Cooler Master MasterKeys MK850

Features, features, and more features

- Alex Cox

LET’S START WITH a question: Are analog keyboards an intrinsically dumb idea? The answer could depend on how well trained your left hand has become at smashing WASD as hard as it can. Most of us have developed those fine motor skills in our thumbs, not our fingers, so approaching something like the Cooler Master MK850—which marks the commercial debut of Aimpad’s long-gestating optical analog tech—might require a significant period of refactoring and readjustment. And not just when using the analog keys, because CM’s decision to put modetriggering M-keys up the left edge of the keyboard, just asking to be triggered by an errant pinkie or a mis-angled palm, is initially infuriating.