Turtle Beach Impact 700 Mechanical Keyboard Review: The Sweet Spot?

By Seth Colaner
published

Early Verdict

The Turtle Beach Impact 700 is a well-built keyboard that nicely balances features and design for the grown-up gamer but at a price point that's far too high.

Pros

  • +

    Excellent design for a dual-purpose office and gaming keyboard

  • +

    Works with Macs and older PCs (6KRO)

  • +

    Totally plug-and-play

  • +

    No extraneous key noise

Cons

  • -

    Too expensive for the feature set

  • -

    Costar stabilizers

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Introduction And Specifications

We recently reviewed the Turtle Beach Impact 500 mechanical keyboard, a stripped-down, simple tenkeyless device that eschewed any backlighting or features such as passthrough ports. Its bigger brother, the 104-key Impact 700, shares some of the minimalist design ideas but caters to a much wider swathe of users. In some ways, for those looking for a fully-featured and fun--but not too fun--mechanical keyboard, the Impact 700 may be the sweet spot.

That is, in terms of features and design. The price is a big sticking point; at almost $200, there are some feature omissions here that are problematic.

Those sound like two kind of contradictory statements, don't they? Let us explain and elaborate in the following pages. But first, the specs.

Specifications

Note: There are several specifications that Turtle Beach has not published, and my questions to company representatives regarding those details have gone unanswered.

MORE: How We Test Mechanical Keyboards
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Seth Colaner
36 Comments Comment from the forums
  • tom10167
    2016, the year of $200 keyboards
    Reply
  • Indrasil
    200$ and no RGB? Turtle Beach lived to its expectations...
    Reply
  • Gam3r01
    I dont care if it dosent have RGB or the works, but 200 bucks? TB at it once again.
    Reply
  • DookieDraws
    Yeah, $200 for a keyboard is outrageous. I am sure it's a nice keyboard, but how in the world can they justify such a high price? Does that price include a free date with Daisy Ridley? :P
    Reply
  • kschang77
    And only an 8-bit controller? Everybody else uses 32-bit ARM CPUs...
    Reply
  • vaughn2k
    I thought it comes with a modular power supply :D
    Reply
  • NBL khalifa
    MIONIX ZIBAL ripoff ? or same oem ?
    Reply
  • NBL khalifa
    also mionix zibal is much more cheaper
    Reply
  • WyomingKnott
    Hey, does anybody make a decent ergonomic keyboard with good switches? I'm still using the Microsoft Natural membrane keyboard because it makes my hands feel SO GOOD.
    Reply
  • blackmagnum
    Wouldn't you rather use that money to get a Radeon R9 380? Poor pricing of keyboard!
    Reply