Epomaker HE68 Lite gaming keyboard review: a properly cheap mechanical board with premium tricks

Maybe it was the past fewer months of RAMnarök hacking distant astatine my optimism, but my archetypal thoughts upon handling the fifty-buck Epomaker HE68 Lite fixated connected however it mightiness not conscionable beryllium inexpensive successful the bully way. Surrounded by a bezel of hollow, somewhat scratchy plastic, it surely lacks the reassuringly brick-like heft that astir mech boards person implicit their membraned cousins, to an grade that’s lone partially accounted for by its compact 65% signifier factor.

However, keyboard bodywork – arsenic the saying goes – tin beryllium deceiving. Get the HE68 Lite onto a table and nether immoderate fingers, and it really feels perfectly adequate. Pleasantly smooth, even. The linear cardinal switches are swift to enactment and not excessively loud, and the PBT keycaps person a decent solidity, making them dutiful typing tools arsenic good arsenic nimble crippled inputs. These caps bash person a flimsy wobble to them, but the deficiency of immoderate rattling oregon resonant pinging noises – truthful often the decease wail of a doomed fund keyboard – helps redeem the physique quality. As bash the rubbery feet, which aren't adjustable, but bash forestall slippage successful spite of the HE68 Lite’s lite-ness.

If you can’t unrecorded without relation keys and numpads, you tin inactive get the full-size, afloat mechanical Logitech G413 SE for not overmuch more, though successful tech presumption the HE68 Lite is generations ahead. For each its thriftiness, Epomaker’s small peripheral inactive crams successful magnetic Hall Effect switches (so you tin set the actuation and reset depths to your liking), accelerated trigger/SOCD support, and a faster 8K polling complaint for amended responsivity than the 1K G413 SE. Maybe lone marginally better, admittedly. But still, that’s an atrocious batch of top-end tech for thing that costs little than... well, astir sticks of RAM, for starters.

Quick Kits is simply a hardware reappraisal bid astir pouring arsenic overmuch fully-tested PC cogwheel cognition down your eyes arsenic we tin – wrong 2 oregon 3 paragraphs.