Hall Effect: it’s the burgeoning trend of 2024 in the world of gaming keyboards and isn’t going anywhere soon. Today, we’re looking at the Melgeek CYBER01, a keyboard that offers one of the best typing and gaming experiences of any magnetic gaming keyboard we’ve tried yet. While it won’t top the likes of the Razer Huntsman V2 Analog in ease of programming, its mix of price and performance are a winning combination.
Specifications
Current Price: $139 (Melgeek)
Melgeek CYBER01 - Design and Highlights
When I ask people to imagine a gaming keyboard I imagine the picture something like the CYBER01. It is a gaming keyboard through and through and it only takes a glance to understand this much. In fact, I think it looks rather good, but there is absolutely nothing understated about this keyboard. The company has always embraced a unique sense of style where it really hasn't released anything that doesn't have a stylish and very direct sense of personality. The CYBER01 is no exception and it knows its exact audience: gamers.
The keyboard has a futuristic, cyberpunk sense of style. It features a compact tenkeyless layout with terminal-inspired font on the legends and accent keys printed in neon green. The keycaps are translucent and sit on a recessed plate. While companies like Corsair have used the floating key design for years, the CYBER01 has a top case but trims it back so it's just the bezels. I haven't seen another keyboard like it, and that's before you get to the wrap around RGB ring that encircles the switches.
The case itself is also quite embellished. It features a very angular design that would be boxy if the corners weren't trimmed off. The left side of the keyboard has machine-like ridges while the right side has a cutout right in the center. The bezels are beveled off into a cherry lip that goes around the circumference of the keyboard. There is also an engraved logo in the upper left and an additional RGB strip, as well as a printed badge above the arrow keys.
Those design touches also extend to the bottom of the keyboard. There are five more RGB strips which cast a subtle underglow beneath the keyboard on the desk. It's hard to see unless you're playing in the dark but it's a cool touch nonetheless. There are also some stylized cutouts but no tilt feet to adjust its angle.
So, the keyboard is a looker but that's not really it's claim to fame. It's one of a growing number of magnetic switch keyboards Hall Effect sensors. Rather than utilize mechanical contacts, the switches and the keyboard have built-in magnets. The sensors on the PCB can detect exactly how far the switch is being pressed. There is no simple on or off state like traditional mechanical keyboards. Instead, the switches in the CYBER01 can be programmed across their entire travel distance.
This opens the door to much higher responsiveness than is possible on traditional mechanical keyboards, even though utilizing speed switches. Because there is no mechanical contact, there is also no electrical debounce time. This makes them physically faster, although this particular point would require you to be a machine to actually tell a difference (despite what marketing may tell you).
Instead, the real benefits come from being able to adjust your actuation point as well as the reset point. This functionality has become known colloquially as Rapid Trigger and is the gateway to the truly increased responsiveness these keyboards offer. A normal mechanical keyboard requires you to completely or near-completely release the key before it can be pressed again. With the CYBER01 and other keyboards like it, you can make actuation and reset occur simultaneously, so you can send another command immediately. This makes fluttering possible, which is useful in competitive shooters and other fast-paced games.
This design also allows you to map different commands along the depth of your key travel. These are known as Dynamic Keystrokes (DKS). This is useful if you want to simulate truly analog control, such as walking with a half-press of ‘W’ and sprinting with a full press. You can also map different skills to different points on the keystroke, putting multiple abilities, or steps of an ability under a single press.
Even if you don't take advantage of these features, being able to adjust your actuation point is extremely useful even outside of gaming. For example, I tend to be a heavy typist, so lowering my actuation point to around 3 mm helps me to avoid typos. On the flip side of that, if you are a very light typist raising your actuation point to that of a speed switch could help increase your typing speed.
The range each key can be set to extends from 0.1mm to 3.8mm in 0.1mm increments and can be set for individual keys. Many gamers prefer to only have their WASD keys be extra sensitive while the spacebar is heavier due to its large size. It’s all a matter of personal taste but the CYBER01 is able to accommodate virtually any preference, and even allows you to save multiple profiles for different activities or games.
The version that I was sent uses Gateron Magnetic White switches. If these are a light linear switch with a 30 gram actuation force. They come pre-lubed from the factory and are very smooth, as you would expect from a switch that doesn't have mechanical contacts. because of this quality, they also have a lifetime of 100 million clicks. These switches are also hot-swappable with other Gateron magnetic switches, so you can change them up in the future if you wish (but we encourage you to double-check compatibility with each individual switch because they’re not as standard as mechanical switches).
One of the things that Melgeek has excelled at over the years is offering exceptional quality for a reasonable price. This has gotten even better over their last several releases, making its keyboards some of my go-to recommendations for typing sound and field on a budget. The CYBER01 continues this trend with a design that is inspired by the enthusiast community and offers one of the best sounds profiles of any magnetic keyboard yet.
While that might seem weird, to worry about how a keyboard sounds, consider this: the sound and feel of any keyboard directly translates to a perception of quality. While magnetic and optical keyboards are clearly more responsive than their mechanical counterparts, the reduced contact between the switches and the rest of the keyboard usually make the typing experience sound and feel a little cheap in comparison. So far, only two keyboards have really bucked this trend that I have personally tested (and I should add here that testing keyboards is literally my job, so I’ve tested a few): the CYBER01 and the much more expensive Meletrix BOOG75 ($219).
This is because, like Meletrix, Melgeek has put an exceptional amount of thought and effort into making sure this keyboard sounds good. The switches themselves are built to overcome some of the acoustic challenges other magnetic keyboards face. Melgeek also uses sound dampening foam between the plate and PCB to isolate the pleasant typing sounds of the switches. The stabilizers are also well-lubed straight from the factory so there’s no rattle to speak of.
It wouldn't be a gaming keyboard without the ability to program its lighting and the functionality of its switches. This is accomplished through an in-house software suite known as Melgeek Hive. While it's not as polished as something like Razer Synapse, it offers a surprising amount of functionality; in some ways, even more than some of the bigger brands.
When it comes to programming the keys, remapping really is as simple as clicking the key would like to change in selecting what you would like there instead. You can also map media controls, macros, Windows shortcuts. What really makes it stand out to me is that you can remap the base function button (Fn1) as well as up to three more to access multiple layers of keys. This means that you can adjust accessing all of its secondary functions in a way that’s easiest for you. This is possible on some keyboards but not nearly as many as you would expect.
Programming the keyboard’s lighting is much more limited. You can choose from a handful of presets, swap colors, brightness, and speed, or create your own static layout. It’s easy to get the keyboard looking good but there really isn’t a ton of customization to the built-in animations. With that being said, I do like that you can adjust both the per-key lighting and the wrap-around Ambient Light ring all with shortcut keys, no software required.
The software also allows you to adjust the actuation point for every key individually, as well as program up to four different actions along the keystroke of any key. These are all fairly easy to do once you get used to how the software presents itself but DKS In particular required clicking around and experimentation to really get the hang of it. The functionality is there, you should just be prepared to experiment before jumping into a match and hoping your multi-key commands all work as intended.
Melgeek CYBER01 - Performance
For $139, the Melgeek CYBER01 is a great value. It offers much of the core functionality you would get with something like the Wooting 60HE or Razer Huntsman Analog but with a much better sound and feel. Aesthetically, it's the most interesting of the bunch and offers a level of responsiveness that can go toe to toe with the best of them.
Once I programmed it for my tastes, I found that both gaming and typing on it were both exceedingly nice. The smoothness of the switches works perfectly with their magnetic design. And while I believe that the debounce time benefits are more marketing-speak than anything, Rapid Trigger really does make the keyboard feel more responsive. I found that it took me some time to develop the lighter touch necessary to take advantage of it, but when I did the CYBER01 felt especially lively under my fingers.
For typing, the adjustable actuation point is a real winner. Over the last 6 months, I've been trying to teach myself proper typing technique. For the last 25 years, I have ingrained bad habits that have limited my maximum typing speed and unlearning them has been a long and slow process. Being able to lower my actuation point has increased my accuracy and allowed me to improve my typing speed by about 10 WPM. Since writing is how I make a good chunk of my income, accuracy directly translates to speed and productivity. In the world of mechanical keyboards, actuation points don't get much lower than 2mm, which makes a magnetic keyboard like this very appealing, completely removed from video gaming.
With so many magnetic switch keyboards coming out, it's important to be aware that most of them offer very similar features for pretty much every price point. Rapid Trigger and DKS are not unique to the CYBER01. Because of this, it's important to look at everything that surrounds these features. That's where my emphasis on sound and feel come from. That's why its unique aesthetic could be a pretty major selling point. It's the culmination of these things that set it apart.
Final Thoughts
The Melgeek CYBER01 is a great magnetic gaming keyboard. It overcomes the light keystrokes that make most magnetic and optical switch keyboards feel cheaper than they should while also offering a very unique design and exceptional programmability. Its software is still being developed and I wish there were tilt feet but the CYBER01 is a steal and well worth picking up for yourself.
The product described in this article was provided by the manufacturer for evaluation purposes.
