Views on Cooler Master CK530v2 keyboard

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10 Aug 2015
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Hello everyone. Long-time lurker, occasional poster here.

I recently bought a Cooler Master CK530v2 mechanical keyboard and have notices some quirks with the keyboard that I would like to get some views one.

Straight out of the box the keyboard works fine. It is easy to type on and the keys make a pleasant deep click (I have the red switch model) and based on typing alone I would recommend this keyboard. However, I’ve noticed a problem with some of the keycaps.

The keys have the standard and shifted characters side-by-side rather than one over the other. For example, the 8 key is labelled as 8* rather than have the Asterix above the eight. Not a problem, although novice typists may be confused by this. But the @ key is wrong way round. It is labelled as @’ but an un-shifted press of the key gives a quote mark. Similarly, the backslash is labelled as |\ (bar/backslash) but un-shifted gives backslash and the hash key is wrong-way-round also.

Another quirk is in the RGB lighting. When a static lighting profile is selected then all keys light up in the selected colour. However, if you set a custom colour scheme then some keys don’t light up. If a key is disabled through the software or a registry hack (I disable the caps lock key, for example) it doesn’t light up with a custom colour scheme or a static one. But the hash key and the backslash key do light up with a static colour scheme but not with a custom one. I assume this is because I have a UK layout but the software thinks it’s a US one. If I had a US keyboard then the left shift key would be longer and cover the space taken up by the backslash but since I have the smaller sized shift key the software doesn’t think to light the backslash key and same goes for the hash key (I hope all of this is making sense).

A third quirk is with the software. I downloaded from the Cooler Master website the MasterPlus Portal software to program macros and set RGB lighting. You can assign a macro to a single key such as the F8 key but you can’t assign one to Shift+F8. To overcome this, I used the key mapping feature in PowerToys. Also, you can’t set a macro to the PrtSc key but you can ScrLk and Pause. The software could do with an update to fix this.

Apart from that it is a nice keyboard to use, as long as you can put up with its quirks and foibles.
 
Thanks for writing such great feedback about the keyboard. Regarding the software and layout: This is something that we've fed back to our product guys to see if they can look into it. If you have any questions, feel free to give me a shout!
 
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