You’d think the holiday season would be a gift to peripherals manufacturers, but it often comes with a stocking stuffed with stress. The problem goes like this: A company creates Product A. It sells reasonably well for a while, and then retailers drop its price to move their inventories. The same company designs the lesser-featured, lower-priced Product B and takes a nap, its sales assured. It wakes to a spectre: The Ghost of Popular Peripherals Past, bearing the ghastly visage of…Product A. Still floating around in the background, its MSRP now undercuts Product B’s, and falls further still.

One solution: Push Product A to the end of its life. However, many companies prefer to keep older, reasonable earners alive and out there. Product B then gets and flaunts some important new feature to justify its price.

That’s exactly what Cougar is trying with its new Puri, pitched as a no-frills, low-end keyboard for high-octane gaming. It has an MSRP of $80, but it offers considerably less in several important respects than Cougar’s own sample of a Product A, the 500K Gaming Keyboard, which has been seen selling for as little as $44 online. The Puri has an ace up its sleeve: it boasts Cherry MX mechanical switches, versus the 500K’s ho-hum membrane ones. But it remains a tough sell for the Puri, beyond competing with Cougar’s own line; one that isn’t helped by competing keyboards such as the feature-rich, Cherry-MX-sporting Corsair K68 Mechanical Gaming Keyboard, which goes for just $20 more.

This Cougar’s territory lies at the junction of design, features, and price, so although this review focuses on the Puri, we’ll make frequent comparisons to the Cougar 500K and Corsair K68, as well, as typical examples of what more or less you can get for near the price.

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Design

Let’s begin with a glance at the seemingly blurry Puri…

It isn’t, though: Cougar opted for white key backlighting only, just like Nanoxia did in its recent Ncore Retro Alu. And like that keyboard, the Puri offers a host of keyboard-controlled lighting configurations, something we’ll get to under Features.

The Cougar Puri looks a little sharper with its lighting turned off…

QWERTY-standard key placement aside, the Fn key (bottom row, next to the right Alt key) portends key combos and doubled-up functionality. Not unexpectedly, the envelope symbol on F9, when pressed in tandem with Fn, brings up your e-mail client, while the home symbol on F10, coupled with Fn, pulls up your Web browser’s homepage. The suns on the six navigational keys refer to backlighting effects, as do the oddly dissimilar sunlike symbols on the direction keys. Four multimedia keys fly solo on the far upper right, which has led Cougar to claim that it offers “dedicated multimedia keys.” But that’s lawyer logic: four other keys, F5 through F8, share multimedia functions (Stop, Previous Track, Fast Forward, Next Track) via Fn. So it’s a sort of half-and-half arrangement.

The Puri is an attractive unit, no question. We prefer its understated mix of a matte-black chassis, shiny black keys, and white symbols to, say, the Cougar 600K Mechanical Gaming Keyboard glaring silver aluminum faceplate. Sizewise, it fits into the broad modern standard: 18.1 inches wide, by 5.9 inches long, by 1.6 inches high. The frame rises to the back, as you can see here…

The Puri’s plastic foldout feet, as depicted above, actually come in two sizes. The larger set give you a half-inch increase in height, while the smaller, less useful second pair only give a quarter-inch lift…

Still, props to Cougar for the larger pair; their 500K only included a version of the smaller set.

For a chassis that’s a plastic-and-metal mix (and suspiciously bendable around the Cougar logo), the 3.1-pound Puri is quite heavy. It’s not too hard to move readily, however. Cougar also bundles something we don’t often see with a keyboard: a custom cover that snaps over the keybed…

Cougar’s ads that imply the keyboard’s waterproof are way off the mark, though…

It absolutely isn’t. The cover’s fine for blocking dust and debris when you’re not using the Puri. It even has small magnets at each of its corners that grab onto four chassis-mounted screw heads. But they don’t provide a seal, and it’s never stated as such. Taking this Cougar for walkies in the rain like in the above marketing image will lead you back to us, where you’ll be searching for reviews of a new keyboard to replace a dead Puri.

As everyone knows, keyboards are debris magnets. If something starts to fall or spill the next room over, neither Newtonian physics, Einstein’s relativity theory, nor Minkowski geometry will be able to account for how it ends up on top of your keyboard. Where countering debris is concerned, keyboard designs come in two flavors. One places the keys above the frame, while the other recesses them within the frame, putting the faceplate beneath it. The Cougar 500K used the first, superior approach; there, a compressed-air duster and a wipe make for easy keyboard cleaning. The Puri, unfortunately, follows the second approach, which will trap keyboard crust beneath the frame.

The underside of the keyboard features five good anti-friction rubber pads, plus the connection point for the cable…

The micro-USB-to-USB cord is something that Cougar did just right on the Puri. It’s braided but fairly flexible, and 71 inches long. It features a Velcro tie, and, best of all, it’s detachable. That’s something we rarely see, but always appreciate, in a keyboard; it lessens the hassle of moving the keyboard. There’s also a slot in which to align the cord, so it remains recessed beneath the keyboard. Fortunately, it slides in or out easily.

Features

Cougar advertises that there’s no need to download or use software to run the Puri, as if this omission were a feature. Presumably the company has forgotten in the holiday rush about its own configuration software, UIX System, which it has supplied with several of its previous keyboards, including the 500K we mentioned earlier. It was never difficult to download UIX or install it, and took maybe a minute longer than the Puri’s near-instantaneous loading of drivers upon hooking up its cord to a USB port.

So what can you configure directly from the keyboard? Two words: white backlighting. Like the Ncore Retro Alu once again, the Puri lets you run lighting effects, control their speed, and adjust their brightness via hardware key combos. Here’s a summary…

There are five default settings under Fn+1 to Fn+5 that light up different key patterns. Special lighting effects come from pressing Fn plus five of the six navigation keys—Insert, Home, PgUp, Delete and PgDn. Press any navigation-key combo multiple times to cycle through different effects. So, if you press Fn+Home once, the white backlighting ripples. Press it again, and it becomes reactive; then shoots light off to both sides; then lights up the surrounding keys.

Brightness is controlled through Fn plus the up and down directional keys, speed by Fn with the plus and minus keys, and the backlighting-effects flow direction by Fn and the left/right directional keys. You can also change the five default backlight settings mentioned above, as well as create five more stored settings (via Fn+6 through Fn+0) and a series of key combos—with lots of tinkering.

Compared to such configuration utilities as the Logitech Gaming System (LGS), Roccat Swarm (RS), or Corsair Utility Engine 2 (CUE2), Puri’s implementation of lighting is both complex to grok and tedious to use (not to mention monochromatic, after all that trouble). It’s true that at least a few gamers enjoy interrupting marathon sessions to stare at their keyboard lighting effects, presumably while wearing Nehru jackets and listening to ragas. This pastime doesn’t work with only white backlighting effects. Really, Cougar has ditched the three most gamer-friendly elements that a configuration utility could give you—key remapping, a macro editor, and game-specific, auto-loading profiles—and kept the least useful one: lighting effects. This contrasts with both the Corsair K68 and Cougar’s own 500K, which uses Cougar’s UIX System software. While the company advertises the Puri as “the gamer’s ultimate weapon,” it has loaded its magazine with several blanks.

Cougar’s mechanical switches, on the other hand, offer solid value. The many lengthy arguments about mechanical versus membrane switches ultimately resolve into a few basic issues. First, which is quieter? Membrane switches win this handily. Even the so-called Cherry MX Silent mechanical switches are still clattery, if less so than many other mechanical types. If you work in an office environment close to a lot of people, use membrane keyboards. You’ll get less poison in your coffee. The battle for sturdiness, however, is won hands down by mechanical switches. Membranes erode after a few years of pounding, with the most-used keys wearing out far earlier than the others. Mechanical switches can last five to ten times as long, depending on switch manufacturer, humidity, and dust accumulation, among other factors.

Finally, the question of which switch type feels better is very subjective. As a rule, membranes have soft activation points and a cushioned (or in the opinion of mechanical keyboard users, “mushy”) feel at the end of keypresses. By contrast, mechanical switches come in a range of touches that can be classified by tactility, pressure, and “clickiness.” Cherry MX Red switches, for instance, respond to a very light touch, possess a moderately loud click, and have no “push back” as you depress keys down all the way. Gamers tend to prefer these. MX Blues, on the other hand, require slightly more pressure, push back just before they activate, and click loudly. They’re a favorite among productivity types. The Puri comes in five switch colors: MX Red, MX Blue, MX Brown, MX Silver, and MX Black, each with its own touch. All are rated for a lifespan of 50 million keypresses.

Cherry mechanical switches, the brand Cougar uses, are no longer a de facto standard in the industry. After Cherry began cutting individual deals with just a few keyboard manufacturers, other switch makers picked up the slack. Kailh, in particular, is a common competitor, both for its own branded switches and those made in collaboration with peripheral manufacturers, such as SteelSeries. There’s less exclusivity, in other words, to the Cherry MX brand nowadays—but they remain, as always, exceptionally well made and thoroughly reliable from a touch standpoint. If you like the Cherry MX Red switches on a friend’s keyboard, the ones on the Puri will feel just the same.

Finally, Cougar advertises N-key rollover on the Puri. This means that all the keys are scanned independently of one another, so that none is lost in transmission to your computer. We checked this out at the Microsoft Keyboard Ghosting Demonstration site, and found the claim accurate. Admittedly, it’s not a major feature, but some flight sims do require a lot of two- and three-key combos on a regular basis. It’s worth keeping in mind.

Performance Testing

We can’t fault Cougar’s choice of Cherry MX mechanical switches. They’re excellent, and easily surpass the membrane switches of the company’s 500K in terms of touch and longevity. However, most of Corsair’s gaming keyboards deploy Cherry MX switches as well, including the aforementioned K68 Mechanical Keyboard. All of Corsair’s recent keyboards also have access to CUE2, with the broadest assortment of key-remapping options in any current configuration software, and one of the two most sophisticated macro editors currently on the market. Using CUE2, you can chain macros, launch new profiles mid-play with remapped keys for a mini-game, and program timers that flash a specific set of keys when your character’s power-up becomes available for use. Cougar’s own UIX System from the 500K provides at least basic remapping and game-specific profiles and macros, none of which is available with the Puri.

Ironically, the game genres that Cougar recommended for its new keyboard—FPS, MMORPG, MOBA, and RTS—suffer the most from these features’ absence. While the Puri certainly performs in pause- and turn-based games, such as Hearts of Iron IV and Divinity: Original Sin 2, it falls far short of the customization gamers expect in Far Cry 4, DOTA 2 and Divinity: Dragon Commander. Good switches can do quite a lot, but only so much. However, for many gamers, keyboard customization is required to do all the rest.

We have no complaints about the Puri’s ergonomics. Its feet are high enough to matter, making the hands and wrists stretch less. After several fairly lengthy gaming sessions, we experienced no strain.

We also liked the magnetized plastic cover, while remaining mindful of the fact that it’s best used to prevent dust and debris from slipping inside while not in use. It’s not waterproof. The Puri is water-resistant with the cover securely fastened in place, but the problem with water-resistant, unsealed cases that contain electronics? They only need a second or two to fail, and your ultimate weapon is ultimately wasted.

Conclusion

The other oft-mentioned keyboards in this review, the Cougar 500K and Corsair K68, share enough features with the Puri to go head-to-head against it. The former sells for almost half as much as the Puri—which isn’t as big a difference at these uniformly budget prices. The trade-off in going with the 500K is that you lose the excellent mechanical switches, but gain a configuration utility that lets you store up to three profiles, competently remap all the keys, and create macros. Or for just $20 more than the Puri, there’s the Corsair K68, which comes with unlimited game-specific profiles, full key remapping, one of the two best macro editors we’ve used, and the same Cherry MX switches that the Puri provides. Also on hand: 16.8 million colors, if you’re into blingy keyboard lighting, though no Nehru jackets are supplied with purchase.

It seems to us that at this time, the Puri’s price point lies squarely in the middle of two better deals. We hasten to add that it’s a perfectly fine keyboard—just one with an awkward MSRP, given neighbors like the two examples we cite. Cougar typically discounts its peripherals after a few months’ sales, however, as we mentioned in our introduction. Just as the 500K’s cost declined considerably, so will the Puri’s cost likely drop with time until it can enter a friendlier price slice of the market. At that point, the Puri’s combination of an attractive, well-built keyboard with Cherry MX switches will definitely come into its own.