Celebrating its tenth year as a company, Melgeek is on a mission to create cost-effective keyboards that offer a more accessible option for end users. Upon perusing their lineup of keyboards and peripherals, it's easy to see that uniqueness is a central theme to their designs. Each board carries a specific design and visual style that sets it apart from the rest.
The MADE68 Pro, the newest of their magnetic switch keyboard lineup, features a sleek minimalistic design, TTC Magneto switches, and some interesting DIY style elements, such as a light bar, to help each board in the series stand out in a crowd. Fun and unique design aside, a quality board needs to be more than flash and style. So after two weeks of furious testing, it's time to see if the MADE68 Pro can compete with some of the premium boards on the market. Grab that coffee and let's find out in this review.
Specifications
- Current Price: $129.99 (Kickstarter)
- Switch Type: TTC Magneto
- Hot Swappable: Yes
- KeyCap Material: ABS
- Rapid Trigger: Yes
- Adjustable Actuation: 0.1mm - 4.0mm
- Points Sensitivity: 0.04mm
- Compatible Systems: Mac, Windows, Linux
- N-Key Rollover: Yes
- Poll Rate: 1000Hz
- Backlight: RGB
- Weight: 850g
- Connection: Wired
Fun and Unique
The element that helps the MADE68 Pro stand out the most is its unique design. Targeting a minimalistic build, Melgeek implemented some simple design ideas that help an otherwise basic board layout look sleek and distinct. For starters, they have opted to go for a unified wedge design instead of a more traditional flat backplane. The result is that the keyboard has a natural angle to it alleviating the need for additional feet on the bottom of the board. The downside is that it does mean you can’t adjust it if you prefer a different position.
However, the angle of the board, thanks to the aforementioned wedge design, is quite comfortable to work on. Leveraging the surface area afforded by the design, MelGeek has opted to include interchangeable plates on both sides of the MADE68 Pro, allowing for hot-swapping of other plates (sold separately). Additionally, the top face of the MADE68 Pro includes a lightbox with a colored plate cover that allows some fun RGB color options. Once again additional covers are available through the website, though at the time of writing, options were limited. Unlike the original MADE68, this isn't a core feature since the Pro is so highly themed.
The MADE68 Pro is comprised of a mix of aluminum and hard plastic. It feels exceptionally sturdy in hand weighing a solid 850g and offers some nice finishes. Other than the aforementioned elements, the front edge offers a nice patterned texture with the MelGeek logo inset in the right corner. It's a nice little extra that helps things feel premium.
The MADE68 Pro received for review is a 68-key, “Water” edition (with an 84-key edition coming soon) of the MADE68 Pro and includes some sharp-looking deep blue keycaps (more on this in a moment) with some nice white accent caps that can be swapped out at the user's discretion. Additionally, the translucent faceplate for this version of the MADE68 Pro has a slight blue tint to match the keycaps. This is but one of the four colors to choose from with the new Pro version of the MADE68 with Fire (red), Earth (brown) and Air (white) also available all with corresponding tinted faceplates. Overall the board looks sleek and achieves its goal of a clean, minimalistic design.
Form and Function
Shifting to the various components on the board, this is where MelGeek has made some interesting choices. The keycaps are Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene or ABS. While it is a cost-effective material and makes sense to use given MelGeek's mission statement noted above, there are a few minor critiques. The primary issue is that they don’t allow light to pass through them. This means that while the board technically supports RGB, its visibility is limited and difficult to make out. It's unfortunate considering how customizable the RBG is thanks to the Hive software.
The other issue is more of a preference but the ABS doesn’t feel as nice to use as PBT (Polybutylene Terephthalate plastic). Additionally, it's fairly well documented that ABS isn’t as durable as PBT and thus presents as a cheaper option. While the ABS keycaps feel fine to use, shifting to a PBT with a translucent Doubleshot keycap would have helped add to the otherwise premium feel of the MADE68 Pro. As it is, while the ABS keys look nice they simply aren’t as nice as they could be.
Moving down a layer, this MADE68 Pro features TTC Magneto switches. These magnetic switches are a fairly new innovation in keyboard switch design and carry over many of the best elements of mechanical switches such as N-Key rollover support but also have a couple of key advantages over traditional mechanical switches. For starters, thanks to the use of magnetic plates for keystroke registration, the actuation point can be adjusted via software to give the user the exact typing experience they want without having to swap out the switch.
Additionally, in the case of the MADE68 Pro, each switch can be programmed with up to four actions in a single keystroke (referred to as dynamic keystrokes) giving you a lot of freedom to leverage every key on the board. Finally, with magnetic switches, there is an option to implement rapid trigger response. In essence, this means that while a traditional mechanical switch would need to be fully released before another keystroke could take place, magnetic switches can have setpoints for the switch reset. This means that a key doesn’t need to be fully released before performing another action. Also, thanks to the inclusion of the magnetic switches latency is virtually non-existent and comes in at 0.125ms response time. This translates to an 8000Hz polling and scan rate making the MADE68 Pro a contender for professional gamers.
While magnetic switches do offer some impressive advantages it does come at a price, mostly in the tactile experience. The closest comparison I can make when it comes to typing with the MADE68 Pro is that it feels like using linear Red switches. The tactile feedback is light and quiet. If that is your jam then the Magneto switches will make you feel right at home. If you lean more toward brown or blue switches (a personal favourite) the MADE68 Pro isn’t going to feel like your good old clicky keyboard. Typing with the magnetic switches isn’t bad by any means it's a very smooth experience, it simply lacks the tactile feedback I prefer.
On the note of typing, while the tactile feedback might not be to my desired clickiness, the adjustable actuation is amazing. As an example when first using the board, the actuation was set to its most sensitive setting. With an adjustable actuation starting as low as 0.1mm to up to 4.0mm breathing on the keys caused them to trigger. Thankfully the Hive software makes adjusting the actuation point incredibly easy. After a few trial adjustments, I found the sweet spot and have been enjoying the typing experience ever since.
The Rapid Trigger also works quite well and is easy to adjust to accommodate any user. Likewise, RGB controls, profile settings and firmware updates are all accessible and easy to find in the Hive software. It works well and is easy to use making it ideal for quick adjustments on the fly.
As for the Dynamic Keystrokes, while the features work as intended, it has a pretty steep learning curve and will take time to leverage in a gaming setting. I tested it with a couple of games but struggled to find an effective use for it. Hopefully, with some time and more minds working to find creative options for dynamic keystrokes, we’ll see the feature get more use.
A more recent addition that's currently only available in the web configurator is Snap Tap. This feature made its debut on a recent Razer keyboard and can be downright game changing for competitive first-person shooters. Between two keys, usually A and D but it's up to you, Snap Tap immediately cancels the first input when the other is pressed. This allows for near-robotic counter-strafing in Counter Strike. If you were holding the first button, when you let go of the second, the other automatically begins sending again. This allows you to bounce back and forth in your strafe much more quickly than would otherwise be possible. It's a powerful feature and works well.
In everyday typing tests, despite not having the preferred clicky response, the MADE68 Pro performed well. Typing was quick and incredibly responsive without being overly sensitive thanks to the adjustable actuation. Gaming with the MADE68 Pro was, likewise, quite positive and allowed me to take full advantage of the rapid trigger response times. While I can’t say that I was objectively better at gaming, the MADE68 Pro felt great to game with.
Final Thoughts
The MADE68 Pro magnetic Gaming Keyboard from MelGeek is a solid board that could use a little polish. The magnetic switches perform well and offer a linear red-like typing experience with the benefit of completely customizable actuation. While the DIY elements are a neat little touch the lack of accessories available to leverage the feature makes it feel a bit gimmicky at the moment. Finally, the overall build quality while sturdy, sleek and sharp looking is hampered by the use of ABS keycaps and not leveraging double shot keycaps with a translucent layer of plastic. This results in poor RGB lighting and takes away from the otherwise great-looking keyboard. Still, at $119.99, the wired MADE68 Pro is a solid-performing keyboard.
If you're interested in picking up one for yourself, you can back the project on Kickstarter today.
The product described in this article was provided by the manufacturer for evaluation purposes.
