Fang Gamepad by Ideazon

I loved this thing. I used to have two, one for myself and one for my brother-in-law or wife, depending on who was using it at the time. When my daughter was a toddler she got a hold of mine and broke it...so I cut the cable off and just let her have it since she liked pressing all the buttons. Not sure what happened to the second one. All I can say is that it's a shame that this isn't made any longer. The software was a bit flaky with the presets, but you could reconfigure it however you wanted. Still to this day I can look at the picture of this product and my left hand has the muscle memory to recognize where each key is! I don't game much any more, but this thing gave me an edge when I played MMOs. I don't think I could drop $250 for one nowadays (the asking price from one seller), but I would pay a bit more for this product (or a clone) over most of what the market offers today.

Bought 2 of these in March 2007 and have used them mostly for WoW ever since. Though some of the file management functions don't work, the keyboard still works fine and it is possible to create new "Mods". The main advantages of the keypad are:1) Fully ambidextrous,2) 37+ keys, plenty even for WoW,3) Perhaps most important . . . specific key groupings and different key shapes allow you to find any key purely by touch.I've tried a couple of other keypads, but almost all are built for the left hand and there's no real differentiation between the keys. And given 10 years of use I don't think I could adapt to another keyboard anyhow.

After more than 7 years of use my fang still works. I've had to open it up to do some propper cleaing but beyond that this simple looking gamepad is pretty much the best of its kind. It crammed all the buttons you really need on a pad perfect for 1 hand and it did it better than any other pad on the market.Its a shame that this is a dicontinued product which is the reason why new ones are so expensive and used one go for more than it used to retail. Although I have to say that the driver software has remained functional from windows xp, to windows 7 and now windows 10 without doing anything more than going to the steel series site (they own all ideazon products now I think) and downloading the drivers there.Ive looked around for a replacement for this and many years later have found none. If I could find one at a reasonable price I would buy. Hope the people who own this product would re release it as is.2017 update: After almost 10 years of use and about 4 Operating Systems later my fang stopped working properly. Not to say it stopped working all together but it seems the software it uses to load the different configuraions is no longer getting updates and its no longer working on Window 10.This issue and the fact that my fang is showing signs of aging (a testament to its quality because almost 10 years of use is nothing to dismiss) I finally opted to buy a replacement.The true testament of how good this design is, to me, is that I picked its replacement based on how close it resembled this pad configuration.This is one of the few product reviews I've done but this pad earned my money and my praise.

I'm lucky enough to have gotten a spare so I have extra parts to keep the main pad working. I've used it for two decades now and just cannot get comfortable with anything else. It was the PERFECT gamepad in so many ways, the best part was how the keys were shaped and how easily you could find them by feel. Some sunken and some bubbled, different sizes, and all in the places you would expect. Bring back the Fang or something very close, someone, anyone! The company that does this will make good money, I guarantee. The market is completely missing a gamepad of this kind, nothing else comes close.

It's a real shame they don't make this gamepad anymore--I dread the day mine dies. It is an absolutely fantastic little device. The software hasn't been updated in awhile but it's still fully functional on Win7 64bit with modern kit.I use it for ALL games that I don't play with a controller. It's superior to keyboard controls in every single way. The included software (downloadable free from their website) allows you to configure every single key on the device. And it's not required to support "your game", it will work with any game. It comes with profiles for several older games, but creating a new profile is very simple. The only thing you have to watch out for is the automatic EXE detection, where it will try to switch the layout depending on what game you're in. I've found this to be problematic so I always clear those values, which causes it to be active all the time. The theory is that you can set game EXE's with each profile, so every time you load a game it automatically switches the profile. But more frequently what happens is it doesn't load any profile because the exe name is wrong or has changed. Right-clicking on the icon in the tray allows me to switch from the last 5 profiles I've used, which makes the auto-detection a non-issue.An example of how great this device is is World of Warcraft. Any serious player will want as many of their abilities hot-keyed as possible. It's difficult when playing on the keyboard to reach the 6 key and beyond while still on the WASD movement keys. Granted, it's also hard to do this on the FANG because the top row is too far up. However, on the FANG, you can remap the 7 and beyond to the buttons on the right side of the pad and extending down. This makes all those "extended" buttons accessible to your right index finger, which is quick and accurate.Additionally, I chose to bind the 3 large bottom buttons on the left side as shift, alt, and control, so all three modifiers are always quickly accessible via pinky. This makes for huge amounts of keys (36, more if using dual-modifiers) to be used without lifting your left hand and maintaining movement control on WASD.The only thing I don't like is that the "space" key on the sides is a mouse-click mechanical button rather than a soft key, and it feels cheap. That's the only button I don't like, but it hasn't worn out yet! (It's not a mouse-click action and can be mapped to any key, it's just the same mechanical device they use in mice and has the same "click" sound.)In the 2 to 3 years I've owned this device, it has withstood lots and lots of gameplay and many static-electric shocks that my keyboards and mice have not. Its durability is shockingly high.