INTRODUCTION

   When CORSAIR acquired Elgato last year I have to admit that we were all somewhat surprised as to they why they did that so I did some digging around and found out that the number of streamers (whether that's via YouTube, Twitch or any other platform) worldwide tripled over the last 5 years and yes that was last year. By now the number of streamers is certain to have increased even more and although I don't have the market/sales numbers CORSAIR did when they went through with this acquisition it's a good thing that they did what they did because since then we've seen a plethora of new products released by Elgato aimed almost entirely towards streamers (such as the Stream Deck Mini, Green Screen and Key Light). The last addition in the growing line of streamer related products by Elgato is the Stream Deck XL which was released late last month and has been here with us ever since.

   Elgato is the leading provider of hardware and software for content creators, leveraging decades of experience to develop widely-accessible products that empower all creators to produce high-quality, professional content. A leader in game capture, Elgato offers four powerful game capture cards, the Stream Deck controller, and accompanying software that enables creators to easily record, upload, and livestream professional content. Designed in Germany and California, Elgato products are distributed by major retailers in over eighty countries around the world. In July 2018, Elgato was acquired by CORSAIR, and remains a separate brand within CORSAIR.

   The Stream Deck XL is the larger brother of the original Stream Deck released back in early 2017 and of course the Stream Deck Mini released late last year. Now although the main difference between all three models has to do with the number of available customizable LCD keys (32 for the XL, 15 for the "regular" model and 6 for the mini) and of course size the brand new Stream Deck XL also features a magnetic stand and a detachable USB 3.0 type-C cable. Unfortunately, unlike the adjustable stand bundled with the Stream Deck the magnetic stand is fixed so you only have two possible positions for the Stream Deck XL. Of course, the major selling point of the Stream Deck XL is its 32 LCD keys (15x15mm in size each / 72x72p resolution) thanks to which consumers can achieve a far higher level of functionality compared to either of its predecessors. In terms of usage nothing changes so once again you can use the Stream Deck XL to simplify (streamline) computer tasks by drag and dropping them to each of the keys (roughly the same way as you'd do with macro keys in a keyboard). As Elgato points out on their website with a quick tap, streamers can switch scenes, launch media, open websites and folders, send a tweet and much more and as you will all see later on this is actually an understatement since the Stream Deck XL (just like both of its predecessors) can be used to perform a very wide range of tasks (recent updates have added support for Spotify, Philips Hue, NVIDIA Share and many more tasks).