One of the most insanely unique peripherals – Azeron Gamepad

Azeron, a name that strikes fear into the hearts of old people, or maybe it just confuses them I don’t know, but anyway, this is the very definition of being intuitive, rich and deep. This is what you need when you want those secluded gaming sessions. When the mind is only focused on one thing, and you get that intensely focused kill streak. This is what Azeron is and what they created!

As you guys probably realized, today we are taking a look at the very strange but also very unique Azeron gaming keypad. Now this isn’t the first gamepad on the market. There are actually quite a lot of them available. But nothing really like this one. 

Customization

There are a lot of different reasons why this is such a unique product. All you need to do is look at it and you would understand why. But the looks alone isn’t what makes the Azeron so unique, it’s that it can be entirely customized to fit your needs and gaming setup. What I mean by that is that every single piece can be adjusted to fit your hand perfectly and pretty much every piece from the body to the cables can be a color you chose. There is even a glow in the dark option, if you are feeling frisky. 

But let’s start at the top, you can design your own gamepad with the help of Azeron’s super handy 3D customizer built into the website. It allows you to adjust all the different options and rotate the render 360 degrees to be able to see it from any direction or angle you would want.  As for the customization you get 2 different models to start off with, with classic or compact. The classic has the hinges to extend upwards where as the compact cuts them off and gives you buttons. We went with the classic because it looked more comfortable and gave more button options. On top of that you get a left or right handed model, or maybe both if you want to go all out. After that you can choose the palm rest, you get ergonomic with more of a curve and flat which is more flat. But you also have the option of choosing both for a little extra. Then you get to the sizes you have a medium and large option based on your hand size. I went with the large which might have been a tad on the large size so make sure about your hand size for the best possible fit.

Then you can choose the colors of the gamepad, there are a total of 16 colors to choose from, these include colors from black all the way to glow in the dark and gold. Due note that you do pay more if you want to add more than 1 color. 4 colors is the max and that’ll cost you about $25 dollars extra, but each part can be a separate color, even the LEDs. No there is no RGB LED but there is a UV option, which sounds interesting. The palm rest can only be black or white though. If you do more than a black only body it does cost extra as well. So if you have 4 colors on the body that will cost you roughly $50 extra.

Then you get the option of a custom nameplate as well. Choose this one carefully though, this isn’t something that you can simply change like you do on steam. It’s kind of the same as getting a tattoo, you are going to be stuck with it so think deeply about this one before making a decision. These custom nameplates are hand modeled for every single person, which is even more special and that extra step from Azeron. We did a custom nameplate and we haven’t seen another one so far so this makes it really unique to us. But it does cost $20 extra though. Now the 3D customizer built into the website is super cool and you can rotate the render 360 degrees to be able to see it from any direction or angle you would want.

PRICE

And then you place your order and wait for your very own, extremely unique gamepad. 

But bear in mind that it’s a pricey buy as well. The cheapest base model you can go for is $180 and depending on your level of trim it can go as high as $320. 

Compared to the Razers gamepads which starts at $70 without the optical switches and $130 for the top model. But you pay for that uniqueness and make it your own, one that no other person on earth will have. Strangely the compact and classic is the same price. Also none of the model changes, actually changes the price unless you want both palm rests, so the bigger one is the same price as the medium one. 

Build quality

Now the customization is all thanks to 3D printing. The Azeron is completely 3D printed, which makes it very easy to fix, if something should break. Only the base plate is made from metal. But you can even order replacement parts from their website if you need some. But the build quality is very good, it feels very sturdy and not cheap at all. Because it is 3D print you obviously see the print ridges and lines, but it’s very well done.

There is no over-extrusion or curling really present, only very minor blobs, which you really have to look for. The rough look of the 3D printed lines, gives it a completely new style towards anything on the market and I actually like it a lot. And the texture on the buttons, helps with some extra grip. The cables are all braided and you get a 2m braided USB cable for connecting to your PC, a suggestion to Azeron, maybe for a new version make it a detachable cable for even more flexibility and possibly make the cable a customizable option as well, I think that could be cool. On the bottom you also get 10 small silicone grips, making sure the Azeron stays in place.

On the classic, like we have, you get 20 of these paddle style buttons that sit close to your fingers, then you get a thumbstick which you can swap with a XBOX ELITE controller’s magnetic ones and they also include 6 rubber grips with ours. Next to that is a 5 way D-pad for some extra controls. At the back you get the toggle button, which allows you to quickly switch between 2 profiles. And then 2 LEDS, showing which profile is active by simply going on or off.

Gaming

But the obvious question even before you start the order process is how is it to game on? Well to be honest, very weird actually. But you do get used to it, and you are going to have to retrain your brain and muscle memory as to where the keys are and what they do. The keys also feel completely different from a keyboard as they are actually OMRON mouse switches with a 10MIL click lifespan. The 4 horizontal pad buttons take 40 gram force to trigger and all the buttons take 20 gram force to trigger.

So this is a very game specific gamepad, because of the switches used it eliminates certain genre games like racing games. Of course you can still play your racing games on this, but something like the Razer Tartarus pro actually has switches with adjustable actuation points making it easier to input more or less throttle on racing games. We did play some F1 2020 with the Azeron, and it was playable for sure, but with ABS and traction control on, we were also running on automatic, and it was quite difficult to enter the corners without over braking and sometimes pressing the wrong button instead of braking. Which comes down to muscle memory again.

So this is more designed towards MMORPG, RPG, FPS and MOBA games. So if that is your genre of games you spend most of your time on then the Azeron will work great for you. We can only imagine that it will work great for something like fortnite, unfortunately we don’t know how or really want to play fortnite.

Lay-out

On the classic, like we have, you get 20 of these paddle style buttons that sit close to your fingers, then you get a thumbstick which you can swap with XBOX ELITE remotes magnetic ones and they also included 6 rubber grips with ours, and next to that a 5 way D-pad. Just behind that you get the toggle button, which allows you to quickly switch between 2 profiles. And then 2 LEDS, showing which profile is active by simply going on or off.

Comfort

But to get the best comfort you can very easily adjust the Azeron to fit your hand the best, the towers can be adjusted forwards and backwards and then the rails can adjust left and right for each individual finger to best suit your hand. And I must say although it’s a very strange feeling it really is comfortable and feels very ergonomic, you will definitely not get any wrist strain using this for multiple hours. Now we opted for the classic one because you have more buttons obviously, and the compact buttons that sit on top of the tower seem to be in a bit more odd place, and it does seem like a stretch for the finger to get there. The only thing I can complain about is the ALLEN key that they included to loosen the screws at the bottom to adjust everything, it’s extremely thin and quite difficult to use because of how tiny it is. But then again you get all the tools needed to fix and adjust the Azeron with, which is a plus in my book.

Software

The fully programmable key system does help a lot to get the perfect balance of what feels comfortable for you to do. So depending on which one you went for, you get either 24 keys on the compact model or 26 programmable keys on the classic model. These are all controlled through the Azeron software which is still in BETA as well. The Azeron does also have onboard memory so you can just set it up, save it to the onboard memory, plug it into a new machine and all your buttons will be mapped accordingly. Now this isn’t only for gamers you can obviously map the buttons and macro them to do whatever you want them to do, whether it’s for your editing software or even just an excel spreadsheet, the sky’s the limit here.

You can only set 2 on board profiles simply by selecting the OBM button on the software. It’s worth mentioning that macros do not store on the on board memory. 

Conclusion

But that’s it guys, a very very unique product, not for everyone, but I think once you get used to the Azeron it is going to be your favorite gaming peripheral. I must say the whole experience is interesting and fun, creating the Azeron felt like character creation in a game and I spent hours choosing white and blue with black keys. The Azeron is a masterpiece in its own right. The amount of passion that went into this product is evident, each one of these are assembled by hand and that speaks a lot about the people behind the Azeron. This is a very good option for someone that loves everything custom, custom cables and keyboard etc. Probably a very good thing to get to play games on instead of your custom 60% keyboard that doesn’t have all the keys always needed for all the games. But that’s it guys that’s it for the very alien like Azeron gamepad, a big thanks to Azeron for allowing us to create our very own one and sending it our way to test it out.