Low-profile mechanical keyboards are a popular choice for those who prefer the short, snappy feel of a great laptop keyboard but want something more powerful, durable, and customizable. While full-height mechanical keyboards hit the mainstream first, low-profile alternatives are becoming more common, and there’s an exciting arms race leading to some truly impressive designs.
Today we’re looking at three such keyboards: an improved, gaming-focused keyboard from industry giant Logitech, a snazzy offering for typists from Chinese boutique brand iQunix, and a strange, stylish and unmistakably early Apple keyboard from one-man London brand Electronic Materials Office.
While nominally in the same category, these keyboards couldn’t be more different in terms of their intended use cases – and that’s led to some fascinating design differences. Here are reviews of the G515 Lightspeed TKL, Magi65 Pro, and Altar 1.
Altar for the Office of Electronic Materials 1 review
To call the Altar 1 stylish, anachronistic or just plain weird would be an understatement. The first Electronic Materials Office keyboard, it is also the first I have seen that uses low-profile keys that are also different heights.
Most of the keys you use for typing are flat, but the function keys and modifiers are shifted upwards to make them taller, while the number and arrow keys are shifted outwards to make them shorter. It’s a very odd layout, but to the designer’s credit, it makes it instantly clear where you are on the keyboard – and centering on the home row is easy thanks to the extremely prominent tabs on the F and J keys. The Kailh Choc Low Profile v1 Red linear switches offer a quick response, although I might have preferred a more tactile or clicky alternative as an option.
The rest of this 75 percent keyboard is no less unusual. Instead of a horizontal scroll or a relatively flat volume knob, you get an extra-large rotary encoder with a red tip on the top right—the only splash of color on the keyboard, and the only thing stopping you from putting this in a backpack. (You get a reusable sleeve made from recycled cardboard in case you want to use the Altar 1 on the go.)
USB-C connectivity is included but feels like an afterthought, with a constantly blinking Caps Lock key when your keyboard is connected and two Bluetooth connections accessible via a switch on the side of the board. There are dedicated pairing and power buttons, but no way to switch from the standard Mac-friendly bindings to Windows equivalents. There’s also no way to quickly swap the Function and Control keys, which are the wrong way round for my money (since Fn is in the coveted bottom-left corner), but perhaps Apple fans will disagree.
It’s clear that the entire endeavor is a love letter to Mac computers of old, with familiar fonts all over the keyboard and the (equally impressive) Electronic Materials Office website. As you’d expect from anyone putting themselves in Apple’s league, build quality is superb, with a Macbook-style aluminum unibody design, and the keyboard is sure to turn heads on a desk or in a cafe.
Inside, a microcontroller (allegedly taken from a sex toy) provides perfectly adequate performance for gaming or typing at 1000Hz. I played through most of Armored Core 6 using the keyboard and had no problems once I got used to the new Ctrl key layout—thankfully, boosting is less common in AC6 than crouching with the Ctrl key in FPS titles.
What strikes me about the Altar 1 is that it is 100 percent designed for a very specific target audience and has no illusions about mass market appeal. I’m sure that eventually features like Windows bindings will come and the appeal will continue to grow, but for now, this is a testament to the sheer willpower of its designer to make what She want.
A completely sold-out pre-order suggests there are quite a few people who share this vision, even at a hefty price tag of £349/$349/€399. I have to respect EMO’s commitment to not only dreaming up such a keyboard, but fully realizing it.
iQunix Magi65 Pro review
The $139 iQunix Magi65 Pro is the first keyboard we’ve looked at from this Shenzhen boutique, but it makes a strong first impression with its 65 percent enlarged design, copper accents, and aluminum chassis. I say “enlarged” because the Pro model includes an additional section on the right side with a textured volume wheel, an RGB light strip, four media controls, and an iQunix wordmark that hides the board’s 2.4GHz USB dongle. It’s a nice addition for anyone who likes to listen to music while they work or play, because the four controls default to skip forward and back, play/pause, and mute.
Back to the main board page, it’s clear that iQunix is totally on top of current keyboard trends, with low-profile 40g Kailh-style hot-swappable switches with cross-stems, PBT keycaps with anti-oil coating, RGB backlighting, countless layers of sound dampening, and an overall excellent typing feel.
Bluetooth and USB-C connectivity complement the 2.4GHz wireless connection, and a keyboard shortcut (and keycaps in the box) let you switch between Mac and Windows bindings. Battery life is rated at 3000 hours with Bluetooth and no RGB, while more realistic use with 2.4GHz and RGB enabled should be in the region of 12 hours. You also get a nice set of additional extras, including a metal keycap and key switch puller that’s the nicest I’ve ever used, a snazzy coiled USB-C cable, several keycaps, a USB-C/USB-A adapter, and a one-page manual in excellent English that clearly explains keyboard shortcuts and other features.
Comparing the Magi65 Pro to the (equally priced) Logitech G515 Pro, it’s clear that iQunix’s offering presents surprisingly strong competition to bigger brands. They can deliver a significantly better board in terms of design, with a slight edge in typing feel and features, and only really lose out on software (as the Magi65 Pro doesn’t have software, which some users might actually prefer).
If you’re OK with the standard key layouts – and they’re fine with me, except for the lack of a push button – I highly recommend the Magi65 Pro. Otherwise, the smaller $119 Magi65 offers the same excellent typing experience and is said to be programmable with the VIA web app. Either way, you’re getting a well-made keyboard at a pretty reasonable price.
Logitech G515 Lightspeed TKL review
Logitech’s G915 and G915 TKL are great keyboards, but the high price and only average typing feel don’t fit the mechanical keyboard market in 2024. The new £140/$140 G515 Lightspeed TKL aims to fix these problems by offering a slightly simplified design and higher quality keycaps at a (slightly) lower price, while retaining the overall form factor and typing style that made the G915 so popular.
The result is a keyboard that’s very good in many areas. As with its predecessors, the short-travel switches (in tactile or linear versions) are quick and accurate to press in games, the TKL layout offers all the keys in a familiar form factor but with a little more room for your mouse, and the backlighting is strong and consistent enough for use in darker environments. You also get tri-mode connectivity, with Logitech’s 2.4GHz Lightspeed wireless technology remaining the industry standard for gaming-grade low-latency wireless, as well as Bluetooth for wider compatibility and wired USB-C for charging after your stated 36 hours of full-beam RGB use have elapsed.
The biggest improvement here is in the keycaps, which are made from PBT rather than ABS and have a fine, grippy texture. The switches are also factory lubricated, while sound-dampening foam has been incorporated to create a deeper and more pleasant sound. The keycaps also use a more traditional cross-shaft, although it’s not clear whether these changes make much of a difference when typing and make up for one of the few weaknesses of the original design amidst boutique brands increasingly placing emphasis on how typing feels and sounds.
Comparing the Logitech G515 TKL to the G915 TKL, the G915 does have its own advantages – such as an aluminum frame and volume wheel, both of which were omitted from the G515’s design. That’s a shame – I would have liked a side-mounted volume wheel like the Pro X 60 – but you can make do with function keys or remap some lesser-used keys (e.g. Page Up, Page Down) to use them as volume controls if you want. Thankfully, the keyboard still feels as sturdy as before, and I would much rather have the typing improvements on the G515 than the metal design and volume wheel on the G915.
Overall, this is a big step forward in typing quality for Logitech, which was in danger of being completely overshadowed by the more key feel-focused designs of its smaller competitors. It will be interesting to see if these changes are adopted by other Logitech mechanical keyboards in the future, as combining them with more gaming-focused features like higher polling rates or crisp analog switches could really offer the best of both worlds.
All three of these low-profile keyboards are impressive in their own way and it was fascinating to see how each of their makers designed them for a specific use case. It’s clear that typing experience is becoming just as important as gaming features and I’m happy to see companies like Logitech really starting to keep up on that front.
Which keyboard intrigues you the most? Let me know in the comments below and stay tuned for more mechanical keyboard reviews.
Our guide to the best 65 percent keyboard is due in the next update and I’m also looking forward to trying out the controversial “simultaneous opposite cardinal directions” or SOCD features added by the likes of Wooting and Razer that allow beginners to get pro-level movement in games like Counter-Strike 2. Exciting times.