Some of you may already know about my latest wallet-crippling addiction: custom mechanical keyboards. Earlier in the year, when I was given the opportunity to test out a few different switches, I absolutely fell in love with the idea that I could create a very personal and exceptionally satisfying experience on my keyboard—something I use for hours on end every day.
Having been spoilt enough to have had so many keyboards come past my desk, I’ve slowly but surely come up with a list of things I want from and for my keyboard. Also, I’ve somehow managed to create a setup that needs either two keyboards or a wireless one that can be moved around. Don’t ask.
Embracing my inner Norwegian minimalist, I thought one wireless keyboard would be best.
My best attempt to translate this list of wants from my handwritten note looks a little something like this:
- I need to be able to change the switches.
- Of course, this means I want to change the keycaps too.
- It’s got to have a knob or a wheel. Something I can spin.
- Function buttons that I can re-program.
- Wireless, with a polling rate that is high enough for gaming.
I didn’t think that this would be something too hard to find. Turns out it was. The problem was the last point on my list. While most keyboards offer wireless use, this feature is usually Bluetooth. With a polling rate of 125 Hz, I often found that sometimes my keypresses wouldn’t register while gaming. I needed more speed.
You’d think I’d look to the usual gaming suspects, like Logitech or Razer, for this. They came close but fell short by either not offering hot-swappable switches or being lassoed in with a wire.
Quickly, my options became less and less. But I would not settle. I had resorted to looking overseas. Chatting to friends that were there, asking when they might come back home for a visit and if they’d have enough space in their bags for a keyboard. It had gotten so bad that I hadn’t even played a game for a whole week because I did not have the keyboard I wanted, no, needed.
Then, one gloomy, no-games-played afternoon, NAG’s resident Random Sales Guy did something extraordinary for a change. He remembered someone he had bumped into at rAge that sold keyboards, and they might have just the thing I was looking for. I kissed him on the forehead and told him to call this someone up immediately!
Enter Random Sales Guy with the Akko PC75B Plus V2.
Ok. Now, we finally get into the review part of this review.
On paper, the Akko PC75B Plus V2 has everything I need. Hot-swappable switches, custom keycaps, a spinny thing, reprogrammable keys, and, best of all, 2.4 Ghz wireless capabilities with a 1000 Mhz polling rate.
In reality, the Akko PC75B Plus V2 was a lot more.
The packaging is great, and everything inside feels thought out. There’s enough padding to keep the keyboard secure and a hard, protective cover on top to keep it safe. A separate box houses the extras, like the 1.6m USB-C Cable, Keycap puller, Keyswitch puller and 25 extra keycaps.
While I’ve come to love the metallic shell that the Keychron offers, the polycarbonate shell on the Akko PC75B Plus V2 is still very appealing. It’s just ever so slightly transparent, almost giving it that classic Game Boy Advance feel. This also allows for an RGB strip to be shown at the keyboard’s base, separate from the RGB under the keys.
Even though the keyboard is polycarbonate, it’s still quite hefty. A good, solid build that won’t be shifting around during your favourite game.
The keyboard comes standard with two different switch options: The Akko CS Crystal, which has a low pre-travel point of 1.6mm, and the Akko CS Wine Red, with a slightly lower pre-travel point of 1.9mm. The Akko CS Crystal switches were very sensitive, and while exceptionally good for gaming, I had to fix quite a few spelling mistakes when typing with the things.
The Wine Red switches were more suited for my needs as default switches, but you know I already have a favourite that I’ll more than likely switch to. Both switch options are linear, so this keyboard is definitely geared towards gamers.
Speaking of swapping to a different switch, the Akko PC75B Plus V2 supports 3 and 5-pin key switches, so your switch options are almost endless.
The keyboard has a 75% layout, so you’ll lose your beloved Numpad, but the design has allowed for 5 extra keys on the right-hand side. By default, these keys are your Delete, Home, Page Down, Page Up, and Insert keys, but with the downloadable software and some fun inclusions in the box, these keys can be anything you want.
Akko includes 25 funky keys in the box that have a variety of characters on the top, from whales to penguins to some waterdrops, with an arrow doing a wave in the middle.
This allowed me to change the side keys to be used for media, which I mainly use them for. I used the fox for Play/Pause because I always hear, “What Does the Fox Say?” in my head, which feels like an appropriate Play/Pause button.
The knob can also be reprogrammed to suit your needs, but only the rotation. As with Razer, Akko doesn’t think we deserve the power to reprogram everything. Weirdly, all the click of the knob does is change from whatever you’ve programmed the knob to do to brightness adjustment.
The software, Akko Cloud, is ok. It’s not going to win any awards, but it does have an interface that is easy enough to figure out, and you can create macros, change up the RGB lighting, and even download other configurations from other users, should you wish to.
You can have four different layers on the board, each with its own mappings. I wish there were a way to switch between them without opening the software, though. It would be super convenient to switch between, say, gaming mode and editing mode with a simple key press.
Akko also offers many different keycap sets, even some anime ones, like Naruto or Castlevania, which makes the customisation of the board a lot more appealing. I know you can use the keycaps on any other board as well, but it’s nice to know that they’re there.
Regarding the battery life, I can squeeze about three days out of the keyboard. This is with the RGB only activated on keypress, so your use time may shorten if you have a constant RGB effect activated. I didn’t find it an issue, as I could just plug it in overnight, and then it’s ready to go again for the next few days.
This keyboard ticked everything off of my list, and that wasn’t even the best of it. First off, this keyboard is locally obtainable. No need to worry about getting something shipped in and possibly broken.
Secondly, it’s around R2,000 cheaper than any of the gaming brand keyboards out there and almost R3,000 cheaper than the Keychron alternative, which is what I was looking to import in the first place. Priced at R3,199 with all the features that it comes with, buying this is pretty much a no-brainer.
