I researched magnetic keyboards so you don’t have to and… I compared three Chinese keebs.
In the competitive world of Hall-Effect keyboards, China has quickly become a powerhouse, following closely in the pioneering footsteps of Wooting. With their innovative magnetic keyboard designs, Chinese brands are challenging Wooting’s supremacy by offering high-quality, affordable alternatives. Among the newest players making significant waves are ReDragon, Irok, and Keydous.
These brands have leveraged advanced manufacturing techniques and rapid market adaptation to deliver products that stand out in both performance and price. As we delve deeper, we’ll explore how ReDragon, Irok, and Keydous to check if these brands are just following trends, or are they setting them, positioning themselves as serious contenders in the global HE keyboard market.
Some specs first
Mind you, the proclaimed 8k polling rate from ReDragon and Irok are not true 8k. According to my tests, all keyboards run at 1000 Hz most of the time, Keydous also has wireless connection available at 125 Hz. Looks like a marketing gimmick that 8k polling rate — the both keyboards are only able to register at 8000 Hz only when special conditions arise and that happened to me only once.
What’s in the box?
All units tested have:
- keyboard itself
- manual
- USB-C cable
Additionally to that, ReDragon has:
- 4 spare Outemu Magnetic switches
- keycap/switch puller
- stickers
Keydous has only these additionally:
- plastic keyboard cover
- keycap/switch puller
Build Quality
The IROK ND75 comes with some top-notch parts, like an aluminum alloy switch plate and triple-layer padding inside, yet there are some plastic (high quality though) parts. There are no visible screws on the outside, and I didn’t want to wreck the case, so I didn’t take it apart. Clearly, they didn’t design it for easy disassembly or heavy modding, beyond just swapping keycaps and switches. Keycaps are acceptable in quality, they develop a certain shine after some time though.
The Redragon M68 keyboard sports a metal frame inside, plastic plate outside and tough PBT keycaps, giving it solid build quality and lasting durability. It looks kinda cheap sometimes and the packaging and overall look and feel is a bit underwhelming. The keycaps though are double-shot PBT and are extremely well-built, I really love them! Also, only a small visible shine after a few months.
The Keydous NJ80CP keyboard features a sturdy aluminum plate and a sleek, stylish look. It uses the standard ANSI layout, so it feels familiar to type on. Its ergonomic design and very good build quality offer comfort and durability, making it a great choice for everyday use. The keycaps are also of good quality (after some time, small shine is there though), the metallic knob is also very well made. The overall look and quality here is the best out of the three keyboards we are checking today. There is one flaw with Keydous though — my copy came with duplicated “M” keycaps :). Keydous, please pay attention at your factory assembly lines :).
Typing experience
I’m on the fence here when it comes to ReDragon: typing after some months can be a bit too loud, there is some rattle in the spacebar, but the great OSA keycaps and the switches themselves are so tactile and give me such a good feedback that I make almost no typos. There is also no wobble on switches or keycaps. However, the lube on stabs and switches is very minimal after a few months and should have been done better. However, I really liked typing with this board.
Irok on the other hand is well lubed and stabs are very decent too. The typing sound is a bit like on Boog75 (but worse ofcourse). The space sounds good too, there is only very minimal wobble on the keycaps. However, the switches are so light and keycaps a bit too small for my fingers that I’ve definitely made most typos with Irok and changing the sensitivity on keys didn’t help much.
Keydous sports the same Outemu switches as ReDragon but puts Cherry profiles keycaps on them which make the typing very good overall. The stabs and spring are also decently lubed out of the box, the sound is nice and there’s no rattle or wobble on the keys (maybe very minimal). I definitely accept such a typing experience with a keyboard and I have nothing to nag about and I choose Keydous in this category.
Switches and keycaps
ReDragon and Keydous feature Outemu Magnetic switches, actuation force is heavier than with the Irok’s Gateron KS-20s (45 to 30 gf) and you can tell that immediately when pressing a key. You should have really light fingers or keep your emotions at bay if you wanna be super slick with Irok in games, ReDragon and Keydous allow you to press the keys with bigger force and feel the feedback they give a bit more. ReDragon’s are also less lubed than the ones in Keydous which also show a small difference in feel which may make you feel they are “less sensitive” which is not true. My preference is to use heavier switches due to my tendency to press keys with bigger force, so I go with ReDragon or Keydous in this case.
Software
Oh boy, oh boy. This is the field that I’d advise ReDragon and Irok to improve most. First of all, they look almost exactly the same, just take a look:
I mean, they get the job done (you can set up your key actuation, rapid trigger, DKS, macros, RGB etc) but I get the impression that it was not tailored to those specific keyboards and it seems more like flow production.
The installation process is predominantly in Chinese, even if you select English. Fortunately, after the installation is complete, the language changes to English, albeit with some awkward translations.
The software offers many functions, but describing the interface as user-friendly would be an overstatement. The GUI consists entirely of icons, requiring you to hover over each one to see its function.
Additionally, the Irok and ReDragon teams have introduced some unusual terms for well-established functions, which adds to the confusion.
While there is some mod-tap functionality, there are no layers (and the tapping term is set to a default of 10ms). This limitation means I couldn’t recreate my keymap or use SpaceFN natively, apart from remapping a few keys.
Saving changes posed another challenge. Changes made to the keymap in the app are not automatically saved to the keyboard, and it wasn’t clear how to do this. After trying all the icons, I clicked “Download” as a last resort to save my settings locally before resetting everything. It turned out that “Download” is actually the button you need to click to apply/upload changes and save settings to the keyboard.
What I like is that I can calibrate my keys manually one by one with the software. With Irok, you can also change the polling rate of the keyboard (1k-8k) but you can’t do that with ReDragon. Why? I reached out to ReDragon and they told me that the keyboard is natively 8k, so I don’t need to do anything else. Weird.
And when you check the polling rate with the Keyboard Inspector, it gets even weirder:
Overemphasizing the importance of latency and polling rate is often mocked by one segment of the keyboard enthusiast community, while it is likely a subject of intense study and analysis by the other. I’d say that it may play some smaller role for trained gamers but only when it’s “real 8k”, not like in those two cases. The above results from the Keyboard Inspector are very telling: those keyboards are NOT able to scan at real 8k polling rate, 99% of times it’s 1000 Hz at the most. There have been keypresses at 8000 Hz but very sporadically and only when you do some tweaking (set the rapid trigger to 0.1mm and enable DKS). But are you that fast and able to capitalize on that? I seriously doubt it.
Mind you, we are talking here about keyboard polling rate, not mouse polling rate (which is way more important for a serious gamer).
Also, within a few months of testing time, ReDragon firmware hasn’t been updated, Irok has been updated once. Are you telling me, there’s nothing to work on?
Let’s go with Keydous now:
At the moment of writing this review, Keydous has updated its firmware again. To be perfectly honest, I prefer keyboards with QMK/VIA module because it allows to have web-based software. In this case I had to download the driver again. The driver is quite heavy and when it loads, it takes a few moments to run and detect your device. Looks like Keydous is doing what big brands have been doing for years now — feeding us with their bloated software that works like a hub (I’m pointing finger at Razer, Steelseries, Logiteech and the like).
There’s still a bit of Chinese text floating around (even after some updates), but it seems to have successfully detected the English system setting in Windows, so at least it’s fairly obvious where to go. Remapping is a painfully slow process, so it’s a good thing that most people won’t need much beyond the 75% layout. Each change needs to be “confirmed,” which appears to be a full flash to the keyboard, and clicking on another key will try to apply that setting there. You can go into the Function layer and laboriously see which functions are assigned to the function row. You can adjust custom lighting in the driver program with the usual mix of distracting “gamer” lights, but I didn’t find any particularly appealing. Your mileage may vary, but even if you’re a fan, you’ll need to keep the manual handy to learn the controls.
There appears to be an option to upload and download custom profiles via the “share” menu. I really like it, however, this process is slow and not particularly worthwhile. There isn’t anything so complex or interesting that you can’t do it yourself, although if you really want to make your keyboard flash in a pink heart pattern, this option might save you some time.
The good thing is that the Rapid Trigger section offers some customization I haven’t yet seen in HE keyboards software — you can customize even the “Dead Zone” of your switch (a small area around the switch that does not respond to movements within the threshold of this area).
Overall, I wish Keydous had opted for QMK or VIA software, which would have saved a lot of time and effort. The tool isn’t bad enough to ruin the experience — I managed the few changes I wanted and didn’t need to open it again until it was time for this review. However, I would much prefer a standardized solution because Keydous software is still a bit janky, yet, better than ReDragon’s or Irok’s.
Battery life (Keydous only) and RGB
This section applies only to Keydous: the battery life is very good, 320 hrs without RGB, around 24 hrs with RGB on in wireless mode. When it comes to RGB itself, ReDragon seems the worst (due to incredibly thick keycaps), Irok and Keydous are ok.
Gaming experience
Overall, my gaming experience was pretty good with all of the keyboards, leaning towards Keydous and ReDragon due to the nature of the switches used there. I’d perhaps even say that, to my surprise, I liked ReDragon probably the most. But you need to remember why, which I explained in the review. Additionally, I never had any issues with responsiveness or Rapid Trigger implementation, even though the PCBs used in all of them are not the fastest out there, with ReDragon and Irok being slower around 40 ms than Wooting’s PCBs.
Bullet points
- Keydous the best for typing
- all keyboards are good for gaming
- Irok has probably the best look (that’s subjective though)
- all brands need to work more on their software, but Keydous seems to put more effort
- no web-based driver for neither keyboard
- ReDragon and Irok the best for budget, Keydous the best deal when it comes to features
- very smooth feel and gaming in Keydous wireless mode
- great battery in Keydous
- no real 8k polling rate in ReDragon/Irok
Should you buy it?
When you are on an absolute budget and want to get into the world of HE keyboards, you could get ReDragon M68 or Irok ND75. The difference here is in switches and keycaps. However, there are probably better deals in this price range (for example DrunkDeer). If your budget is a bit bigger, you should definitely go for Keydous as this is hands-down the best keyboard reviewed today.
👊And if you are ready to try these keebs out, use the code QUAKEWORLD at checkout to claim your small % discount!👊
If you don’t like it, it’s fine, you can always use fresh links as the direct links to the MechKeys website are here:
The next episode: we’ll check some new hot mechanical keyboard from Wuque Studio and compare to HE boards!
Disclaimer: Views and opinions expressed in this review are solely based on my experiences and observations with the product. While I strive to provide accurate and unbiased information, it’s essential to keep in mind that individual experiences may vary.
My goal is to offer you an honest and impartial assessment to assist you in making informed decisions about the product in question. If you have any concerns or questions about the review process, feel free to reach out for further clarification.