Practical testing …
Regardless of personal preference, the practical text should show where the keyboard ranks acoustically. Some people like clearly audible switches with haptic feedback, others prefer a soft typing feel and don’t want to disturb their roommates. As NZXT primarily advertises the quiet typing experience, this criterion needs to be examined.
After connecting the keyboard, the colors change slowly and appear particularly bright at the edges. If you wish, you can make further customizations in the NZXT CAM software. The actuation travel can be adjusted between 0.6 and 4 mm and the sampling rate can also be maximized.
The optical controls enable intuitive adjustment and can apparently be moved continuously. There are also presets for different game genres.
Gaming …
In a round of Diablo 2 Resurrected, we set the buttons for our Mephisto runs to very fast triggering and maximized the scan rate. The idea behind this is that on the Hell difficulty level, very short moments can make the difference between death and life, and players often panic and resort to the belt slot with its powerful regeneration potions. The quick attack increases the chances of survival if the player accidentally teleports into a crowd of enemies. If you don’t have the right potions or have accidentally consumed several, you can at least activate the escape button more quickly and abort the run before dying.
The Snap Override feature is also interesting. In WASD shooters, it could happen that two buttons are pressed simultaneously for a contradictory character movement. One button may be activated a few milliseconds later and it is precisely this button that is prioritized here instead of not triggering any movement at all due to inconsistencies in the input. In shooters, this means that one or two more projectiles can be dodged if the left and right movements are executed too hectically one after the other. Accordingly, this advantageous feature is not necessarily used in e-sports. For everyday gamers, this limitation is certainly irrelevant. Only the LEDs on the wide edge can be annoying and shine a little too brightly for personal taste in dark surroundings.
Haptics and acoustics …
The keys feel much softer than they sound. There is definitely a nice touch noise as feedback, which is only slightly more subtle and muffled than with mechanical keys and is most similar to red switches. Only when you press it in deeply and reach the end of the switching travel is there noticeable resistance. Subjectively, the double rails do not make the keys any less wobbly than solutions from other manufacturers, but they are also no worse.
When writing, your hands literally glide over the smooth-running keys for uninterrupted text composition with moderate background noise.
NZXT Function Elite MiniTKL Overall impression …