On my Belkin Nostromo N52 Speedpad

I purchased a Belkin Nostromo N52 SpeedPad over a month ago at Best Buy for around 40 bucks. I meant to provide a review at some point.

One disclaimer : I gather the SpeedPad is more geared towards First Person Shooters. I'm out of the shooter scene right now, so I just tried it with an MMO (WoW) and an RTS (Dawn of War).

The Good

I liked the hard feel of the keys (if there's a display model in a store I'd suggest trying it out, it's awesome) The accompanying software was also well done.

But the best part of the device is a D-Pad that sits under your thumb. Brilliant.

The Bad

It took nearly half an hour to set up the SpeedPad for each game. Not that it's difficult to set up -- there are just so many key assignments to consider that it takes a while. It would have been nice to start with a game-specific default, but Belkin's website only had premade configurations for a handful of games.

The SpeedPad also provides a "shifting" mechanic that allows you to change key mappings. I didn't care for it. I like the idea, but the only obvious "shifting" key is a small red button that is by your thumb -- a small red button that you have to press so hard it actually moves the whole device sideways. Without the shifting mechanic, I never seemed to have enough keys.

The Ugly

To top it all off, mine was broken. The wheel only worked sporadically. For something that's supposed to be a 'premium gamer item' that was offputting. I returned my SpeedPad and asked for my money back.


With all that said, I would probably check out the successor if/when it gets made (The N52 was the successor to the N50), provided there are more keys or the shifting mechanic becomes easier to use.