A Closer Look
NZXT has a long history of great-looking products. They don’t go overboard with the “gamer” aesthetic and have been one the biggest brands to focus on minimalist and cleaner aesthetics throughout their entire product range. There’s also a strong focus on matching their products, so all their keyboards, headsets, speakers, gaming chairs, coolers, cases and more all follow the same design principles and match up with each other.
Branding is kept minimal too, with just a small embossed NZXT logo on the front edge, which definitely isn’t in your face. The only thing I have noticed at this point is that there is no wrist rest included in the box, I would have liked to have seen one included just like we saw with the NZXT Function keyboard.
This is a shorter keyboard design, and while it is a TKL design, it’s branded as MINITKL, as it does drop the numberpad on the right side. However, you get a unique key layout above the arrow keys, offering many of the useful functions. Admittedly, it’s going to take me some getting used to their locations, but it’s better to have them than to not have them at all.
Other than that, the rest of the keyboard layout is pretty standard, and it’ll all be compatible with standard key cap packs too if you want to customise it at any point. Not that I would, I rather like it the way it looks right now!
The keyboard features this low-down uniform bezel that runs around the edges, with rounded corners and rolled edges, it looks very stylish indeed. There’s an inner ring to it, which is actually a 360-degree ARGB lighting strip, and of course, the keycaps are double shot and ARGB lit too, so you will be able to throw some rainbows around too.
While the keyboard is relentlessly focused on gaming performance, it does feature some built-in quality-of-life features. Hold the Fn-Shift key, and you can skip and play/pause media with the PrtSc, ScrLk and Pause buttons.
Further to the left, there are lock, volume down, volume up and mute controls.
As well as four profile selectors and a master lighting brightness control; which includes the ability to turn the lighting completely off. The profiles are certainly appealing, as they’re for more than just ARGB lighting settings. If you configure your keyboard macros, actuation heights, and more, they’re all available on these profiles so you can have a work profile, a CS:GO profile, and so on.
The keyboard may not come with a wristrest, but it’s a pretty low-profile design overall. There are some feet on the underside to adjust the angle to suit your needs too.
As I’ve said before, the keyboard has been kept very clean and minimalist, but at the same time, every part of it looks and feels very premium. It’s surprisingly heavy, even for a mechanical keyboard, likely due to the thick aluminium top cover, and multiple internal layers of dampening.
At the back, there’s a Type-C port for connecting the keyboard. While NZXT does include a lovely cable in the box, it’s just a normal Type-C, so you can easily replace it if it gets damaged, or you want to use something custom.
The bottom of the keyboard features four rubber grip feet, but interestingly, there are two large textured grips on the sides too. This could help the keyboard grip better on mouse mats, but honestly, it just seems to make the keyboard easy to pick up and hold. I mean, it’s not like you want to drop your new keyboard!
