Thank you Turtle Beach/ROCCAT for sending us this keyboard to review!

When I first saw this keyboard to consider reviewing it, two things stood out to me: first was the very reasonable price, at $49.99, and the second was the 60% keyboard layout. I’ve always wanted to try out a 60% to see if I would like it, and also see if I could get used to having to press Fn + a bunch of keys for everything. And you know what? I do like it, but mostly because ROCCAT really thought through the layout and did a superb job with it.

Now, it has to be said that this keyboard, especially at this price, had to have some concessions. The main one is rather obvious: it’s not mechanical, but rather membrane. Until the resurgence of mechanical keyboards over the last ten to fifteen years, membranes were, and still are, by far the most common type of keyboard. If it’s inexpensive, flat, comes with your computer, or curvy/ergonomic with wavy keys, it’s probably membrane. (Mechanical ergonomic keyboard exist, but are very expensive.) If it’s quiet, it’s also most likely membrane. It’s a proven technology, and it works fine, but if you are expecting a mechanical keyboard, prepare to pay more or buy from a small, lesser known brand with unknown corners cut on the quality. ROCCAT boasts that this keyboard is the lowest-cost 60% keyboard available from the major gaming keyboard manufacturers, and I believe they’re right.

Like the full-sized Magma before it, this keyboard has a basic plastic build, going for a flashier rather than business-like look. I wouldn’t recommend taking this one with you to the office! All of the materials are plastic, and while they don’t feel particularly high-end, they are remarkably sturdy, with no flex to speak of. It is fairly light, but good rubber grips help it stay in place on your desk, and there are flip-up stands if you prefer your keyboard at an angle. There is a typical permanently-attached rubber USB cable on the upper-left of the keyboard, and it does what it’s supposed to. The 1.8 meter cable includes a velcro strap, which is a nice touch.

There is a huge (tiny?) trend in keyboards these days to get smaller and smaller. The typical, 104-key keyboard is great, and I love mine. But many are finding that they don’t have the space if they have a small desk, or that they rarely use most of the keys, especially gamers. Most first-person games rely primarily on the WASD cluster and what surrounds it, so many keys don’t need to be there most of the time. Other popular form factors include Ten Keyless (TKL), which is a full-size keyboard without the number pad. Then, there are smaller ones; I recently reviewed ROCCAT’s Vulcan II Mini, which is a 65% keyboard that I absolutely love, and still use almost daily. I wasn’t sure if I could handle not having navigation keys, but it turns out that adapting to this 60% layout was easier than I expected.

I’ve looked online at several 60% keyboard layouts, and I have not seen a single one with a layout better than this one. There are a few things that makes it great, but the primary one is that the Fn key is on the far right corner. This choice leads to the option to have the arrow keys superimposed over the Ctrl/Alt/Menu/? keys, which is absolutely brilliant. Then, other commonly used navigation keys are just past that. For example, Page Up/Down are on the ; and . keys. Home and End are on l and ,. Other important keys are just past those, like having the media keys on the HJK/BNM clusters for Prev/Play/Next and Vol Down/Up/Mute respectively. Also, the delete key is combined with the backspace, so to delete it’s a simple Fn+Back, which is super easy to reach. Things you use often are easy to find, and things you rarely use are farther away. The F-keys are superimposed over the number key row, like in most compact form factors. The only complaint I have, and it’s minor, is that there is a way to lock the right Alt/Menu/Ctrl/? keys to be arrows by default rather than when you hold Fn, and that’s by toggling the mode via Fn+Left Shift. This is mentioned in the manual, but it’s not obvious at all when looking at the keyboard. Almost all other key functions have a label on the keycap, but this function doesn’t. Otherwise, this layout really is perfect.

I used this keyboard for work and play for several weeks before writing this, and I’ve come to believe that this layout not only couldn’t be improved upon (other than the arrows toggle), but that I almost prefer this over the 65% I have, where a single commonly used navigation key, End, is under a Fn key – but pretty much everything else I need doesn’t need the Fn. I say that because the Fn key on that Vulcan II Mini is located in a cluster of other stuff, where I need to look at it to make sure I’m pressing the right one; this Fn key is located where I don’t really need to look at it, as I know it’s in the bottom right corner. So I can just find it by feel alone, press whatever navigation I need, then get right back to typing. I also like the location for media keys better here than with the Vulcan II Mini. Everything else about the Vulcan II Mini, like the mechanical keys, appearance, build quality, and so on is better, so I still prefer it, but there are things about this layout that I like a whole lot. I’ve long felt that ROCCAT’s keyboards might be some of the most well-thought out designs I’ve seen, and this is a perfect example of why.