Once the settings are adjusted correctly, this keyboard works incredibly well. The actuation distance of each switch can be manually adjusted, meaning it can register a key press anywhere from the top of the press to the bottom, and multiple inputs can even be mapped at different distances. The keyboard is responsive, with an 8,000Hz polling rate, and the low latency produces virtually no significant input lag.
This keyboard is wired only, which might be a problem for some. This is a fairly dense all-metal keyboard that emphasizes high-speed use, neither of which is necessary for a portable keyboard. While wireless would be nice, it would increase the price of this keyboard and its complexity.
The RGB lighting has over 20 built-in presets, and all of them work well, but the color isn’t perfect. When adjusting the lighting settings, almost all of them seem to lean heavily towards a cyan/blue hue. This is probably due to the light blue housing of the Magnetic Jade switches, which is unavoidable without using different switches, but even without switches the LED diodes appear to be slightly cooler than a true neutral white.
These effects combine to create a keyboard that struggles to have a pure white color even with serious adjustments, especially since RGB settings are easily overwhelmed and start to lag as you move your cursor on the color wheel. The closest I could get to pure white was with an RGB setting of [255, 60, 90]which still had a slightly cold tint. When set to the low speed “breathe” setting with this color, the lighting was choppy as it faded, and slowly faded to red as it got darker instead of retaining the preset color. When set to a faster speed and using a more standard color setting (like solid blue or green), these quirks disappeared.
Internal assembly
Photography: Henri Robbins
The internal assembly is rather simple: the printed circuit board (PCB) and switch plate are screwed together, sandwiching a sheet of silicone between them. This silicone fills the empty space between the plate and the PCB and extends over the outer edge to create seals that the two halves of the case hold in place. Thanks to this, the internal assembly is held in place without coming into direct contact with the outer casing, thus reducing vibrations and excess noise.
