on a budget trouble typing in the dark is there some other reason that you need
a cheap keyboard and fast well odds are
that you bought this one or rather one of these ones and I know what you're
thinking it's cuz it's cheap right you're only half right which also means
that you're half wrong so why
the is everyone buying this gaming
keyboard to find out we bought it actually them and poured through the
over 30,000 Amazon reviews to see if
popular equals good spoiler alert it
does not sometimes y'all really goof it up but I would never goof up this segue
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the number one bestseller in the gaming keyboard category stood out for one
obvious reason it's technically a combo pack I mean who doesn't want a free
Mouse right so it only felt fair to also
have a look at the runner up in the category a standalone mechanical
keyboard for around the same price starting with the Red Dragon s101 the
title kind of says it all you you get a centrophorus centrophorus mouse and a
basic membrane gaming keyboard both of them wired and both with RGB that's how
you know it's gaming the keyboard has multimedia keys if you're into those the
backlight Cycles through a variety of colors and modes and it includes a wrist
rest more on that later as for the mouse it's got six buttons five of which are
programmable a nearly i extras design and a sensor that can change DPI from
400 all the way to 3200 with four adjustable presets for whatever you want
in between and they can even be tuned via software but that's about it it's
cheap and it works mostly while reviews
for the s101 are generally positive 75% of you gave it five whole Stars most of
the praise for the combo seems to be how do I put this kind of basic it's the
more critical reviews that really hit the nail on the head for why we don't
think that you guys should keep buying this thing first up the keyboard is
membran which for starters means that if any key starts to fail you're probably
going to need to throw the entire thing away rather than performing surgery on a
single switch like we did in a recent video it also means that typing feels
characteristically mushy and as for the key caps well you might like the soft
touch right out of the box don't be surprised when they start to wear out in
a matter of hours making the legend much harder to read and this is particularly
true if you have more acidic skin oils the flip up feet are a nice inclusion
giving you two different angles but while the wrist rest I'm mentioned before is technically
included that is it the best thing I can
say about it is that it's so small that you're unlikely to actually end up
resting your wrists on it because the textured plastic especially under the
right palm area is as uncomfortable as it is tacky looking what's never tacky
though is the quality merch from LTT Store.com make sure to check out our new
RGB diode t-shirt on that note the tiny
print manual includes simple instructions for How to cycle between RGB colors and modes but from some
angles the keys near the bottom seem to shine much brighter than the ones near
the top to be clear if you get a working one you'll be able to pone noobs with it
just fine but many of the critical reviews mentioned Keys either outright
failing after a few months or registering extra characters when
pressed these complaints could be due to Dorito dust that's on you but given that
the product description boasts that the keyboard is built to withstand the
average liquid spill I think it's fair to expect more as for the mouse it's
fine onboard weights were a pleasant surprise at this price point but the
other glaring issues overshadowed any joy that we could have felt both plof
and I found it extremely uncomfortable and for different reasons and even if we
had tiny hands shaped like this the sensor just plain isn't good enough for
any serious gamer another issue many of the low star reviews bring up is how
easy it is to hit the side buttons by accident and we agree though at least it
does have them the bottom line is is while many of our complaints might feel
like we're just hating on budget products that's not the case in fact
we've got a review coming on the gmx7 the cheapest gaming mouse on Amazon so
get subscribed for that the issue is just that Gamers who are on this tight
of a budget guys you'd be better off with a basic combo from a reputable
brand like Logitech rather than spending twice as much for some tacky RGB but
what if you did have a little more to spend that's where our runner up gets
really interesting the k552 kumera is a
10 keyless mechanical gaming keyboard for just
$35 it even supports hot swapping the key switches sort of more on that later
it's got 19 different lighting modes with per key illumination as long as you
get the actually RGB version your choice of clicky tactile or linear switches and
much nicer keycaps than the s101 the
positive reviews for this one are pretty accurate and mostly focus on things like
value the backlight and compatibility with Mac it's still absolutely nowhere
near the build quality of a mid-tier mechanical keyboard but compared to its
membrane brother and for $35 had I mentioned that yet there's
just no contest by spending the same
amount of money but ditching the mouse from the combo pack we get a sturdier
board right out of the gate and maybe more importantly we get options people
don't like the key caps put on something else don't like the switches the Kuma's
hot swap PCB means that there is no soldering required if you want to
replace a broken switch or try something new altogether so then why don't they
list that as a feature the otu switches that it comes with feel and sound about
like we'd expect for a blue alike switch
but they have thinner pins than your average Cherry clone or Enthusiast
switch so unless you're using something
else also from otu you'll need to file
down the pins one by one in order to fit them through the holes please don't
spend your time doing that unless you really want to the key caps are double
shot and the RGB shines through quite nicely though you might not like the
font and while the casing is plastic it's got way more heft than the s101 at
almost 2 lb thanks to the higher quality switches and the metal plate it's not as
easy to take apart as a DIY mechanical keyboard but the k552 can be torn down
and upgraded mostly through lubing the switches and the stabilizers switch and
click actually made a video doing exactly this almost a year ago so if
you're looking for some help getting the most out of your Chimera 552 make sure
you check that out our main issues with this keyboard aside from being stuck
with the temu switches mostly revolve around the non-detachable cable the
attempt at rubber feet and it hardly helps with sliding and the overall look
and feel compared to a more expensive DIY 10 keyless but there's one argument
that wipes out all of those nitpicks it's
$35 there are competitors in this price range on Amazon but they're typically
either not hot swappable or the low star
reviews mention some pretty rough quality control problems though the Cima
isn't entirely free of those either most of our low star reviews mention chatter
that's when the keystroke registers multiple times or the keyboard just
dying after a month or two ours has been perfectly fine so far but you should
note that your mileage may vary if you're looking for other options we
haven't actually tried these other keyboards so we can't fully vouch for
them but while they have significantly fewer ratings we have at least a couple
competitor picks for four and a half stars or higher first up is this
mechanical keyboard and mouse combo pack from havit which sports 6500 reviews
with 76% of them being five star it's the same price but the mouse and
keyboard both look a little nicer there's not as much branding being thrown in your face and the keyboard is
mechanical so you give up your dedicated multimedia keys but I think that's a
worthwhile tradeoff to get away from membrane as for finding an alternative
mechanical keyboard at this price it's pretty tough yoshik has a full-size
board for $30 and it's got a perfect five out of five stars but there are
only 18 reviews so that could easily just be the CEO of the company and all
their friends and family if you're willing to up your budget a little bit and you don't mind a smaller layout the
rk61 from Royal clug is just $53 it's
hot swap uses a detachable cable and has a solid rating with over 7,000 reviews
but that's a much higher budget so I'm going to say it screw it go for the Cima
if you want to find it or any of the other items that we've been talking
about today we're going to have them linked down below along with our sponsor
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video description if you guys are looking for another video to watch right
now why not check out our mouse version of why is everybody buying this thing
about the g502 hero really great gaming
mouse one of those and this keyboard for like 70 freaking dollars 80 D bucks
you're like loaded for bear love it