I picked up the Belkin Nostromo Speedpad n52 the other day. I’ve been back to playing just a little bit of the old Enemy Territory lately, and thought I’d give this device a spin.

It’s pretty cool, but I haven’t got adjusted to the slighty different layout yet, so sometimes it’s a bit frustrating. However, I’ve got to say that I am comfortable enough to see that this is has the potential to be better for gaming than a normal keyboard layout. The entire thing is as programmable as you could possibly want, and multiple “shift states” effectively triple the number of keys available.

There are a couple of features I haven’t found a use for yet, but I think it’s only because I’m still learning and haven’t exausted the basics yet. One is macros - you can program a key to execute a series of keystrokes, and the other is the small mouse wheel on the Speedpad - haven’t thought of a good use for that yet.

Anyway, if you jump on any of the ET servers and see “d00dleBUG”, that’s me … so say hello!