The latest keyboard from NZXT looks pretty similar to their old models from two years ago. Below is a picture of the old one I reviewed two years ago, admittedly, it’s black, not white, but overall I think you’ll agree they look the same.
This is the new one, again, it’s white, but the size, layout, and general look of it are the same. Aluminium Interior Wall Panels
That’s not a bad thing though, as this is a lovely-looking keyboard, and with its TKL design it’s already compact, but the body and frame of it are pretty slim too, so it eats up very little desktop space.
Down the left side, you’ll find some uniquely placed control buttons for the LED lighting, Windows Lock and a mute button, but also a scroll wheel for adjusting audio levels. Most keyboards put the volume wheel on the right side, but it being on the left, you can adjust volume while gaming, without taking your hand off the mouse. Sure, you can’t WASD, but at least you can still aim and shoot!
The overall quality of the keyboard is excellent, with a 3mm thick aluminium plate forming the main part of the body, and ensuring the keyboard is pretty heavy and devoid of any unwanted flex. NZXT has filled the interior of the keyboard with two thick layers of dampening foam as well as a tape mod (the back of the PCB has thick tape on it), all of which reduce the noise and vibrations in the keyboard.
The key caps are double-shot PBT, they have a premium quality feel to them as you might expect. However, it’s the linear switches that steal the show. They’re NZXT’s design and use an optical-mechanical design rather than a metal contact, the switch breaks a light sensor when actuated, which allows for a much faster response time, but because they’re no physical contact, there’s significantly less wear on the switch, which is why they’re rated with a 100 million keystroke guarantee (you would have to press the switch every second for three years to hit that)
I do love my numberpad, as I work a lot with spreadsheets and numbers, but when it comes to gaming, there are clear benefits to the MINITKL design as it frees up more desktop space for your mouse. It cuts off the numberpad, takes the navigation keys and puts them in a vertical column right about the right arrow key; This trims the keyboard down to just 442mm width, or about 70% the size of a full-size keyboard.
There are some macro keys built into the top row, allowing you to skip, play and pause music, and you access these using the Fn-Shift key. I prefer dedicated buttons, but hey, if it keeps the keyboard compact and still lets me tinker with my music while playing games, it’s better than nothing.
On this side, you’ll find three profiles on F1, F2, and F3, allowing you to cycle through various lighting profiles, macro setups, and gaming configurations with just a quick tap. You can, of course, customise these profiles and save them via the NZXT CAM software.
Around the back, you’ll see a faint white NZXT logo on one side, and a USB type-C port on the other, nice and clean and relatively simple.
The underside of the keyboard has five durable rubber grips, and the keyboard is pretty heavy too, so even when you’re mashing at the keys it doesn’t slip and slide around.
The kickstands allow two levels of height adjustments, with little rubber grips on each to ensure you’re not losing too much friction when raising the angle of the keyboard.
The feet and pretty thick and durable too, but for me, I prefer a flatter keyboard, so I doubt I’ll ever use these anyway.
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