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The Cougar Deathfire EX combo ships in a colourful box, with a photo of the keyboard and mouse taking up most of the front of the box.
Inside, there is a small user manual which goes over things like changing the LED colour or lighting effects.
Starting with the keyboard, Cougar have opted for a fairly minimalistic design instead of the ‘typical gamer' look, which often features sharp corners and aggressive angles. I much prefer this design as it works in a variety situations – this keyboard would not look out-of-place whether it was on your desk at home or being used in the office.
While it is made of plastic, Cougar have actually given the keyboard a faux brushed-aluminium finish which adds a bit interest and keeps the keyboard from looking plain. It is obviously not an aluminium keyboard, but this finish does look good and helps keep things stylish and modern.
You may also have noticed the light-grey plastic strip which runs alongside the entire outside of the keyboard. This is actually an LED strip – very similar to the ‘LightBar' used in the Corsair K95 RGB Platinum, something I am actually testing at the moment. We take a look at some of the lighting options on the next page.
The Deathfire EX keyboard is also a ‘memchanical', or ‘hybrid' keyboard – meaning that it is actually a membrane keyboard but the keys have been modified slightly to give some tactile feedback, making them feel more in-line with high-end mechanical switches.
While we assess how this feels in practice on the next page, one feature I would have liked to see is compatibility with standard Cherry MX keycaps – that way, if you lose one, a replacement is easy to source. At the moment, it looks like you would have to go through Cougar to get a replacement, since the keycaps are proprietary.
Lastly, the keyboard uses a non-detachable, 1.6m braided cable.
Moving on to the mouse, it is clear that Cougar have kept the design nice and simple here, too. It is also worth pointing out that the mouse is ambidextrous, and its outer-shell is made from hard plastic.
Before looking at the mouse's features, though, it is worth mentioning that the Cougar logo and the scroll wheel do illuminate once your system is powered-on, though the LEDs cannot be controlled independently of each other.
The left-hand side of the mouse features two extra buttons – used for navigation purposes – as well as a textured area which should help with gripping the mouse.
On the right-hand side, there are no extra buttons but there is more of this textured material.
At the top of the mouse is the textured scroll wheel – something which should also help grip in the heat of battle. Below the scroll wheel is another button – but it is not a DPI switch. It actually changes the lighting colour and effects – something we look at on the next page.
If you want to change the DPI – it comes in pre-configured stages of 500, 1000, 1500 and 2000 – you actually have to turn to the underside of the mouse where there are two small switches, one for the DPI and another for the polling rate.
Lastly, the mouse uses a 1.6m non-braided cable – something I find a bit strange actually. Why use a braided cable for the keyboard but not the mouse?
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