Cooler Master SK653 Keyboard Review: A Sleek, Gorgeous Keyboard Offering
I recently had the pleasure to try out the Cooler Master SK650 to review here on Esports Talk. As someone who spends a fair amount of time at his desk, having a good keyboard is important. This one, in particular, is one that I’ve really come to enjoy and am considering using at my desk full time. The only thing I need to make that a sure thing is a quality wrist guard. It’s incredibly important to have comfort when typing for hours on end, or when gaming. As a Bluetooth keyboard, I also wanted to test it away from my PC, and so I looked to my PS5. I love FFXIV after all, and if I can use it on my console to communicate with my Free Company easier, well, more’s the better. In this review, we’ll talk about the Cooler Master SK650 and how it feels to me.
How’s It Handle?
Honestly, I love how quickly the keys respond on this. The Cherry MX Low Profile Switches mean the SK650 requires less force to press the key down. I know that sounds like a strange thing to be excited about, but when you spend five, six, seven hours typing, your hands and fingers can get incredibly tired. I’ve really grown to enjoy the feeling of typing on this board. The raised keys over the brushed aluminum design also present a very sharp look.
I also enjoy that you can set up macros on the keyboard and control the lighting without having to install another program. That’s one of the major drawbacks to a say, Razer keyboard or Corsair. I can set up single-press macros, infinite macros, and repeat macros, right on the keyboard. I followed this easy guide and I could set up macros on my keyboard in no time flat. The only difference is, instead of an FN key, it’s the Cooler Master logo key. That was one of the worst things about a previous mouse I owned, how tedious it was to keep/use macros. It’s pretty easy here on a Cooler Master.
You can have several profiles, so you can have a profile for default typing/gaming, and other profiles for more complicated macros for your online games. That’s another positive for me. Now, this is a Bluetooth Keyboard, my PC doesn’t have Bluetooth by default. I do however have a Bluetooth dongle, which helped. I prefer to keep it plugged in though, but either works easily. Speaking of Bluetooth, I tried to set it up to work with my PS5, it did not appear to have support for the console yet. In a perfect world, this will change. I will say that plugging it in worked just fine and allowed me to communicate in FFXIV perfectly.
You do, of course, have to keep playing with the controller, since I didn’t also have a mouse plugged in. It as a keyboard did work excellently on PS5 though, so that’s a positive. I do wish this keyboard elevated a little higher though. That’s perhaps one of the only major flaws for the keyboard. It even came with a keycap remover if you want to replace the keys and put custom ones on, or whatever you care to do.
Is It Worth It? Definitely
I’m a pretty big fan of this keyboard right now. Once I have a proper rest for it it will likely be my permanent keyboard on my desk for work. If it elevated a tiny bit higher it would be a much better keyboard though. There’s a lot to like about it. It’s responsive, easy to set up (no extraneous programs required). Just plug and play! You can change the lighting via the keyboard, set up macros, and control the volume on your PC. You can also apparently use it on a Mac since you can change the OS functionality on the keyboard. The Cooler Master SK653 held up to all of my testing in the review process, and I have to say, I genuinely love using it. You just might too.
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