Closer Examination

The plastic sleeve is fairly thick, taped on the open side and has a cutout for the cable to go through. Once removed, we get our first good look at the keyboard itself. The first thing I noticed is how massive it is, despite it being a mostly standard full size keyboard. Sure, the four additional volume/macro record control keys add to the bulk but overall it occupies ~15-20% more volume than most full size keyboards. A lot of this has to do with the thick plastic top and bottom panels used, and this does help provide a feeling of sturdiness and rigidity to the keyboard along with the steel plate that the keys are mounted on. I have here the ANSI layout, and there are no plans currently to support other layouts such as ISO, in case that was a factor that influences your purchase.


Not much going on the back here. There are rubber pads on the corners to help prevent the keyboard from sliding around on your desk, and there are two feet that help raise the keyboard if you prefer this. However, the feet are plastic and have no rubber finish. When raised, these scraped against the surface of my desk and left a mark so this is an oversight- or perhaps left so on purpose to hit a budget. Either way, color me not impressed. The cable is non-detachable, braided and terminates in a standard male USB Type-A connector. USB 2.0 will suffice for the keyboard as far as power requirements go, just in case you were running low on USB 3.0 connections.


The keycaps are sculpted, and follow the Cherry OEM profile (different from Cherry profile) as with most Cherry MX compatible keyboards on the market. The included keycap puller works fairly well with the smaller keycaps, but the longer ones benefit from a wire puller. The stock keycaps are pretty mediocre, with an average wall thickness of 0.86-0.91 mm, composed of ABS and have laser etched legends. All that means that the keycaps will wear off within an year of average use, which is on par with most other mainstream manufacturers in this regard. I am not sure whether G.SKILL has the market share to go this route, but at least they have a "standard" layout making it easy to replace the stock keycaps with replacement sets if you so desire- at an additional cost, of course. The last picture above is with a light source in the middle to remove the variable of LED placement to show that it is possible to have even the secondary legends be backlit despite their placement below the primary ones. However, the LEDs are on the top with this keyboard and so there will be uneven backlighting.


The sample provided uses Cherry MX Brown switches, and this being a non-RGB version uses the black housing switches. Note also the G.SKILL wording above the arrow key cluster here has a glossy finish and reflects light if incident directly upon it. The larger keys use Cherry stabilizers making it easier to remove and install them, and this is especially handy given the top panel on the keyboard preventing the so-called floating keycap design.