The KiiBOOM Phantom 64 is a transparent keyboard designed to become the showpiece of your desktop. With ice cube-like keycaps, its per-key lighting shines without restraint. It’s also gasket mounted and factors in other enthusiast-level features to ensure it delivers a satisfying typing and gaming experience whether you’re wired or playing over its fast 2.4GHz or slower Bluetooth connections. At $199, it’s pricey but eye-catching.
We would like to thank Epomaker for providing the sample for this review.
Specifications
- Current Price: $199 (Epomaker)
- Number of Keys: 64 Keys
- Connectivity: Type-C Wired/2.4GHz/Bluetooth
- Stabilizer Type: Plate-mounted
- Structure: Gasket Mounted
- Hot-swappable: Yes
- Anti-Ghosting: NKRO
- Battery: 4000mAh
- LED: South-Facing
- Keycaps Material: PC
- Keycaps Profile: SA-like
- Plate Material: PC
- PCB Thickness: 1.2mm
- Case Material: Acrylic & Metal
- Compatibility: Windows/Mac
- Dimensions: 350mm x 114mm x 45mm
- Weight: 1.5kg (3.3 lbs)
- Screen Size: 31.52mm(H) x 33.72mm(V) x 1.9mm(D)
- Screen Resolution: 240(H)RGB x 240(V) Pixels
KiiBOOM Phantom 64 - Design and Highlights
The KiiBOOM Phantom 64 is an interesting keyboard in more ways than one. It’s the successor to the KiiBOOM Phantom 81 we reviewed back in 2022, embracing its see-through RGB goodness but changing some of its internal design to improve the overall typing experience. The Phantom 81 was no slouch. Though a bit stiff by today’s standards, it still offered an excellent typing experience while also looking quite neat.
Like the Phantom 81, the keyboard is made of glassy acrylic. With the exception of its large LCD screen, everything is see-through, including the keycaps and switches. Now, you don’t exactly get a full inside look at the keyboard. The plate the switches snap into is white polycarbonate and there’s a silicone layer in the bottom to enhance its acoustics, but these white sheets in the middle add more visual interest internally, enhancing its glass-like appearance.
At 3.3 pounds, it has a nice heft to it, akin to a custom mechanical keyboard. And, indeed, that certainly appears to be the inspiration behind its overarching design. It comes in an expanded 60% layout, including arrow keys and a customizable LCD screen. Flip it over and you’ll find a weight in the back engraved and in-filled with the KiiBOOM brand name.
Those inspirations are further demonstrated with the keyboard’s internal features. It offers hot-swappable switches, gasket mounting, sound-dampening and sound-enhancing foam/silicone, and pre-lubed switches and stabilizers. The only thing it’s missing is support for QMK and VIA, which is a bit of a shame. The included software allows for a good amount of remapping and supports multiple layers of top-level keymaps, but it’s relatively unpolished and isn’t as configurable as VIA or web-accessible.
One of the reasons why it relies on software is its large LCD screen. It measures just under 3cm square, allowing it to be larger and clearer than most other keyboard screens. It acts as an information display, can display important system information like your CPU temperature and memory usage, and also allows you to control its lighting and volume. The software also allows you to load your own GIFs to display for even more customization.
Strangely, KiiBOOM doesn’t disclose exactly what switches are used in this keyboard. They’re a medium-weight, pre-lubed linear switch that’s honestly quite good. I believe they’re KiiBOOM Crystal switches but can’t say for certain. They have a nice sound profile and are consistently smooth and responsive across the whole keyboard.
The keycaps are very interesting. They’re made of polycarbonate and have the classic poppy PC sound to go with it. They have a perfectly smooth surface but since they’re clear, you can’t really see any fingerprints you might be leaving. They’re single-shot, which is normal for PC keycaps and have nice thick side-walls to deepen their sound signature. They’re also formed in a shorter SA profile, so cradle your fingers well and have a nice, rounded shape on the edges and sides. The legending is also good, except for the Caps Lock key which has the text a little off-center.
The keyboard also supports tri-mode connectivity and has a 4,000mAh to power its wireless experience. It can connect to up to three devices over Bluetooth and a single 2.4GHz host using the included dongle. The 2.4GHz connection supports 1,000Hz polling for a 1ms response time, which is equivalent to most wired gaming keyboards. If you run the RGB full blast like I do, you’ll need to plug it in once every few days with regular use. Without, KiiBOOM doesn’t say, but other keyboards with similar specs and battery sizes usually last around a month over Bluetooth.
The last thing to note is that it also natively supports both Windows and Mac using a switch on the back. The keyboard is also available in your choice of clear, pink, or purple colors.
KiiBOOM Phantom 64 - Performance
Compared to the Phantom 81, KiiBOOM has made some major enhancements to the typing and use experience. The gasket mount implementation is much better this time.
Gasket mounting involves sandwiching foam or silicone tabs between the top and bottom case, isolating the switch plate from the keyboard’s chassis. It also typically involves a level of softness to the typing experience.
The Phantom 64 is noticeably softer than the Phantom 81. It’s not the softest as you’ll just barely see any movement when typing normally, but it’s effective at dampening your keystrokes to provide a fatigue-free and acoustically enhanced experience.
The switches and stabilizers are consistently great. The stabs are pre-lubed perfectly right out of the box. There was no rattle or ticking on my sample and I didn’t find mods to be necessary at all.
Typing and gaming on the keyboard is very comfortable. There are no flip-out tilt feet but the case itself is angled. The front height is a bit tall, so you may want a wrist rest, but I found it comfortable to use without. The shape of the keycaps helps promote accuracy in how they subtly guide your fingertips toward their center, so I actually increased my typing speed by a few WPM when using it.
The RGB looks great. You can cycle through many different presets for the per-key lighting and a smaller but still ample assortment for the bottom case lighting. Using the software, you can create custom static lighting scenes as well as configure for brightness and animation speed (these controls are also available with key combinations but custom schemes are limited to software).
The gaming experience is also very good. Since the keyboard feels so nice to use, it naturally enhances the gaming experience and encourages you to come back for extra rounds. Or, in my case, typing tests. I was pretty enamored with Type Racer, especially as I am in the process of relearning proper typing technique. Wireless connectivity was just as responsive as wired in my testing.
The software, on the other hand, isn’t so great. It gives you plentiful options to rebind keys and record/assign macros, but it’s a bit clunky. Remapping involves clicking the key you want to remap, clicking on a little keyboard icon under the Key Combination section of the software, choosing the key you want, making sure that none of the modifier keys are checked, and then clicking the Save button after every single remap.
Customizing the screen with a GIF is also a little hit or miss. You'll want to be sure that it's properly dimensioned to be sure it applies correctly. There's also a two-minute plus delay to download GIFs to the keyboard.
Overall, however, it's a very solid showing.
Final Thoughts
The KiiBOOM Phantom 64 is showy enough that you'll either love it or hate it. It's better built, more weighty, and feels more premium that any other keyboard I've seen with a similar design. If you're the kind of person who loves RGB, and doesn't mind paying extra to take it to the next level, it makes for a good choice.
The product described in this article was provided by the manufacturer for evaluation purposes.
