learn how to type on the gaming key-set. I simply can not use the space bar with my left thumb effectively and have no desire to learn to do so. It's hard enough to type wanker speak with a space bar where you can actually use it, "IsopwnZoRedUn00b!!!111!11lawl". Okay I don't actually type like that. I generally manage something like, "Zboard no type good ...sorry".

The new Fang addresses both these problems for me. And since I never bothered with game specific key-sets for my Zboard, I simply used the default gaming key-set for all games, I won't miss that feature. And with the Fang I no longer have to search for the gaming key-set and I can actually chat in-game again. A good taunt may not be as effective as a head shot, but it can certainly make you feel better.

Of course the Ideazon Merc keyboard would have solved my problems as well. The Merc integrates a gaming pad at the far left of a full size keyboard sans the interchangeable key-sets. But with the Fang I can choose any keyboard I prefer. And for the first time the left-handed among us have a viable gaming option from Ideazon as well.

Package

The packing for the Fang was minimal, no peanuts or other padding, just a plain brown box. It's all it needed, the retail packaging is quite substantial on its own. No professional gamer endorsements or wild claims of total and complete gaming pwnage adorn the retail package. It simply states what it is and how it works in several languages. Inside the sturdy outer box is a blister package that thankfully doesn't require power tools to open up.

Along with the removable wrist rest, the contents include a driver disk, a quick start guide and a coupon for the new Ideazon Reaper gaming mouse. It's probably best to just ignore the driver disk and download the latest drivers before you begin installation. The version I downloaded was a significant update over the supplied driver.