MSI VIGOR GK50 Elite Box White Mechanical Keyboard Review

Performance

First thing is first, we’re going to be using this wrist rest. It’s a slightly higher keyboard design so it’s pretty much essential for my lazy typing position. If you play with elevated wrists anyway, you might be alright without it. It’s a VERY luxurious feeling wrist rest too, one of the nicest I’ve seen actually.

The keyboard looks fantastic and sparks to life in a wash of rainbow colours. Given the level of colours already going on on my desk with those dual monitors and the arcade machine flashing away, it blends in pretty well.

The lighting is really bright, and actually much brighter than I expected. It washes out on my camera a bit and I suspect many people (myself included) would be happy with it set to about 75% brightness. Of course, that’s subjective, dial up the dazzle or dim the lights until you’re happy.

What strikes me most about this keyboard is the noise though, it’s not a quiet keyboard by any measure. Because it has Box White switches from Kailh they’re clicky like Cherry MX Blue. However, it’s a more pronounced click actually reminds me of the super-rare MX Green switches. It doesn’t matter if you press slow and light or fast and heavy, you get the exact same “CLICK” response from every switch, which is actually quite nice, it’s very consistent feeling.

However, it’s a bit of a triple threat. You press the switch and it click, then it clunks a little as the key bottoms out on the switch, then you release the switch and it clicks on the way back up. So it’s more of a Click-dum-click that you would get from an electric typewriter, but much less aggressive of course.

See this is why keyboards should come with the wrist rest, the two don’t join together. Move the keyboard and it just mounted the wrist rest.

However, that’s partly because this thing has more grip than a racing tyre. It’s very well planted.

Of course, them not being joined does give you some freedom to really put it wherever you want, so it’s a pros and cons mix up here.

The gel-memory foam padding is awesome though, very comfortable and forgiving even on my clapped-out wrists.

The keyboard and wrist rest do look great together though. However, I do want to get back to the noise levels. It’s just a bit much for me to type on, and with my partner in the room, I may as well write my will now, because I’ll be killed before the day it through. BUT, if you’re not going to bother anyone with the clicking noises, it’s a very pleasurable experience having such a pronounced tactile and audible keyboard, and anyone who’s tinkered on a typewriter will know what I mean.

This is especially true while gaming with headphones on. For one, you won’t hear the keyboard that much or at all. However, you still get the feeling that comes with the click. Being able to have that positive feedback that you hit the key is vital for gaming and I like it. So, an office keyboard? No, playing Halo? Yup.