HP Omen Spacer Wireless TKL Keyboard: Lacks a Few Features

REVIEWS / CONSUMER ELECTRONICS

- MIKE EPSTEIN

In the small but growing wireless-mechanical keyboard field, the HP Omen Spacer Wireless TKL Keyboard is one of the few tenkeyless (TKL) gaming keyboards. Considering that competitive gamers often like compact keyboards, it’s a smart feature combination. The Omen Spacer offers a satisfying typing feel and lengthy battery life, but it lacks the robust customization that you’d typically find in a premium gaming keyboard.

TAKING SPACE

The HP Omen Spacer is a surprisingly simple gaming keyboard. Its keys are set in an almost-standard 87-key TKL layout. The scroll lock key has been replaced with a much more useful Omen key, a button that launches the keyboard’s Omen Game Hub configuration software. (If you don’t use the software, you can use Game Hub to switch the Omen key to act as a scroll lock key.) At 1.47 by 14.5 by 5.47 inches (HWD), it’s fairly large for a TKL, a format that people often consider, in part, to make room on their desks. It’s even larger when you factor in the detachable wrist rest, which adds another 4 inches of depth.

The wrist rest, which magnetically connects to the keyboard, is lightly padded. I always appreciate when a keyboard comes with a wrist rest, but this one’s built more for looks than comfort.