TECKNET Mechanical Gaming Keyboard – 88 Key Anti-Ghosting
TECKNET Mechanical Gaming Keyboard – 88 Key Anti-Ghosting, Blue Switch, Customizable Rainbow LED Backlit, Easy Media Control, Compact & Portable, Tenkeyless Design, Broad Compatibility, UK Layou
| Dimensions: | 13.35 x 2.25 x 36.15 cm; 720 Grams |
| Model: | 478986 |
| Manufacture: | TECKNET |
| Dimensions: | 13.35 x 2.25 x 36.15 cm; 720 Grams |
Wasn’t expecting much and didn’t really want to spend that much on a mechanical keyboard in case the noise got on my nerves but its actually delivered more than I expected.
The function keys are really handy, pause, play, stop, skip aswell as volume control.
Do miss using the number keypad for calculator but its just something you get used to.
Lights work well and have a number of options and patterns to use as well as just being on or off. Each row has its own colour , blue, red, orange, green purple and white and these cant be changed to just 1 colour for the whole thing, but really nice keyboard.
The TECKNET Mechanical Gaming Keyboard offers excellent value for its price. With its 88 keys, anti-ghosting feature, and blue switches, it delivers a satisfying typing and gaming experience.
One minor drawback is that the keyboard can be a bit noisy, especially when typing quickly. However, considering its affordable price, this is a compromise that can be accepted.
The customizable rainbow LED backlit feature is a nice addition, allowing for personalization and creating an immersive gaming atmosphere. The easy media control buttons are convenient and provide quick access to multimedia functions.
Its compact and portable design makes it ideal for gamers on the go, while the tenkeyless layout saves space on the desk. The broad compatibility ensures that it can be used with a variety of devices.
Overall, the TECKNET Mechanical Gaming Keyboard is a solid option for gamers who are looking for an affordable and feature-packed keyboard. Despite the minor noise issue, it delivers satisfactory performance and functionality.
My son loves it and for the price, it’s great.
Been used a lot so far and being 10 keyless, saves desk space which is ideal.
Would I buy again if I required another keyboard, sure would.
Most of the led pattern modes seem pointless and off putting, there’s only 2 that I would use, the one that follows keystrokes and the one that highlights WASD, I recommend consulting the manual included in the box in regards to using the different led modes as it’s not as straightforward as one of the item images suggests.
I bought 2, one for the office and one for work and have been using them without issue for 6 months.
This is an excellent keyboard, especially for the price I paid for it, about 20. The keyboard uses blue, clicky, switches, which may not be the most expensive switches but which work well for me. The keyboard is a solid piece of equipment.
I am less certain why it is called a gaming keyboard. Gaming keyboards should have red, linear, switches. Yes, the keyboard is lit in a colourful way, and you can set the lights to pick up special gaming keys, but beyond that I don’t get why it would be more useful for gamers rather than typists or programmers.
After a few weeks, Tecknet contacted me and offered to put things right so I will probably try another as I feel there equipment is pretty reliable and I must thank them for making contact with me, much appreciated Tecknet. Moved up to 4 stars for the good service.
I bought this keyboard with the sole intention of checking if I’d adapt to the TKL format coming down from a full size keyboard.
I must say the main reason I chose this model was the very low price. And I must say, that for how much I paid this piece is incredible!
Fair enough, it doesn’t have RGB (only rainbow backlit) but it does have a lot of light effects and presets for different kinds of games. But the build quality overall is very good! The quality of the keycaps (albeit ugly) is much better than I expected, they are double shot and although they don’t look super strong they feel better than the stock caps I had on my Roccat keyboard.
The board itself is all plastic but I believe there’s some weight inside to make it feel heavier (I’ll open the keyboard later to make sure).
The switches are outemu blues which are a great budget alternative. I personally feel those are not great for gaming, but that’s down to personal preference.
I honestly don’t know how this keyboard is so cheap compared to other alternatives (even membrane keyboards).
The keyboard is really nice, especially for the price! (23).
I bought this keyboard mostly for gaming as my old one is a membrane one and wanted a mechanical one.
Typing on this keyboard is really nice and I think my typing is faster and more accurate after a few days of use. In the beginning, it was a bit weird but as soon as you get used to it, you start to do better and better.
For gaming, I found it to be really nice and responsive. When playing, I know when I have pressed a button and can be sure that I did compare to my old keyboard. However, when resting my fingers on the WASD keys, you can feel a weird texture on the keyboard. I think this is there so your fingers don’t slide on the keys but it is very weird to feel. When typing you can’t feel that because you don’t touch the keys long enough. I suppose I’ll get used to it soon (hopefully) as I’ve only been using this for a week and a half.
Just for anyone wondering, you can not change the colour of the backlit keys. They are only the colour they show in the picture. This is a way that they’re able to keep the cost down I think.
I’m really happy with it and would definitely recommend it. Very very good for the prive!
I’ll update my review if anything shows up.
As a keen gamer and a programmer I already have an expensive gaming keyboard and a ergo work keyboard so this was bought for my son as a first gaming keyboard.
In many respects the Tecknet keyboard is absolutely as good as my expensive mechanical gaming keyboard. The key actuation is positive, key stability is good and everything is smooth and solid with a nice action. It seems to have n key rollover. An excellent keyboard indeed.
So will I be replacing my more expensive keyboard with this one? No, but for two reasons that may not matter to you.
1. The keyboard is clicky bordering on loud. If I were to use this keyboard, I would use the included keycap puller and put a rubber washer under every key to quieten it down.
2. The keyboard backlights are in areas of a fixed colour and cannot be set to one consistent colour overall.
That said, neither of these are issues for my son. He loves it. I love the fact it cost 20ish in a sale, but even at the current 29 it’s cheap as chips.
I got my kids all one of these keyboards for Christmas last year. They love the lighting on the keyboard and each of them has a favourite setting with the random colour cycling options available. The keys are very bright which is great for typing. The keys have a very tactile click to them but it’s not ‘too clicky’. It can get a bit noisy when all seven of us are in the room playing games but with headphones on I can’t hear any of it haha.
For the price these keyboards are a steal. They are nice and compact too if you don’t need a dedicated numpad which was one of my main reasons for buying as we have small desks to be able to cram seven PCs in to a single room!
Leaving a review now almost a year after purchase as I’m about to buy another for my youngest Son, who was up until now using a laptop, but now has a PC of his own so needs a good dedicated keyboard and I thought I may as well get another of these!
I’ve been using a keyboard with scissor switches for quite some time before purchasing this mechanical one and I had forgotten how good mechanical keys are. The keyboard is narrower than a full size one as it does not have a numeric keypad on the right-hand side but this is something I got used to very quickly. I wanted a keyboard that would give me precise feedback when typing and gaming. When using the keyboard with silent scissor keys I would often believe I had hit a key only to look up and realise I hadn’t. I’m a lazy typist and frequently need to look at my hands when typing.
There is plenty of cable from the keyboard to reach around the back of a tower if you need it. It is sturdy, much sturdier than I expected for the price and feels solid in your hands. The back-light for the keys is perfect. All the keys are well lit and each row has its own colour. At night the keys aren’t too bright and I believe the balance is just right. There are lights underneath the keyboard on either side that create a subtle hue on the desktop.
The alternate function keys offer a few helpful shortcuts such as launching windows calculator (more useful than I thought it would be) and adjusting windows volume.
This is a very good accurate and well-made keyboard. It isn’t the quietest and you may need to bear this in mind if you intend using it in a room with other people around. A small price to pay for such a great keyboard.
I’ve never had a mechanical keyboard before, always gone for a cheapo plastic one- either one that came with the PC, or similar.
I wanted a smaller keyboard, I never use the keypad on the right-hand side, and this seemed to be a very good price.
It’s a lovely weight, feels very well made, and I quite like the louder clicking of the keys! After initially mistyping a lot due to it’s slightly more compact layout, I quickly (read- minutes) got used to it, and I’m typing this review up on it, with very few errors.
It has some good functions on it, for example- launch calculator (more useful than you’d think), launch media player, stop/start/pause player (in my case, Spotify), skip forward/back tracks, volume controls etc.
You can change the brightness of the LEDs and whether they pulse, flash, are off completely, or on steadily. I wasn’t a massive fan of the rainbow colours, but they are actually quite pleasing.
All in all, at this price point, I am very impressed, and glad I took the chance on it!
This keyboard came a few days ago; I don’t normally review anything on any website at all but as this product was so good for the money I decided to make a review on it:
The keyboard is heavier than any other keyboard I have used and feels solid and well made in the hand. The keys use blue switches which in simpler terms means when you press a key, it makes a loud, clicky noise; as it is a mechanical keyboard, it is a lot more responsive the normal membrane keyboards and satisfying to use and make you sound very fast at typing!
The keyboard uses RGB lights under the keys and has 12 different lighting modes which are easily toggled through with the ‘ScrLk’ button near the top right corner of the keyboard and the RGB lights can be brightened and dimmed with the ‘Fn’ key + up and down arrow keys and also the speed of the flash of the lights with the ‘Fn’ key + left and right arrow keys.
The keyboard is compatible with PC, Xbox, PS4 and probably anything like that with a USB port or you could use a USB adapter.
If you wanted to remove and change or replace any of the keys, the is a yellow key cap remover on the under side of the keyboard. This keyboard is an 80% keyboard so the number pad on the right is not present on it if you had little desk space available but you can get this keyboard with the number pad for an extra 5.
In conclusion, I would definitely recommend this to anyone who wanted a decent mechanical keyboard for and use such as gaming, accounting or just general computer use – I use this to plug into my Xbox and PC for gaming. For 30 you can’t ask for much more and performs solidly even compared to top of the range gaming keyboards. I have had no problems with this product so far and I’m sure I won’t come into any.
I play video games competitively, and as such I need a keyboard I can rely on for both gaming and general computing uses.
I’ll be honest that I’m not really a massive fan of the lighting options, but that’s because I prefer lights on keyboards to either be off all together or one static colour. That’s why I’ve given this four stars, as aside from this one aesthetic function, the keyboard works perfectly, and was used to type up this review.
Having pulled some of the caps off of this keyboard, the switches underneath seem solid and are Outemu Blues. These are very similar to Cherry MX Blues, and are great if you like a satisfying click as you type.
For the price you really can’t go wrong with this keyboard, I haven’t noticed any issues so far that would go on to cause any problems or concern.
I thought I’d take the plunge with this keyboard, I work from home and use my keyboard for ~ 14 hours a day, everyday, and 4 weeks in, it’s currently not skipped a beat. The travel on the keys is perfect, the red switches albeit clearly not MX reds still have the satisfying clicky sound to them and feel genuine when typing upon them, and the overall construction of the keyboard is somewhat solid for something that is so affordable. I have a few gripes however:
– Colours can only be set on the specific keys as seen in the photos, it’s not RGB per se as I cannot set every key to just use WHITE as a colour or a single colour, it’s a patterned version of the colours seen in the photos or solid, nothing else.
– The keycaps have a ‘wobble’ to them. I get that the keyboard is incredibly cheap, but the wobble is quite noticable for someone who types all day everyday and regularly uses all keys on the keyboard, so the looseness of the keycaps themselves is a bit frustrating – given how cheap the keyboard is and how everything does just work out of the box, fixing this will improve the overall feel of the keyboard.
Other than the two issues above, it’s great. It works flawlessly, and for the money, you literally cannot buy a better mechanical keyboard.
Having spilt tea, beer , more beer and JD and coke on various Apple keyboards, I was getting to the point of getting fed up with keyboards where the number 5 and 6 keys stopped working.
I was idly looking at mechanical keyboards and reading the reviews for this keyboard when the price reduced to 21.00 for Black Friday, “Too good to turn down@ I thought to myself, I’ll give it a go.”
I plugged it in and I was off, here’s my tips for Mac owners:
1. It is a loud keyboard to type on but the action makes you appreciate that the chiclet keys that Apple use dont’t really cut it.
2. You can change the colour mode but not the colours. (The F key row will always be white, the number keys red, the QWERTY line Orange etc. However you can change whether the keyboard “animates” with various modes, like fading in various rows, all lights on etc. using the scroll lock key.
3. You can cage the brightness using the Fn key and the up (increases brightness), down (Reduces it).
4. The key is Shift 3, the @key is Shift 2 (marked as”), the ” key is Shift @….. Apart from that all is good.
5. To increase/decrease volume, use Fn and the F9/F10/F11 keys.
6. When plugged in, Mac OS asks to identify the keyboard, is set up as European ISO (Keyboard Prefs) and British Keyboard.
7. Its loud and anyone else in the room is likely to be distracted when you type.
8. Its very satisfying to type on and very accurate.
9. The left Alt Key is now next to space bar and Command button is between Ctrl and Alt. (marked as Windows). Messed up my Alfred shortcut to begin with.
Overall, this is my thoughts after the first 15 minutes, lots of good things so far and a couple of minor inconveniences.
I wanted a keyboard that doesn’t have a number pad, which means that I can have the keys perfectly centred with my body and the monitor. It’s just good ergonomics. I am a programmer, so as you can imagine having a good keyboard (and ergonomics) is a necessity for this line of work. While I don’t have repetitive strain injury (RSI), many of my friends and colleagues have it. And so I’ve been making an effort to proactively avoid developing RSI as best as I can. I try to make my typing experience the best possible. One thing I do know is that mechanical keyboards are good for ergonomics because of how comfortable they are to type on.
Typing on this keyboard feels really good, and I am not sure how to describe it, but it’s got a certain sense of satisfaction that you don’t get with other types of keyboards (such as the membrane keyboards you get on laptops) due to the tactile nature of the switches. Some people say that popping bubble wrap is really satisfying, and whenever I type on this keyboard or my other mechanical keyboard, the closest thing I can think of to describe the sensation of typing on a mechanical keybord is that it is something akin to the satisfaction of popping bubble wrap.
Although some may disagree, I love the ‘clickyness’ of the blue switches in this keyboard. My other keyboard had brown switches, and I was a little worried that perhaps the blue would be too clicky for me, but now that I’ve been using it I find that I am enjoying it. It feels different, but in a good way. Although I do understand switch preference is a highly subjective thing so best to do your own research. While discussing the switches I should also note that this keyboard also has anti-ghosting technology that I will no doubt find useful since I like to play video games from time to time.
It has a keycap puller conveniently located on the bottom. I’ve already made good use of this, when I decided to clean my old mechanical keyboard, and couldn’t find it’s keycap puller but remembered my new one had one. I like that it’s built into the keyboard because that will solve the problem I had with my old keyboard where I put the keycap puller in a safe place, that ended up being too safe (I can’t remember where it is).
Some expensive brands of Mechanical Keyboard require you to sign into an online service before you can access the keyboard’s drivers (which leads to the comical situation where you need to go online to configure your own hardware such as turning keyboard LEDs!). Technet blows those expensive keyboards out of the water by doing the same thing much better. With this keyboard all the LED settings are tweakable through the hardware itself using physical buttons on the device. I like that this keyboard is plug and play. I can move it from my desktop to my laptop very easily. When this keyboard is plugged in windows will just automatically find the needed drivers, and the LED settings are always available through the hardware.
If there are any downsides to this keyboard I’ve not encountered them yet. The lack of numpad is (for me at least) more of a benefit since I’d rather use an external one that I can then position to my left (which to me feels like the most sensible place for a numpad). But I can imagine for some it might be an issue. It would have been nice if each individual key could be lit independently, but for me that is a luxury rather than a necessity but I could see that some individuals may see it as a drawback. The clickyness of blue switches are all down to personal preference.
It has so many upsides, such as being plug and play, configuration of the LEDs accessible through the hardware, built in keycap puller, absolutely gorgeous brushed metal finish, braided cable, anti-ghosting technology, not to mention how downright pretty it looks like when its all lit up.
All in all, I am delighted with this Tecknet Mechanical Keyboard. I think it goes toe to toe with some much more expensive keyboards while being much more reasonably priced (and without sacrificing any quality).
Things I like
1) Price
2) Good Blue Clicky Switches. Really nice to type on.
3) It is an 88 key design – no useless numerical pad, but arrows and delete/insert keys in the right place
4) Pretty good construction quality
5) Proper UK/ISO layout.
Not so good
1) The black keys, when not backlit, are not particularly readable and the font on them is, well, urgh.
2) The LEDs are in six colours a different one for each row, but are not RGB. You can’t change the colour of each row, and the lights come on and off in a limited selection of patterns. Each row is switched by a single transistor too, so the row of lights are either on or off. Personally I find the rainbow colour scheme a bit garish.
Overall, I like the keyboard a lot, and confess I have changed the keycaps for much clearer ones, and am happy to then operate with the lights off. More extensive modifications are possible if you are willing to pull out a soldering iron (switches are soldered in, and LEDs are surface mount).
There’s no wasted space on this board and the lack of numpad means it has a relatively small footprint – great for a small desk. While I’m not a huge fan of the multicolour LED lighting, on its dimmest setting it does a great job of lighting the keys in a dark room without glaring. There are a few animated light modes if that’s your thing, but the LEDs are statically coloured as per the product photos, not dynamic RGB, but that’s probably why the price is so relatively cheap compared to other mech keyboards out there.
It comes with a keycap remover for maintenance (or if you want to swap for some game-specific caps) and has a Windows key lock to prevent accidentally popping your start menu up during a heated session so I imagine it would suit the gamers out there. Personally it’s just a joy to type on!
So I bought this TechNet (I just got it and im writing this review on it now yey happy buzz), officially know as tenkeyless, aka 88 key.
It uses blue clicky switches, same as the cherry, these are a slightly different tone but still very nice all the same, its sounds like im typing at 100 mph which impresses my kids so im happy with that.
The key Spacings are a little different (tighter) so im hitting two keys every now and then but I know I will hone my skills and get 99% accuracy pretty soon (im improving as I type this so no big issue there).
Ive turned off the lights, I mean im a coder not a gamer so im not allowed to switch them on am I. ( I will put them on when no ones looking).
Incidentally I would love to have an ‘all one colour’ setting for all the rows, as it stands each row of keys (Function keys, Number keys, qwerty etc…) have a fixed led colour! This is my only gripe, multi-colour leds are as cheap as single colour so it would have been a nice touch but not a deal breaker, I mean its so cheap and it already uses nice switches so im not complaining to much. I would have just loved a nice green, amber or red glow to let my kids know what mood im in.
I recommend this for coding, some boards three times the cost of this are not as good, its fast and solid and certainly as good as my cherry 😉 It also has a row of Function keys which is very important for dev speed.
Yes I highly recommend this, my mouse arm already feels way more natural, I love it – with a cherry on top.
If a thing I order arrives on time I’ll leave feedback to express my pleasure, but almost never bother to write review. Mechanical keyboards are great, once you’ve used one, you’ll instantly become a keyboard snob and sneer with contempt at the plebs with their spongey garbage keyboards. If you’re reading this review then you’re probably doing so because you are thinking ‘the other mech keyboards I’ve looked at have all been loads more expensive, I wonder if this is cheap because it’s crap?”
I had been using a Corsair K70 mechanical keyboard for a couple of years ,(the older model that had just red backlighting) and they still cost 90 plus. I loved it until the ‘Q’ key stopped lighting up and it started totype multiple letters from one keystsrokkkkke [see what I did there?? 😉 ] but was too poor to get one of those poncey RGB ‘gaming’ things that are so ‘this season’
I was SOOO dubious about the cheapness of this one that I ummed and erred for ages, but if anything I think I like this one more than the Corsair one. The keys have that lovely mechanical feel to them but seem to be more responsive and they don’t make anything like the clattering racket the’red’ switches on the Corsair did, it feels very solid and well built too.
It’s very rare that I am reallly satisfied with something, and I bloody LOVE this. The makers of the ‘gaming’ keyboards costing 5 times as much as this one should be ashamed of themselves and in an ideal world would be sent to prison.
The keys are nice and brightly lit up, I doubt you can make them flash different colours and so on, but I couldn’t care less, I just want to be able to see them in the dark. It DOES have a Windows key lock although it doesn’t say so in the description, so there’s a lovely bit of icing on an already delicious cake.
I couldn’t recommend this more highly
It sounds amazing. That’s pretty much the only reason you’d buy a mechanical keyboard isn’t it? The feel is good, it is easily much much better than a rubber dome keyboard. I can game with it happily, though I hasten to add if you are buying it to game, your friends are going to either love or hate you, because it is very noisy and to some thats a nice thing, to some its not so nice.
Its back lights are… functional. I wouldn’t say they are pretty, if I’m entirely honest they look rather ugly, but they can be disabled. They are useful for night time typing though, which personally I do a lot, and even if they are ugly, when you do a lot of typing, you will find you only need to look at it to orient yourself, then you don’t have to look again.
Lights aside, the design is very nice, the brushed metal under the key caps is very pleasing to the eye, however, it does look small, and the reason for that brings me into my next point…
There is (as you can probably tell) no number pad. This isn’t too much of a problem, but I have found in a lot of games I’ve had to rebind my shortcuts to ‘pgup’ and ‘pgdn’ to make up for it. Also, inputting numbers is much easier with a number pad in my opinion, but at the end of the day I wouldn’t say that it not being there makes this purchase worthless, it just mildly irritates me whenever I need to put numbers in.
Its macro keys (the ones that launch things like the calculator or turn the volume up) are convenient, though I do not use them very often.
All in all, a decent keyboard that is well built. I would recommend it for someone on a budget that wants a premium feeling keyboard.
Good points:
– Really solid. Heavy, brushed metal top. No bending of flexing.
– Decent quality blue switches are nice to type on.
– Decent length USB cable
– Non-slip feed, stays put on your desk.
– Good company.
Bad points:
– No numeric keypad. (Didn’t realise just how often I used it until now.)
– The ‘blue’ switches are not so good for gaming as the higher release point makes them difficult to double tap.
‘Red’ switches would be a better choice for something that is marketed as a gaming keyboard.
‘Blue’ switches are nice for typing, but the backspace key (at least) should use a red or brown switch.
– You can’t change the colour of the LEDs and the flashing feature looks really tacky. (I find it irritating and distracting, but my kids like it.)
Fortunately, you can stop the ridiculous flashing and just have the lights on or off (and set the brightness).
Epic fail – They have re-purposed the scroll lock key to select the flashing pattern!!
This means that it starts flashing like crazy whenever you hit “ScrLk”. The brightness is controlled by the up and down arrow keys, which (fortunately) require you to hold down the function (Fn) key at the same time. Unfortunately, this is not the case with scroll lock. As far as I can tell, there is no way to use scroll lock for it’s intended purpose, which is a bummer.
I wouldn’t take this thing into work in case I hit scroll lock in the middle of a demo or something.
My background:
I’m a computer programmer, and I spend most of my life in front of a keyboard.
I really like TeckNet stuff, and have been using their mice for years. Their quality, reliability and value for money are excellent.
This is a good keyboard, but I will be returning it to buy something with a numeric keypad, single colour back light, functioning scroll lock key, and a different backspace switch.
Good points:
Stable and solid design with good grip in both positions.
The back light is silent (I am sensitive to the high pitch whining from some electronic devices, this has no whine at any light intensity).
Colour coded rows (I have found it easier to find key combinations for editing software and flight simulation due to each row being a different colour, this was an unexpected win.
Plug and play and all the media keys work straight away.
Bad points:
I thought the keys could be set to a single colour of choice but aparently not. However, as mentioned above, I have found the coloured rows to be surprisingly useful.
The additional functions of the back lights are pretty lame. On and off are all I would ever use, the rest just turn the keyboard into a disco, which I can’t see the point of.
I expected to send this keyboard back after a short trial but have found myself really liking it. The rainbow colour might not be to everyone’s taste and it isn’t the most professional looking. However, for a home computer it is smart and the lighting adds a bit of fun to the room.
As a mac user, I had to be a bit weary of what keyboard would actually work well, and I am pleased to say that this keyboard fits the bill very well. It’s the UK layout which is great, and it’s adapted to mac nicely. While things like the @ button is printed on a different key (naturally because Apple had to be different with its placement) it still in its usual mac key spot (2) so when it comes to muscle memory, you won’t be caught out. Furthermore, the windows key is your cmd key. It’s very quick and easy to figure out what keys work. Multimedia keys work while pressing fn too which is great! Plus the no drivers thing is excellent I think.
The colours are nice, I like the rainbow. All the different lighting modes are fun but probably not very practical. But that’s up to the individual to decide and it’s great that there are a few different options.
The only downside to this keyboard is the sound. I don’t mind that the keys are loud; they’re blue switches I knew that. The problem is the keyboard seems to give off this metallic echo as you type. It’s honestly a minor thing and for the price it’s not a game changer. I’ll probably get used to it quickly. This is a great budget mechanical keyboard, and while it’s not perfect, it does what it needs to do, and it’s improved my gaming experience already.
Have been looking for a mechanical keyboard for a while after my old one finally gave up the ghost. As I have a restricted space on my desk keyboard shelf I needed a smaller form factor keyboard like this one without the number pad on the end. The other feature I was looking for was a full UK layout, as many of these tend to have either US layouts or slightly odd sized keys for the Enter & backspace which I find awkward. Having bought one before I found that it didn’t work with my Linux based system. As this one seemed to get good reviews had the layout I was looking for, came with backlighting and didn’t seem to need drivers I took a chance on it, even though the listing didn’t say if it was compatible with Linux or not.
I am very glad that I did as it worked for me straight out of the box and is very well made and lovely to type on, which is what I will be doing mostly as I’m not a gamer despite this being a gaming keyboard. Thus I may not use all the features, but it is nice to have the rainbow effect backlights at this price point. At first the backlights were a bit alarming as they were flashing and going up and down the keyboard, but after a few presses of the function key and the SL button one in from the top right hand corner I got them to my liking in an always on configuration as shown in the photo.
So in summary if you are looking for a well made good value UK Layout mechanical keyboard with colourful backlights which doesn’t seem to need any drivers, then this should be high up on your list. It also comes with a two to three year warranty so hopefully it will stand the test of time.
Edit 12/02/2016: Had to return this to Amazon for a refund as it stopped working a few times after Windows 10 updates and this time I cant find a way to fix it, The light come on, but the keys dont work. I think it may have something to do with the fact it has to use two USB ports at once to operate? Not sure though,
Love this keyboard.
Quality metallic construction, the different back lighting options look awesome and trippy – or you can just set to white backlight for everyday use.
Nice thick cable, it takes up 2 USB ports as it needs the extra power, but there is a USB extension on the back which I find very useful for my USB headset.
I’ve only ever used membrane keyboards for gaming before, and found the responsiveness and the feel of the buttons to be a huge improvement. Typing isnt too much louder than a traditional membrane keyboard…but then that does depend on what keyboard you are used to before and how hard you press.
Sebastian J’s review was VERY helpful, and I’m glad I read it before I received this keyboard, as it currently requires a tiny bit of tweaking to work with windows 10. This may have changed since I purchased, so it might work plug and play for you on Windows 10. If not, see below.
Here is an excerpt from his review:
“If you go in to your settings menu, devices, and open up your device manager, it will create two device entries for this keyboard.
One under keyboards, and another under Universal Serial Bus Controllers. It is in the USB Controllers section you will have to make a change.
When Windows detects the keyboard it will create an entry titled “ND-tech USB adapter” or simply “Generic USB hub”. Or just have that tab open as you plug the keyboard and go to whichever new entry is created. Bit sketchy on that part as I did this myself out of order.
Anyway, what you’ll want to do is right click on the new entry, and select “update driver software..” Then choose to “manually update” the driver software, and then “let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer”. Then a popup should appear, select from this list “USB composite device” and hit next to finish installation.
All going well, congratulations, you should now have a working keyboard :)”
Hope it’s OK to copy this for visibility, THANK YOU again Sebastian J.
Firstly, there is only one other review, at least using the search function, of this keyboard. I would agree with its positive assessment, but it does not provide information people might find particularly useful.
That said, I am not particularly knowledgeable on the subject of mechanical keyboards, but certainly in my experience of having used various chiclet and dome keyboards, I can say this is far and away better than any of those types that I have used. The responsiveness is excellent. I had not realised how much, whether gaming or typing, a mechanical keyboard like this might help.
The current price of this keyboard, 60 when I bought it, 70 as I type this, is roughly equivalent to a good non mechanical keyboard, but represents infinitely better value.. In comparison to other mechanicals with similar features, I can’t say as I have not used them. It is though roughly half the price of a similarly specced “brand” keyboard, and I honestly can’t imagine them performing much better, at least not 100% better.
So as a well priced upgrade to a non-mechanical keyboard, or a first foray into mechanical keyboards, I can certainly recommend this one.
Now thirdly, and perhaps to some most importantly, this keyboard is not compatible with Windows 10 out of the box, at least at the current time.
The closest I have found to an official update on this was on an Italian retailers forum. Apparently the manufacturer is working on a fix which will be released, but god knows when. The manufacturers official website doesn’t have much information at all.
However, I have found there is a fix, which requires only minor fiddling with Windows 10 settings.
If you go in to your settings menu, devices, and open up your device manager, it will create two device entries for this keyboard.
One under keyboards, and another under Universal Serial Bus Controllers. It is in the USB Controllers section you will have to make a change.
When Windows detects the keyboard it will create an entry titled “ND-tech USB adapter” or simply “Generic USB hub”. Or just have that tab open as you plug the keyboard and go to whichever new entry is created. Bit sketchy on that part as I did this myself out of order.
Anyway, what you’ll want to do is right click on the new entry, and select “update driver software..” Then choose to “manually update” the driver software, and then “let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer”. Then a popup should appear, select from this list “USB composite device” and hit next to finish installation.
All going well, congratulations, you should now have a working keyboard 🙂