Keyboard Builders' Digest / Review
Luminkey Magger 68 HE review
The Magger 68 HE is a solid 65% Hall-effect keyboard, staying true to Luminkey's philosophy of crafting finely tuned, quality products. More for gamer folks, but with the aura of higher-end enthusiast boards.
Published September 23, 2024
I absolutely loved the Luminkey80, reviewed earlier this year, so I was very excited to be able to get my hands on the brand's latest Hall-effect model, the Magger 68 HE. The much more expensive Luminkey80 ($275) was apparently marketed toward serious keyboard enthusiasts, while the little brother Magger is geared more toward gamers (RGB lighting, HE switches, fewer accessories). It comes in a relatively stripped-down bundle, allowing for a price of just $99.
Compromises? Sure, but nothing significant. You don't get a hard-shell case this time, nor a coiled cable or aluminum artisan keycap. That said, even after testing the lower-cost, less-frills version (Performance) of the Magger, I still got the hard-to-explain impression that the quality remains consistently superior – for a fraction of the price.
TLDR;
The Magger 68 HE is a really nice and solid 65% Hall-effect keyboard, aiming to strike a balance between being a gamer and enthusiast board. What makes it stand out, and an ideal companion for more serious keyboard fans, is the quality of its aluminum case and the overall build. Gamers will appreciate the customization options and configurability associated with magnetic switches, as well as the RGB lighting. For keymap wizards though, the software lacks several essential features. If you can live without logical layers, the Magger offers great value, starting at just $99.
Disclaimer
I received this review unit from Luminkey. As always, receiving a free sample may introduce all kind of bias (both negative and positive in my experience) – keep this in mind while reading this review! That said, I was not paid to write about this product.
Brand
As a subsidiary of Createkeebs, LUMINKEY stands apart by focusing on fine-tuning mechanical keyboards to a state of perfection. Whether you're an experienced enthusiast or a newcomer of custom keyboards, or simply seeking a superior typing experience, LUMINKEY caters to all these needs! – Luminkey.com.
Options
No barebone option this time, you can choose from the pre-built "budget" Performance ($99) and Professional ($129) versions. I have to stress that the cheaper version is just as high quality as Luminkey's other keyboard models.
The Professional variant has a slightly more intricate case design with some tapering here and there, and also weights matching the case color.
The cheaper alternative has no bottom weight and the shape of its case is a bit simpler. I have to confess that I like this clean and simple design even more.
Both options are offered in three fancy colorways: Ano-Champagne Gold, Ano-Black, and E-Milky White. Well, I could translate these as silver, black and white, but as you'll see next to the e-retro white Luminkey80, the shades are really different.
Coming with three different keycap sets, while all options look gorgeous, it was an easy choice to go with the e-milky white case, paired with dye-sub caps featuring Hiragana sublegends and translucent amber accents.
Contents
So the tested sample was a fully built e-milky white Magger 68 HE with the matching keycap set and Gateron Magnetic White Pro switches.
The board came in a nice cardboard box with a minimal set of accessories: instructions, cable, combined keycap and switch puller, and an extra switch.
Specifications
- 68 keys, 65% layout, wired
- Layout: ANSI (with signs of ISO-readiness on the PCB)
- Switches: magnetic, hotswap
- Adjustable actuation: 0.1mm-3.5mm
- Typing angle: 7deg
- Per-key RGB
- Polling rate: 8000Hz
- Dimensions: 319x110x16.5mm
- Weight: 1180g
Appearance & first impressions
While Luminkey's choice of wording – using "e-milky" white rather than "e-retro" white – is certainly intentional, this specific color option of the Magger still evokes the essence of the '80, at least in my opinion. Maybe it's just me, but the amber accents complementing the beige base color remind me of the distinctive amber plasma displays of that era.
The touch and feel, all those little design choices like the shape of the screw holes, the perfect weight of the keyboard, was familiar from the Luminkey80.
Layout
The good old – nice and compact! – 65% layout. No F-row, no numeric pad, arrows and four keys of the navigation cluster snapped to the right of the board. I personally like it better when there's a minimal offset to or at least a tiny gap next to the arrows, to aid repositioning your right hand. Just like e.g. the Luminkey65 has it. (Who uses the right Ctrl anyway?) But no problem, there's SpaceFN for the rescue!
Well, not really. Spoiler alert: I wasn't able to make it work with the Magger. Third-party options may be the solution.
Structure
Since the Magger comes pre-built, let's walk through the components in the order of disassembly.
Keycaps
I'm not a big fan of the rainbow caps (the other options) so was revealed when Luminkey sent me the gorgeous milky white case with the matching keycaps.
PBT, dye-sub, translucent amber accents and Hiragana sublegends. Don't mock me, I know these sublegends are controversial, but I actually type in Japanese every now and then so I'M FULLY AWARE that it's done using Latin characters. 🤣 Anyway, the alphas are a bit thicker than usual, and the Hiragana is an unusual variant, but I like the overall look and feel – a lot actually!
By the way, one benefit of magnetic keyboards is that you don't really have to remove keycaps or switches, e.g. in contrast to Moeetech's Glitter65.
Switches
According to the product page, the pre-built board comes with Gateron Magnetic White Pro switches (Jade Pros for the Professional variant), linear of course. However, there's "EverFree" indicated on the top housing, which I thought was a sub-brand of Gateron.
Luminkey helped me out with an explanation:
The switch is actually a custom design we developed in collaboration with Gateron. Initially, we called it "EverFree," but later, since it was an upgraded version of the White switch, we decided to name it "White Pro."
Anyway, these are decent linears, pre-lubed, with transparent top housing for better RGB and Gateron's dual-track magnetic design.
While the white one is allegedly 30±10gf, it felt much heavier until I realized that the default actuation travel was set to 3.00mm, which is huge. Bottoming out every time contributed to the heavy feel. Fine-tuning the actuation point should result in a typing experience tailored to your personal preferences.
Plate
Hard matte black aluminum plate. No fancy flex cuts. It comes with plate-mounted stabilizers already installed.
Gasket mounting
Gaskets integrated into the thick silicone sandwich pad run all along the perimeter of the aluminum plate. These are gaskets on steroids.
PCB
Well, HE switches are "hotswap" by design, which means really nothing in terms of PCB design: given they are snapped into the plate, the switches could work without the two plastic pins being in contact with the PCB. If you are curious, here are some shots of the PCB stripped down:
ANSI layout, but there are signs of potential ISO support – at least the PCB has the required holes.
Sound dampening
As already mentioned: thick silicone sandwich pad, with gaskets almost all along the perimeter.
Plus a thick bottom silicone pad with cutouts for the electronic components of the PCB.
LEDs
Luminkey took RGB very seriously. There's an independent lighting control chip to ensure that "performance remains unaffected even when RGB lighting effects are on".
Per-key RGB, plenty of colors, animations and config options.
Firmware
Magnetic switches pretty much mean custom software, unfortunately. In this case it's called Luminkey HE, and it caused me some headache even to start it up properly. The level of your pain may depend on your system and language. If the software starts up without any labels, you may try to install it with your antivirus software disabled (yikes):
If it still looks funny, try to set it to English blindly. Look for this part (again, imagine this without any letters or even icons displayed):
The custom software works, it has a bunch of magnetic features. To remap the keys you have to drag and drop them istead of simply clicking the appropriate character/function as usual.
Macros, the color and animation of RGB can be easily set up here too. However, I couldn't make SpaceFN work.
You can definitely set up an alternative FN layer, you have double-function tap-hold (MT) option too, in theory. But the two doesn't seem to work together, so if you rock your own custom keymap with more than one custom logical layer, this board won't work for you, sadly.
Conclusion
The Magger 68 HE is a nice blend of contemporary keyboard design and classic look (e-milky white). The magnetic options and RGB make this model more interesting for gamers, but given the quality aluminum case and finishing, serious typers should check it out too. Especially for the unbelievable price starting at just $99! Hardcore keymap wizards should choose something else, e.g. non-magnetic keyboard models by Luminkey do support VIA.
Price & Availability
The streamlined bundle resulted in a great price – about third of the cost of my previous Luminkey keyboard. So if you think that the features of the Magger 68 satisfy your needs, feel free to check out the official online store:
Published on Mon 23rd Sep 2024. Featured in KBD #175.
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