Nostromo Speed Pad N52 - Belkin N52te

Belkin N52te

Starting January 2008 (delayed from November 2007) an updated version called the Belkin n52te will be sold. This version does not feature the word "Nostromo", and has the additional "te", meaning "tournament edition". The device is black and has a blue backlit keypad and scroll wheel. The user can "hot-swap" player profiles, a capability supported by built-in memory. The device runs software created by Razer.

Since the n52te was released however, many fans of the original have voiced their concerns that the n52te is lacking several features that were present in the original n52, mostly within the profiling software produced by Razer which has been criticized by owners of the original as being significantly less sophisticated than the original Belkin software.

Examples of missing features are:

• The ability to rename keymaps to indicate their function, rather than just displaying the raw keystroke.
• The ability to convert old n52 profiles for use on the n52te. Many n52te purchasers got them to replace their original n52 controllers and were displeased when they learned they would have to redo all their carefully constructed profiles.
• Lack of a null, unswitched state for the keymaps, essentially reducing the mappable key count by 23 as the n52te only utilises the blue, green and red switch states for mapping.
• The ability to copy keymaps between switch states.