I used to be a giant fan of the Ducky One 2 keyboard after I had it in for testing final yr, however its Cherry MX switches did imply it felt rather a lot like each different mechanical keyboard on the market. The excellent news is that Ducky have teamed up with HyperX to make a brand new restricted version model of their 60% One 2 Mini keyboard, which could have HyperX’s purple linear switches sitting beneath Ducky’s double-shot keycaps.
The unhealthy information is that solely 3700 HyperX x Ducky One 2 Mini keyboards are being produced for this restricted version run, they usually’ve already sold-out on HyperX’s online shop. Still, right here’s hoping that this would be the begin of extra HyperX and Ducky collaborations, as I’d like to see greater, full-sized keyboards with this mixture of components as nicely.
For the 3700 individuals who had been fortunate sufficient to bag one, every keyboard comes with a laser marked version quantity on the bottom of the keyboard, in addition to extra colored keycaps, a Ducky keycap puller to swap in stated keycaps, and one among Ducky’s Year of the Rat spacebars. Each keyboard additionally has a fetching purple and black chassis with three ranges of peak adjustment.
Why 60% as an alternative of full-sized? According to HyperX, there’s been loads of demand for them to make one thing a bit smaller than their present line-up of keyboards, resembling their wonderful HyperX Alloy Core RGB (which is a part of our RPS Rig construct), and their equally good Kailh-based HyperX Alloy FPS RGB keyboard, in order that they turned to Ducky to assist deliver it to fruition.
“We are excited to announce our limited-edition keyboard collaboration with Ducky, known for their high-quality and performance-oriented mechanical keyboards in the gaming market,” HyperX’s EMEA enterprise supervisor Bianca Walters stated in an announcement. “The HyperX x Ducky One 2 Mini is a great addition to the HyperX keyboard line-up and provides HyperX and Ducky fans with a 60% form factor mechanical gaming keyboard utilizing HyperX switches”.
HyperX’s switches are a bit completely different to your traditional Cherry Reds. They’re nonetheless linear, up and down jobs for tremendous quick keystrokes, however they’ve a barely shorter actuation level, which is the gap you might want to press it down earlier than the keyboard is ready to register it. Whereas Cherry Reds should be pressed down a full 2mm, HyperX Reds are available at a mere 1.8mm. They even have a shorter general journey distance of three.8mm in comparison with 4mm, they usually’re rated for 80 million keystrokes versus “just” 50 million. Finally, HyperX’s uncovered LED design means their RGB lighting is brighter and might bleed out from beneath the keycaps with better luminosity if that’s your form of bag.
Whether you’ll be capable to discover all that within the grand scheme of issues is up for debate, however clearly the primary draw is that teeny tiny chassis. Indeed, one of many large the explanation why I really like Fnatic’s miniStreak a lot is because of its compact dimension. That keyboard, although, is barely a tenkeyless one, which successfully lobs off the quantity pad you’ll discover on full-sized ones. The HyperX x Ducky One 2 Mini, then again, is a 60% keyboard, which additionally ditches the arrow keys, any additional rows of Fn keys and that small cluster of Home, Insert and Pg Up and Pg Down keys you continue to discover on tenkeyless ones. Sure, chopping all of those off solely leaves you with the naked necessities, but it surely does imply you’ve obtained much more room to maneuver your mouse round your mouse mat, and it also needs to be extra snug for prolonged gaming periods as you don’t should preserve your arms to date aside in your desk.
You’ll nonetheless be capable to program and file your individual macros on its as nicely because of Ducky’s 2.0 Macro assist, and also you don’t even have to obtain any software program to do it, both. The similar goes for configuring its RGB lighting, as you’ll be able to change the brightness, velocity and color with easy key instructions, that are all squeezed onto the entrance of Ducky’s PBT double-shot seamless keycaps, a bit like Fujitsu’s Realforce R2 keyboard. Plus, it comes with a removable USB-C cable, which implies it will likely be simple to exchange if a rogue pet decides to chow down on it if you’re not wanting.
As talked about earlier, this specific mannequin has sadly already been wolfed up sooner than a slice of bread in an precise duck pond, but when HyperX’s “keep an eye out for future collaborations” tease on their website is something to go by, I’ll guess this isn’t the final Ducky x HyperX keyboard we’ll see going ahead.
