\You know I’m still so glad that when new tech turns up at the door, it can make me think like woah that looks cool, because when I first opened up this Ajazz AK680 I was blown away by the style. I absolutely love the look of this thing with the purple gradient across the top and side printed legends which are actually shine-through PBT keycaps and south-facing RGB. Not so much right now though with my white tower here and also white Ajazz mouse which I’m still using after my review a while ago now, which should give you an idea on what I think about their products. There is a white version of the AK680 Max if you prefer, and one with blue accented keycaps too, and they can be found on the Ajazz website, though this one here was sent to us by MECHLANDS which is an online retailer, so a link down in the description to that.
The Ajazz AK680 Max is a compact 68% keyboard which means no numberpad, and also no F-keys either which I did miss a bit. It’s got a TOP mounted structure and an aluminium positioning plate which gives it a bit of weight, but everything is still sitting inside of an ABS plastic shell which I don’t really mind too much and I don’t think a metal shell would do too much to this keyboard in terms of aesthetics or even sound profile. It doesn’t sound too bad as is, but it is loud and a bit “magnetic switch” sounding, you’ll know it when you hear it. It’s a bit hollow sounding, there’s no real dampening, just listen.
The typing experience is rather nice though with the magnetic rice switches, and having hall-effect sensors, it means you can customise the actuation points of your key presses. Of course, you can have your actuation to as low as 0.01mm, though I’m not a massive gamer to really warrant needing my actuation that high. Instead, I opt for around 0.8mm on my downstroke and then 2.0mm on the up which seems to be a nice middle ground for me and what I need the keyboard for. Being a magnetic mechanical keyboard you do also have the choice of turning on rapid triggers though do so at your own risk as games now, especially competitive ones are starting to ban players that are caught using magnetic keyboards.
All of this though is controlled and programmed using the Ajazz Driver. Catchy name that. But I must say again I’m impressed because I can change all of my keyboard and mouse settings in one place. I don’t need two bits of software, so kudos to you with that Ajazz I do like a neat bit of software. And I must say with the keyboard options everything is where it usually is with these kinds of things. Again, I’ve said it before but I think there’s probably one single company out there making software for all of these keyboard brands and selling a licence. There’s got to be because it looks identical to other HE keyboards I’ve tested. You’ve got your main setting which houses your key settings, your stroke settings and advanced settings which has your Dynamic Keystrokes, TGL features and Snap Keys and all that kind of thing. Your FnSettings are here too as well as your RGB options of which I set to a nice teal colour and left it. With any HE keyboard like this, the level of customisation you have here is amazing, and will be great for gamers out there, but for us casuals, not so much.
A big thing for me though is the fact it lacks wireless connectivity. I really wish it did because between the HE effect sensors, the colour design and customisation it’ll make it unstoppable. But the advantage here is the fact it’s got an 8,000Hz polling rate so in theory, it shouldn’t miss a beat, plus it’s also got some NKRO anti-ghosting on there too. And when I was playing some games I didn’t notice any kind of input lag and 0.125ms latency feels great, though to be honest with you with the types of games I play I’m unsure whether I’d even notice if it didn’t. So take that as you will. I didn’t think anything of it and zipping around a game of Overwatch 2 was decent and the keys have a nice size to them. You can even use the feet at the back to angle the keyboard towards you if that’s more your thing.
The price for this thing though wildly varies, and while the pink gradient version comes in at around 58 dollars at the time of writing this video script, while the plain black, no RGB variant comes in at just $29 dollars so if you don’t want anything fancy but you want a HE gaming keyboard then it’s not a bad pick. The $29 dollars one isn’t in stock though at the time of writing this so there’s that. But overall, not a bad keyboard.
