I have a thing for keyboards. I’m not quite sure why. One should be enough. I have a perfectly serviceable Corsair slate that feels great, has a 10 key and media controls and is easy to clean and maintain. But when the new 8BitDo Retro keyboard was announced back in June, I was smitten.
Pros:
Design – The design is clearly NES inspired. Grey, black, a few dashes of red. It is reminiscent of 8BitDo’s arcade stick which is similarly retro inspired and uses the same color scheme. It’s also wireless and shares the arcade stick’s connectivity features (Bluetooth, 2.4g via included USB receiver, or optionally, USB-C cable). It’s a gorgeous keyboard.
The keys – They are dye sublimated PBT, which is a relatively cheap, but very durable material. These keys should very well hold up over time.
You can also do quite a lot with them. Their switches, for instances, are hot swappable, in case you don’t love the feel of Kalih Box White switches (they feel great, but you have the option). They also support N-Key rollover, and there are two programmable macro keys labeled B and A on the keyboard itself. They can be programmed on the keyboard via the Star button, or through 8BitDo’s Ultimate software.
The Big Red Buttons – The keyboard comes with a set of two programmable buttons, and they are big, and red and pleasant in their clicky-ness. There’s no particular reason for the keyboard to have them, but they do extend functionality by allowing up to 6 keys to be programmed to them, and man are they fun. Who wouldn’t want to have a big red macro button to press?
Cons:
No 10-Key – Plenty of keyboards don’t have 10 key number pads, but they are all worse off for it. Granted, this is clearly a gaming keyboard and no 10-key means more mouse space to work with, but, if you want to just use 1 keyboard for everything, this isn’t quite it. You can, of course by a separate 10-key pad, but good luck matching these aesthetics.
No RGB or backlit keys – You can’t type in the dark with this guy. Even a simple white or red backlight would have looked pretty snazzy here. But the downside to having PBT keys means they aren’t going to be on a backlit keyboard. This leads into the next issue.
Contrast – The red lettering and number on the grey keys has excellent contrast and can be seen easily. But several keys are dark grey and have the same red lettering, in an even thinner font, and it’s just not that visible. Anyone with limited vision would have a very tough time using this keyboard without swapping some keys. A white typeface on the darker keys would have gone a long way towards rectifying this problem.
Overall
This thing is gorgeous and hits you in all the nostalgic feels. It feels great and has a sense of fun about it that few keyboards do. However, it also lacks a 10 key, backlighting, and has very poor contrast on several keys. None of these are dealbreakers, but they are very much things to consider.
8/10