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Installation, Setup and Use
Since the Elixir is a USB keyboard even the most computer illiterate should be able to install it, you just plug it in to a USB port and your done. Of course if you want to be able to get the full funcionality of the keyboard you'll need to install the included software, as that is how you'll set up your macros and hot keys I talked about on the previos page.
After you have the software installed you'll notice a new icon in your system tray, double clicking on it brings up the program used to set up your macros, profiles etc. The program is pretty self explanatory, theres a picture of the keyboard and every key that is customizeable you can click on with your mouse to bring up the options screen for that key.
 
you can set up the key to either run a macro which you can choose number of times you want it to repeat as well as choose the input delay between 50ms to 250ms, load a profile or launch a program.
In addition to the macro/quick launch keys you can re map just about every key on the keyboard by click on the key you want to remap. This bring up another window that shows what the current mapping is and you simply press the key you want to remap it to.
OK, so the keyboard is installed, the software is installed and setup, how does the thing perform? I spend anywhere from 10-16 hours a day at a keyboard, doing a lot of the same tasks over and over again. Copy and pasting from one app to another, running the same commands over and over again etc so I use macros a lot. The ability to save multiple profiles and assign different macros for each profile is a godsend. I can have one profile for gaming and another for work and switch between them on the fly.
The feel of the keys is just about perfect, I personally dont like mushy keys, I like to feel a little resistence to a keypress. The keys on the Elixir are a bit shorter than the key on my G-15 and the travel distance on the Elixir is shorter, which in my opinion makes the keyboard seem more responsive. Key spacing feels to be about the same, when i switched from a standard keyboard to the G-15 it took me a few days to get the feel of the new keyboard due to the keys being spaced further apart, I didnt have this issue when going from the G 15 to the Elixir.
Conclusion
There is a specialty keyboard for just about everything these days, as with all things this usually comes with a larger price. When I bought my G 15 it was around $100, it's come down in price since then but no where near the $29.99 price tag of the Elixir. The Elixir suprised me in every way possible, it looks great and is well made, it is more customizeable then other higher priced keyboards I've seen, it is extremely simple to set up and use and it does all of this for about the same cost as a quality standard keyboard.
The only thing I could see someone complaining about is the lack of a USB port on the keyboard itself. I dont use the USB ports on my G15 so this is a non issue for me, but others might feel differently.
A lot of times a company will put out a "budget" product and it feels cheap, thats not the case with the Elixir. OCZ has done a great job putting together a keyboard that not only looks and feels solid, but has performance to match, all at a price just about anyone can afford. If your in the market for a keyboard with a ton of functionality that wont tap your wallet dry the Elixir from OCZ just might be what you are looking for.
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