Luminkey Magger 68 HE Review: Small and speedy

It seems like everywhere you look, there's another magnetic switch gaming keyboard vying for your attention, from mainstream gaming companies like Glorious and the ultra-budget-friendly Redragon to smaller brands like Arbiter Studio. Luminkey is the latter, and its most recent keyboard is compact, well-built, and surprisingly budget-friendly (not quite budget-friendly enough to land a spot on our list of best budget mechanical keyboards, but close).

The Magger 68 is a compact, 68-percent wired magnetic switch keyboard with a full aluminum case, a hot-swappable PCB, and up to an 8,000 Hz polling rate — pretty much optimally designed for gaming, in other words. In that vein, it also features bright, per-key RGB lighting that can be customized in Luminkey's software. The lighting even operates on a separate lighting control chip to ensure it doesn't compromise the keyboard's performance. On the enthusiast side, the board features a sandwich mount design and comes in three colorways (black, white, and gold) with matching high-quality dye-sub keycaps with translucent accent keys.

The Magger 68 comes in two variations: the "Performance" version, which costs $119 and features Gateron Magnetic White Pro switches, and the "Professional" version, which costs $149 and features Gateron Magnetic Jade Pro switches. We took a look at the Performance version in the champagne / gold color.

Design and Construction of the Magger68

The Magger 68 is a wired magnetic switch gaming keyboard with a 68-percent layout, which is slightly bigger than a 65-percent layout. It has alphanumeric keys, arrow keys, and a column of four additional keys — PgUp, PgDn, Delete, and the grave accent key, which is on the right side (the Escape key is on the left side). It comes in three colorways: Black, white, and champagne (gold). Each colorway comes with matching keycaps and accent keys. Our review unit came in champagne, with gray and black keycaps and translucent red accent keys. The keycaps are high-quality, dye-sub PBT and have a Cherry keycap profile — lower profile than standard OEM keycaps, with sculpted rows and lightly curved tops.

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The champagne color comes with black and gray keycaps with red translucent accent keys, and has sort of a nostalgic vibe. The black colorway has black, gray, and white keycaps with translucent gray accent keys, while the white colorway has white keycaps with orange accent keys (it also has hiragana printed on the keycaps, which is cool even though all of Japan uses romaji, not kana, input to type Japanese).

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The keyboard has a nicely machined fully aluminum case with a small bezel around the keys. The keyboard's name (Magger) is engraved in the bezel in the upper-right corner. There's a small cut-out for the USB-C port, which is located on the left side of the keyboard, along the top. There's not much to say there, except that I personally prefer when keyboards have center ports, because of how my cables are set up. However, the Magger 68 comes with its own "custom 8K high-quality data cable," which has an "independent shielding ring" to block signal interference, so I needed to switch up my cable setup anyway.

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The 68-percent layout is still highly compact, and won't take up too much space on your desk, measuring 12.56 inches (319mm) wide by 4.33 inches (110mm) deep. At its thickest point the case is 1.18 inches (30mm) thick; it has a lower-profile front — the case is just 0.65 inches (16.5mm) thick, for a more comfortable, wristpad-free typing experience. This does make for a slightly steeper typing angle (7 degrees versus the usual 5), but it doesn't detract from the keyboard's comfort.

The back of the keyboard is a fairly simple slab of aluminum, with four small rubber anti-slip strips. These aren't really necessary, as this is a pretty hefty keyboard despite its small footprint. Our review unit weighed 2.6 pounds (1,177.5g) without any of the accessories, making it almost half a pound heavier than Arbiter Studio's Polar 65 magnetic switch keyboard, a similarly-sized 65-percent gaming keyboard. Still, the slim bezel and lower-profile front end does make it feel like a very small keyboard on your desk.

The Magger 68 comes with a five-foot (1.5m) braided USB-C to USB-A cable, a dual keycap/switch puller, and an extra switch in the box.

Specs

Typing and Gaming Experience on the Magger68

The Magger 68 is a wired magnetic gaming keyboard with magnetic Hall Effect switches — Gateron Magnetic White Pro linear switches in the performance version and Gateron Magnetic Jade Pro linear switches in the professional version. The Magnetic White Pro switches are pre-lubed dual rail linear switches with 30gf of initial force. They're linear, so they have smooth, consistent keypresses with no tactile bump or audible click. The switches are lighter than other switches

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Typing on the Magger 68 is a pleasant experience: the switches are lightweight and smooth, and the keycaps' lower profile make for quick travel — I was able to type slightly faster (around 130 wpm) on this keyboard than I normally type (120 - 125 wpm), but the lighter weight did mean I made more typos at this speed. These are magnetic switches, so you can adjust the actuation (between 0.1mm and 3.5mm), which I did to tweak the accuracy a little. While typing on this keyboard was fine, it wasn't one of my favorite keyboards for feel or sound — I'm not the biggest fan of linear switches, and while these were fine, the bottom-out sounded a little hollow and there was some stabilizer rattle in the space bar.

Like other magnetic switches, these also support Rapid Trigger and Dynamic Keystrokes, as well as the semi-controversial Simultaneous Opposing Cardinal Directions (SOCD), which you'll also find on magnetic keyboards like the Arbiter Studio Polar 75 Pro. These features probably won't mean much unless you're a gamer (and might not even then, depending on the types of games you play), and this is definitely a keyboard that's aimed at gamers. It features up to an 8,000 Hz polling rate, and comes with a special "8K high-quality data cable" with an "independent shielding ring" to prevent signal interference from causing any lag or latency. Realistically, however, if you're getting latency on a keyboard with an 8,000 Hz polling rate, it's probably not signal latency that's the issue — it's probably the constant reporting causing strain on your system. I'm not convinced that an 8,000 Hz polling rate is necessary for a mouse — which is moving constantly — let alone a keyboard. But it's there, if you want it.

Unnecessarily high polling rates aside, the Magger 68 is a nice little gaming sidekick with its compact layout and magnetic switches. The lightweight linear switches are good for quick presses, and the keyboard is very responsive (even at a more normal 1,000 Hz polling rate).

Features and Software of the Magger68

The Magger 68 can be configured using Luminkey's Luminkey HE Driver software, which can be downloaded from Luminkey's site. It's not the best software I've used, but it's also not the worst — some parts, such as the performance section where you can adjust the keyboard's magnetic switch options, are a little confusing to navigate at first, but Luminkey does a decent job of explaining each feature in the software.

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Luminkey HE lets you remap keys, adjust the keyboard's magnetic switch settings — actuation, Rapid Trigger sensitivity, Dynamic Keystrokes, and SOCD, as well as toggle keys and mod-tap, which lets you set a key to perform different functions if you tap it or hold it down. The software has a macro recorder and a firmware updater, as well as a lighting section — unlike keyboards that rely on the open-source QMK / VIA software, Luminkey HE lets you set the keyboard's per-key lighting... per key. It's not really a necessary feature, but it's rarer than you might expect in a keyboard like this.

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The Magger 68 has bright RGB lighting, though its keys are not shine-through (minus the accent keys, which are translucent). It's still fairly noticeable, though, and can be customized in the Luminkey HE software or adjusted using preset shortcuts on the keyboard — you can cycle through over 20 preset lighting modes using Fn + U, and you can also change the color (Fn + Y), brightness (Fn + F / G), and speed (Fn + H / J).

The Bottom Line

The Magger 68 is a nice little magnetic switch gaming keyboard with a compact, low(ish)-profile chassis and an 8,000 Hz polling rate. It's a solid option if you're looking for a budget-friendly magnetic keyboard, but do you really need an 8,000 Hz polling rate? Probably not. And if you don't need an 8,000 Hz polling rate, we prefer the way the Arbiter Studio Polar 65 sounds and feels for typing — and it's priced similarly ($125).

If you're looking for something a little bigger, you can pick up the stylish Akko MOD007B-HE for just $110 — $10 cheaper than the Magger 68. Or, if you're looking to splurge, Keychron's gaming branch Lemokey just launched its 75-percent Lemokey L5 8K HE ($199), which has magnetic switches and an 8,000 Hz polling rate.