With a massive amount of 60% keyboards on the market, it’s tough to choose just one. Here are our favorites from one of the more comfortable, smaller sides of the old keyboarding world.
Looking for keyboards often sees you run into the 60% board. This smaller, shaved-down size is designed to be more geared toward gaming, rather than your traditional keyboard.
As gaming grows each year, of course, manufacturers have been keen to jump onto the bandwagon. There’s gaming, custom, and mechanical, which might be more expensive, but will provide you with a better overall experience in the long run than just a mechanical keyboard.
Wooting 60HE: The best 60% gaming keyboard
- Switch type: Lekker linear60 (Hot-swappable)
- Keycaps: Double-shot PBT (ANSI only)
- Connectivity: Wired
- Price: $174.99
When we reviewed the Wooting 60HE, we knew that we were in for something special. The Lekker Linear switches use hall sensors, making this board stand out apart from almost all other boards on this list. This allows the switch to have an accuracy of up to 1mm, with an equally impressive debounce setting, also known as rapid trigger in Wooting’s excellent software.
The tray is also removable and compatible with other enthusiast options, and the board is all nicely muted out of the box, making for a buttery smooth typing experience. There’s not much to complain about here, just be aware that it can take some time to configure in your favorite games, and you will have to attach the Wooting 60HE using a wire.
It makes for a fantastic typing and gaming experience, which is why we’ve named it our top 60% keyboard for gamers. It just doesn’t get better than this.
Higround Summit 65: The best 65% custom keyboard
- Switch type: Higround Geo (Pre-lubed, Hot-swappable)
- Keycaps: 1.5mm thick PBT Dye-Sub
- Connectivity: Wired
- Price: $290
Okay, put your pitchforks down, the 100 Thieves-owned Higround Summit 65 may be a 65% model, but it still retains a sleek form factor that only has an extra row of keys for usability’s sake. It still has all of the benefits of a 60% board.
At $290, the Higround Summit 65 oozes quality, it has a CNC aluminum case, prelubed stabilizers, silicone dampeners, and a weighted brass medallion at the bottom, too. Available in one of several colors, the Summit 65 feels incredible to type and game on, especially with the stock switches. However, you can still customize almost every facet of this board. It’s a tough asking price, but if you have the cash to splash on one of our favorite keyboard experiences in this form factor, you can’t really go wrong.
There are a handful of downsides, such as the nonexistent software experience, and no QMK/VIA support. However, we still love to type on it, as it feels a cut above most other boards.
Mountain Everest 60: The best 60% mechanical keyboard
- Switch type: Mountain Tactile 55, Linear 45, Linear 45 Speed
- Keycaps: Double-shot PBT shine-through
- Connectivity: USB-C
- Price: $139.99
When it comes to bang for your buck, the Mountain Everest 60 really cannot be beaten. Featuring Mountain’s own-brand switches, which are hot-swappable. The board also features silicone dampening, and a layout that includes arrow keys, while retaining that ideal 60% layout, too.
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You’ll also have to wire this one up, too, but we really adored this keyboard, since it was such a great-feeling package straight out of the box. It just feels excellent to type and game on, and you also still can customize it, unlike other, cheaper 60% boards out there.
In our review, we called it the “Ultimate compact keyboard”, and still stand by those words, as it just has everything you could want out of a good, affordable 60% keyboard.
Steelseries Apex Pro Mini Wireless: The best wireless 60% keyboard
- Switch type: Omnipoint 2.0
- Keycaps: Double-shot PBT shine-through
- Connectivity: USB-C, 2.4Ghz wireless
- Price: $239.99
For those looking for something wireless, the SteelSeries Apex Pro Mini Wireless will be the way to go. Featuring analog Omnipoint Adjustable switches like their bigger brother, the wireless functionality this brings to the table sets this apart from the rest of the pack.
It has PBT keycaps, in addition to all of the gaming trimmings you could wish to ask for. Since this is an analog board, like the Wooting 60HE, it will take some setting up, but we promise that it’ll be worth it.
Royal Kludge RK61: The best budget 60% keyboard
- Switch type: Generic Red / Brown / Blue
- Keycaps: Double-shot ABS shine-through
- Connectivity: USB-C
- Price: $49.99
Who said getting a keyboard had to be expensive? The Royal Kludge RK61 has hot-swappable switches, and comes with just about everything you need to get you started on your 60% journey, or if you just want to try out the layout before committing to a more expensive board.
Like almost any other mechanical keyboard, its internals are nothing that special, but since you can replace the switches and keycaps with whatever you want, it could become an excellent board that you can modify to your heart’s content.
Really, it’s cheap and cheerful, which makes it really difficult to go wrong with this particular board.
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