The best budget gaming keyboard, and one with more than just a nod to the enthusiast keeb community.
Mechanical gaming keyboards can cost a fortune. Look at the best gaming keyboards (opens in new tab) and you’ll be paying anywhere between $200 and $300. If you’re after a compact keeb, with hot swappable switches, per-key RGB lighting, and discrete media keys, then you’re going to be paying the big bucks for an enthusiast board, aren’t you?
Well, no, thanks to the G.Skill KM250 (opens in new tab). Yes, G.Skill. The high-end system memory people.
It’s not as incongruous as that might initially seem as the company has already made our favourite budget mechanical keyboard (opens in new tab)—the KM360. That’s a tenkeyless board that ships with genuine Cherry MX Red switches, not some Cherry analogue. And it comes in at around $50.
It’s not a hot-swappable base and only sports white LED backlighting, but it’s a genuine mechanical keyboard that just works. It’s not fancy, but it’s affordable and functional. And that’s honestly all you need a good gaming keyboard to be.
But in these days of enthusiast keebs, that might be all you need but it’s not all you want. Which is why the G.Skill KM250 has my attention, because it is bringing a host of those enthusiast keyboard features without the exorbitant price tag. Right now you can pick up this compact 65% keyboard for just $40 (opens in new tab).
If you’re after a good compact board you honestly don’t need more. And if you’re looking to get into the enthusiast switch game it’s a super cheap base to jam some quality switches into because it’s entirely hot swappable.
I will say up front that it is obviously lacking the high-end luxury of sound dampening and super-fancy stabilisers, but those are compromises I’m willing to make for such a supremely cheap keyboard.
