Click on, clack, some keys we’re going to whack: The latest pattern to emerge within the mechanical-keyboard global is the 75% keyboard. Moderately larger than the now-common 60% and 65% programmer-style keyboards however extra compact than a tenkeyless keyboard, the 75% keyboard faucets into the candy spot between the full-size and the tiny, trimming simply sufficient format with out ditching too many helpful extras. The Alienware Professional Wi-fi Gaming Keyboard ($199.99) is the newest instance of this pattern, and it impresses around the (key)board. Compact and hot-swappable, with eye-popping RGB lighting fixtures, the Professional Keyboard additionally marks the debut of Alienware’s new linear mechanical switches, which give a handy guide a rough really feel when typing or gaming. Briefly, it’s one in all Alienware’s supreme keyboards and it snags our newest Editors’ Selection award for compact mechanical keyboards.
Design: A Brilliant, Lower-Down Pleasure
The keyboard is to be had in both black or white, and the very first thing that can catch your eye is the stainless design. Our evaluate unit’s white colour scheme popped once we took the unit out of the field, and the RGB lighting fixtures exploded like fireworks throughout all 83 keys after we plugged within the cable to fee. The Professional keyboard chops off the quantity pad and a few further buttons to create a compact board simply six rows tall.
Now, this isn’t the primary 75% keyboard we’ve examined. That honor is going to the Razer BlackWidow V4 75%, however whilst the 2 are similar in some ways, the Professional keyboard units itself aside in a couple of essential key spaces (with the exception of the most obvious distinction that the BlackWidow isn’t wi-fi). For one, the Razer board opts for a sharper, oblong construct, whilst the Alienware’s corners are rounded tightly, nearly disappearing underneath the double-shot PBT keycaps.
The keyboard additionally ditches the “tempest” mod that looks at the BlackWidow V4 75%. Common within the DIY keyboard neighborhood, the tempest comes to making use of painter’s tape or overlaying tape to the again of the PCB board within the chassis to create a extra muted sound. The BlackWidow comes pre-taped, however the Alienware Professional keyboard makes use of higher and decrease sound-dampening layers that chase the similar purpose.
Measuring 1.6 by means of 12.3 by means of 5 inches (HWD), the keyboard is with reference to the similar length because the 75% BlackWidow. However at only one.81 kilos, it weighs lower than part of the 75% BlackWidow’s 3.4 kilos.
(Credit score: Joseph Maldonado)The Alienware Professional keyboard is wi-fi, supporting each Bluetooth and a pair of.4GHz connections. If truth be told, you’ll leap amongst 3 other Bluetooth gadgets with a press of a button you’ll to find at the ahead fringe of the keyboard. Up right here you’ll be able to additionally to find LED signs that inform you which connection is lively, and a few welcome garage for the USB-C dongle.
Turning the board over, you’ll to find two toes that protrude outward to provide the keyboard some carry, despite the fact that the keyboard has a slight hump that naturally provides it a little bit top with out the help. One lengthy silicone strip stretches around the board to lend a hand stay it from transferring right through high-octane play.
(Credit score: Joseph Maldonado)You can to find no quantity curler, which we all the time choose to look on keyboards of any length, however the board does have devoted quantity buttons, in addition to further media controls grafted onto one of the most keys. One distinctive macro button, positioned on the best proper facet of the keyboard, cycles during the RGB presets. The keyboard additionally does away with a wrist relaxation, which the 75% BlackWidow V4 provides.
What each forums have in typical are their hot-swappable key switches. Sizzling-swappable designs help you change person mechanical key switches out and in in their sockets and put into effect switches in both 3-pin or 5-pin configurations, whether or not they are Alienware, Cherry, or every other emblem of transfer. This option makes the Alienware keyboard’s quite excessive value more straightforward to swallow—it’s an funding, in spite of everything, so you’ll take convenience in figuring out you will not have to shop for an absolutely other board to take a look at out a unique form of transfer.
(Credit score: Joseph Maldonado)The Alienware Professional keyboard comes provided with Alienware linear mechanical switches. With 40 grams of actuation power, they are a rather more straightforward press than your same old Cherry MX Pink (or Cherry’s latest MX2A transfer, which I first typed on within the Cherry KC 200 MX). In trying out, the typing really feel of the Alienware switches used to be very good, and each and every button press used to be correct, entire with a pleasing click on thank you partially to somewhat of polyoxymethylene thermoplastic added to the stem of every key.?
On the other hand, they nonetheless don’t seem to be higher than my non-public favorites, the Razer Orange switches. However they’re a worthy choice to Cherry switches. Whilst Alienware hasn’t showed whether or not it’ll introduce different sorts of key switches sooner or later, I’m having a look ahead to seeing what the corporate’s designers can do in the event that they ever release silent and tactile transfer sorts.
The Device: Report back to the Command Heart
The Alienware Command Heart application has gotten somewhat of a facelift since we remaining examined an Alienware product. Robotically downloaded on your laptop while you first pair your instrument over a stressed or wi-fi connection, the Alienware Command Heart is the place you’ll take care of programming macros, key bindings, and the keyboard’s RGB lighting fixtures, the remaining of which helps as much as 16.8 million colour combos.
(Credit score: Alienware)The app itself is straightforward to navigate, and the processes are self-explanatory, despite the fact that a couple of further activates would for sure lend a hand new customers having a look to tweak their gadgets. The keyboard helps as much as 5 other profiles, in addition to scans your library of put in video games to compare RGB presets in accordance with colour schematics tied to the sport.
The RGB is breathtaking in this board, because of the clear switches and a completely clear “mild information.” A gentle information is a backlighting element designed to distribute mild frivolously throughout all the keyboard, filling with reference to each and every crevice of the keyboard with RGB glow. Alienware charges the Professional keyboard at 72 hours of battery lifestyles over a 2.4GHz reference to RGB on, however with out it, you’ll rise up to 798 hours over a 2.4GHz connection, or a whopping 1,800 hours over Bluetooth. We could not drain the fee in our trial time with our evaluate pattern.
(Credit score: Joseph Maldonado)Whilst the Professional keyboard does ship a best-in-class typing enjoy, severe aggressive avid gamers will have to observe that the keyboard provides a polling price of only one,000Hz (over a 2.4GHz or stressed connection), down from the BlackWidow’s 8,000Hz polling-rate most. The variation? Smartly, it is narrow to none for many folks. Polling price refers back to the pace at which your instrument sends your keystrokes or different inputs on your PC. A price of one,000Hz implies that knowledge is shipped to the keyboard as soon as in line with millisecond, whilst 8,000Hz way it’s getting despatched 8 occasions that. This may make or destroy high-level play, however it’ll most likely no longer have an effect on the typical gamer’s talent to accomplish.
Verdict: We Welcome Our Alien Typing Overlords
The Alienware Professional keyboard is straightforward to like, and it will possibly cross toe-to-toe with the Razer BlackWidow V4 75% in nearly each and every regard. The comparability is so shut, that the selection between the 2 comes down to non-public choice. Razer’s tactile keys endow the BlackWidow with a phenomenal typing enjoy, however the Professional Keyboard’s lengthy rated battery lifestyles and wi-fi choices make it a very simple select for avid gamers who wish to dominate with out being tethered to their laptop. One of the vital supreme gaming keyboards of the yr to this point, the Alienware Professional Wi-fi Gaming Keyboard earns our Editors’ Selection award for compact mechanical gaming fashions.
