Aukey KM-G6 LED Mechanical Keyboard

Click clack to reality

- CHRISTIAN GUYTON

BEFORE WE TALK about anything else, we want to give a bit of attention to the Aukey KM-G6’s box. It is, quite frankly, beautiful: A beige rectangle of recycled cardboard with simple black text stamped on the top, along with a monochromatic illustration of the keyboard itself. It looks like it arrived by falling through a time portal in the 90s, and we love it.

The keyboard inside that box looks like it sits very firmly in this century, though. Colored LEDs under each molded plastic keycap, and media controls integrated with the function keys make this a competent keyboard for modern-day use, even if it is slender on the feature side. There’s no extra macro keys or volume wheels, only a standard 104-key layout with a compact plastic base. It’s quite lightweight, but we wouldn’t describe it as an on-the-go keyboard: A five-foot USB cable and chunky underside means you wouldn't want to throw it in a backpack.

Once you start using the KM-G6, though, the retro sensation comes flooding back. This keyboard uses Outemu Blue mechanical switches: The clicky variety, which provide the ultimate in tactile feedback when typing. The clatter of these keys is noisy but oddly comforting to anyone who sat in a busy office or a school computer lab in the late 90s. If the KM-G6 was colored that unsettling off-tan of 90s PC hardware, we’d be worried we were experiencing some time-shifting shenanigans.