SteelSeries Apex Pro Gen 3 Review: Still The King?

The SteelSeries Apex Pro TKL Gen 3 is the “New Coke” of keyboards. It’s strictly better than the old one, but it feels like it exists solely because a smaller, cooler company (Wooting) made them look bad. It is a $220 apology letter written in RGB.

The Vibe

It looks like a gaming keyboard. That is not a compliment.

SteelSeries has stuck to their aesthetic guns: a big, sturdy aluminum plate, a weirdly comfortable magnetic wrist rest that collects dead skin like a forensics kit, and that tiny OLED screen.

Oh, the OLED screen. It’s the “Touch Bar” of peripherals. You can put a GIF of a pixelated cat on it. You can check your CPU temp (which is always hotter than you want it to be). But mostly, you will ignore it because you have a monitor.

The Touch

It feels… fine. The OmniPoint 3.0 switches are smooth, linear, and devoid of soul. They are fast. They are “20x faster,” according to the box, which means absolutely nothing to your human nervous system.

Typing on it is pleasant but hollow. It has sound dampening foam now, so it doesn’t sound like a skeleton falling down a staircase anymore. It just sounds like a $50 office keyboard wrapped in $140 of marketing.

The “Features” (and the Protection Mode Rant)

They added Protection Mode. This reduces the sensitivity of neighboring keys so you don’t fat-finger your Ultimate. Think about that. They invented a technology to compensate for your bad aim. It is the aim-assist of typing.

They also added Rapid Tap, which is just SOCD (Simultaneous Opposite Cardinal Directions). It lets you strafe faster in Counter-Strike. It works. It feels like cheating. It probably is cheating. But everyone else is doing it, so now you have to as well.

The Software: A Digital Crime Scene

We have to talk about SteelSeries GG.

It is not a driver. It is a storefront that holds your keyboard hostage. To change your actuation point or upload that cat GIF, you have to install a suite that wants to record your gameplay, sell you aim trainers, and probably mine crypto in the background (allegedly, kidding, maybe).

Compared to Wooting’s web-based driver which just works, dealing with GG is like filing taxes just to change a lightbulb.

Generally Disappointed: SteelSeries vs. The World

So, where does it sit?

If you want the absolute best performance, you buy the Wooting 80HE. It’s better. Period. See our detailed breakdown: SteelSeries Apex Pro Gen 3 vs. Wooting 80HE.

If you want a safe, boring option that works out of the box, you might look at the Logitech G Pro X TKL Rapid.

See the full showdown: SteelSeries Apex Pro Gen 3 vs. Logitech G Pro X TKL Rapid.

But the Apex Pro Gen 3 sits in the middle. It’s the “Safe Premium” choice. It’s for the person who wants to walk into Best Buy, grab a heavy box, and know it will work with their other SteelSeries gear.

The Receipt (Community Links)

• r/SteelSeries: Users discuss the firmware bugs and connection drops.
• r/MechanicalKeyboards: A detailed showdown of Wooting 80HE vs Apex Pro Gen 3.
• r/MouseReview: The universal hatred for SteelSeries GG software.